Get any group of motivated women together and the day is sure to be full of surprises, lots of different stories and, of course, lots of laughter.
Women play a unique role in community efforts, we bring different views and are often faced with distinct challenges and obstacles.
Leadership events for women encourage the sharing of stories, and increase skills for personal and community change.
The recent Women in Leadership Symposium in Manjimup was no exception.
There were many áhah’ moments as we reflected on leadership styles and began to recognize and identify with the differences between stereotypical leadership and life-affirming leadership models.
The understanding that leadership can be from ‘behind’ or from the ‘front’, and we all have our own innate way of being a leader led to great discussions about individual experiences and many acknowledgments of times in the past where each of the participants had indeed shown great leadership.
As the group began to reflect on their own stories and the journeys they had each progressed through in their personal environmental and landcare journey their turning points were revealed. Quite often the story itself followed a path that had progressed from a sense of powerlessness to one of discovering and owning their power to make change.
Taking the time to reflect and in turn be motivated by your own story, and the stories of other women, is a powerful thing in itself.
It becomes the ‘story of us’ and is a passionate and motivating narrative for collective momentum and social change.
Add to this some deeper skills in self-reflection, deconstructing perceived and real barriers, identifying who or what you need to make change or move forward, and how you can support and include others in the process in a clear and purposeful way all contributes to the development of valuable leadership skills.
Here’s what the participants had to say and 7 reasons why you might like to get along to one of our leadership courses for women in the future.
- It’s great to meet other women from all different roles in the environmental sector.
- It’s always good to revise and define our own leadership styles and understanding the styles of others.
- Increasing awareness of moods and emotions and being mindful of these roles in your-self and others can make communication and change- making more powerful.
- Sharing experiences and stories in a group that really gets what you’re talking about is empowering in itself.
- Reaffirming some things you know about yourself and awakening other qualities and attributes is so worth it.
- Gaining some clarify about what’s next and some steps toward making it happen.
- Get refreshed, revitalized and re-energised.
We are currently developing more workshops for the South coast regions. One will be based in Albany and the second in the lower South West.
If you are interested in future workshops or discussing leadership and capability skills development for your group or organisation and would like to know what else is possible please get in touch.
Contact Dawn or Louise on [email protected] or by phone (08) 9848 3310
This event is supported by Royalties for Regions, StateNRM and the Department for Communities.
Photo featured Image: L-R Jacquie Foster, Nerilee Boshammer, Emma Maesepp, Jacqueline Lahne (back row), Dawn Atkin, Bev Lockley, Louise Duxbury (back row), Andrea Salmond. (Absent from photo Evelyn Collin and Donna Carman). Womens Leadership Symposium, Manjimup, September 2017.