Women's Leadership
Bringing together women of diverse cultures, ages and backgrounds to learn from and with each other.
Women’s Leadership increases the capacity of women of all ages, backgrounds and ethnicities to step into greater leadership to effect progressive environmental and social change. The media products and curricula that the program produces will also serve to celebrate and help restore value to those aspects of our human capacity that have previously been relegated to the domain of the “feminine,” and have therefore been systematically devalued and denigrated in all people, to the detriment of our collective future, and our culture.
View the 2012 Cultivating Women's Leadership Training Schedule
Core Premise
The program presupposes a re-definition of what effective leadership means. Women's Leadership focuses on leadership that is sourced from each woman’s deep love and passionate commitment – for the natural world, women, health, children, the sacred and justice. The form of leadership is informed by the combined intelligence of our bodies, hearts, minds and intuitive knowing. This kind of leadership values humility, listening and not-knowing, and understands vulnerability as a potential asset. It prioritizes authenticity, mutual respect, and collaborative and inclusive approaches. It is based upon the principal that leadership emerges from the inner work we do, and that we cannot influence change we haven’t embodied ourselves.
This leadership recognizes the power of integrating the best of the "feminine" and "masculine" capacities within each of us. It balances strategic and effective external action with inner awareness and self-care. It employs ongoing practices of reflection, learning and self-cultivation, and advocates both attitudinal rigor and compassion in relationship to our own emergent leadership.
A central value of the program is women’s capacity to reach across the differences that divide us, including those of ethnicity, class, age, ability and sexual orientation. Women's Leadership recognizes finding common ground and relational repair as essential capacities to cultivate among women (and leaders of any gender) to effect transformative social and environmental change.
Women's Leadership recognizes that all meaningful and enduring change begins with the internal work we do to transform our outer behavior. Leadership skill and capacity continue to strengthen with practice, reflection and relationships that provide authentic and rigorous feedback and support.
In addition to strengthening the capacity of diverse women to engage more intentionally and effectively as leaders for progressive change, the program is designed to celebrate those capacities our culture has previously relegated to the "feminine" in all people. In this way, Women's Leadership seeks to address the larger legacy of bias and imbalance in our decision-making, organizations, enterprises and society at large. It also seeks to begin to heal the wound of having had half of our human capacities systematically devalued and denigrated for hundreds of years, and the resulting legacy of violence – to ourselves, to the Earth and to each other – that is our cultural inheritance.
What if there were a leadership program for women that was designed to be intentionally multi-cultural, multi-generational and cross-sectoral, that prioritized women connecting in networks of support while learning to appreciate and exercise whole-brain thinking and collaborative approaches to leadership?
Moonrise: The Power of Women Leading from the Heart
A NEW BIONEERS ANTHOLOGY EDITED BY NINA SIMONS, with Anneke Campbell.
The sixth book in the Bioneers series, an anthology of thought on leadership and the ascent of the feminine, edited by Nina Simons with Anneke Campbell was recently published to critical acclaim.
Through a tapestry of over 30 voices and stories, Moonrise illuminates how women and many men are redefining the leadership landscape across a diversity of perspectives, generations and ethnicities.
“Each and every essay contained in Moonrise is inspiring, touching, and revitalizing to the reader. Not all of the authors are women, but each and every one of them celebrates the unique gifts that women bring to the world”
Kari O’Driscoll – Feminist Review
