bringing causes to life

I gave the closing remarks, My Leadership Journey, at an IMD program Strategies for Leadership (SL) led by Professor Ginka Toegel.  31 women executives from 20 countries participated in SL over four days during which I was a coach.  SL focused on authentic leadership and how executives must learn to balance their own unique personality qualities with certain attributes critical to be perceived as a strong leader.  Since Toegel started the program focused on natural preferences versus a fuller range of possible behaviors, with special emphasis on self-awareness of one’s innate strengths and weaknesses, I chose to delve into the latter.  I shared how knowing yourself fully – standing confidently in the power of glorious capacities while simultaneously not being afraid to acknowledge shortcomings – was vital to leadership.  Like self-knowledge, leadership is not a destination but a continuously deepening process that each of us bears full responsibility to explore, deepen and expand courageously. Read the rest of this entry »

I was a speaker for the first class of the Women’s Media Center (WMC) 2010 Progressive Women’s Voices training, one of many WMC initiatives to advance its goal of Making Women Visible and Powerful in The Media.  I emphasized how much we not only must advocate for our own authority as women leaders but that we also have a responsibility to help promote other women to break down barriers that still exist for them to reach the top rungs of leadership.  In two weeks when I will be a coach for 30 women corporate executives from around the world at an IMD Strategic Leadership module, my message will be similar.  WMC had selected 10 women out of almost 200 applicants and provided over 50 hours of in-person training to these extraordinary women who already are enormously successful but, with WMC support, now will up their game even more.  Several of the women experienced significant immediate breakthroughs.   Read the rest of this entry »

As a member of the Executive Director’s Leadership Council for Amnesty International USA (AIUSA), what thrilled me the most about the Annual General Meeting (AGM) was the motivation, focus and determination of the multitude of young human rights activists.  OK, having members of Amnesty’s International Secretariat, Country Directors, Board Members and Nicolas Cage sing Happy Birthday to me was pretty cool too!  But, seriously, the myriad times I hear people bemoan, “Where are Gen X, Gen Y and the Millennials?”  I confidently say, “They were out in extraordinary numbers organizing brilliantly, building on the tools Amnesty has developed over its 50 year history and bringing an entirely new fresh twist to it with their energy, insight and technological know-how.”   Read the rest of this entry »

As we approach the end of International Women’s Month, I am reflecting on “the tipping point.”   In so many ways we are at its cusp, with all sectors recognizing that the empowerment of women and girls is the critical component globally not just for social development but for economic and military security.  Yet, in other ways we are not even close.  Chris Grumm, director of the Women’s Funding Network (WFN), crystallized this at pivotal moment during one of the many events held at or concurrent with the UN session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW).  She said “next year, bring a man with you and then we’ll really be at the tipping point.” Bingo!  Her words echoed my disappointment that women were the overwhelmingly majority at most of the gatherings.  Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve just been invited to become an Executive-in-Residence at an extraordinary international executive education business school in Lausanne, Switzerland, IMD.   While visiting there, I met with their president, deans, program directors and faculty and am deeply impressed by the depth and breadth of their offerings.  I especially appreciate their emphasis on “real life, real learning.” In collaboration with their remarkable team, I will focus on responsible leadership and corporate social responsibility.  I welcome your input on specific issues you think I should explore and I will continue to post as this new work unfolds. Read the rest of this entry »

I can tell you from having been on the front lines of the high-rollers who keep politicians in office that – while not all are looking for a special tax loophole for their industry or an appointment to the Court of St James – they absolutely have unparalleled access to elected office holders.  So, I was struck by David Kirpatrick’s emphasis simply on no proof of corruption in his NYT piece “Does Corporate Money Lead to Political Corruption?  I was at Harvard’s JFK School of Government  a year before I was the NY Finance Chair and the National Vice Chair of the euphemistically named 1988 Democratic Presidential Victory Fund.  That’s when the Times coined a phrase I agree with, “sewer money,” which ended more than a decade of my high-level political fundraising. Read the rest of this entry »

As a board member of the World Policy Institute I heard my SheSource colleague Patricia DeGennaro, an expert on National Security issues, describe recent efforts to improve civilian-military cooperation in Afghanistan.  She outlined a comprehensive update of the “whole of governance” philosophy and practice that integrates defense, diplomacy and development as integral, inter-related components to achieving effective foreign policy objectives.  Her analysis of the impact this has on foreign policy was striking and it reinforced my experience-based perspective on all for- and not-for-profit capacity-building efforts local, national, regional or global.  Read the rest of this entry »

I was enthralled when Georgetown University Law Center Professor Emma Coleman Jordan gave the Fourteenth Annual Derrick Bell Lecture on Race in American Society.  Her talk, “Race and New Economic Connection in Subprime Crisis” was the most coherent analysis of economic justice I’ve ever heard.  Everything she spoke about relates to points I’ve made in my recent posts on Inequity and to issues I’ve explored for decades.  But she wove together myriad strands of insight into the most magnificent whole cloth that made simple to grasp incredibly complex topics.  Read the rest of this entry »

I am keeping in mind exhortations for peace, especially Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s words, “Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal.” As we commemorate the 37th anniversary of Salt II, Iran plans to build ten new uranium enrichment plants.   Many Americans have just celebrated Thanksgiving and Muslims from around the world have just made their Hajj to Mecca for Eid al-Adha.  So, this news has particular dissonance during the season of hope we’re entering that culminates with different faith-based traditions celebrating in their own way light at the darkest time of the year.  Read the rest of this entry »

As a board member often chairing governance sub-committees, I have used Sarbanes-Oxley as the gold standard not just to guide procedures of for-profit but also of not-for-profit organizations.  While the latter were not covered under Sarbanes-Oxley, I have advocated that non-profits who followed its guidelines would be at the cutting edge of best practices in good governance.  The New York Times piece by Floyd Norris “Goodbye to Reforms of 2002” describes how congress already has substantially gutted Sarbanes-Oxley over the years and now plans to further remove most of its teeth. Read the rest of this entry »