By Shashi Malla
Women-Power Decisiveas Levers of Change!
There is now indubitable empirical evidence that companies with the highestpercentage of female executives are 47 percent more profitable, 74 percent higher performing on environmental, social and governance factors [ESG], and also 32 percent more transparent in ESG disclosure than those with the lowest(Foreign Policy, April 22).
Through analysis of over 2,300 companies spanning 14 legacy industries around the world, it has been established that female corporate participation is benefitting businesses from the boardroom to the bottom-line.
CNN-Host Fareed Zakaria also made the point that the future of overcoming the Corona Virus Pandemic is female. After all, the female leaders of Germany, Taiwan, New Zealand, Iceland, Finland, Norway and Denmark are all confronting the Covid-19 most competently.
Iceland, under the leadership of Prime Minister Katrin Jakobsdottir, offered free coronavirus testing to all its citizens, and will become a key case study in the true spread and fatality rates of the disease.
Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin pioneered “using social media influencers as key agents in battling the coronavirus”, according to Avivah Wittenberg-Cox [writing in Forbes magazine], who also underlined the need for more female leadership.
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern acted quickly to ban travel and start a nationwide lockdown.
Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen took swift and aggressive steps in halting travel from mainland China and escalating the production of protective gear.
As CNN’s Max Foster reports, German Chancellor Angela Merkel [who regrettably will step down next year], struck a calm and serious tone about Covid-19 very early.
Merkel’s scientific background [she has a doctorate in physics] and long experience played a definitive role in her continued leadership, reassuring the people with direct, very straightforward, down to earth, empathetic and personal remarks: “It’s people. And we are a community in which every life and every person counts.”
Fareed Zakaria’s guest Madeleine Albright, America’s first female Secretary of State ever [and what a contrast to the present, bumbling Mike Pompeo] was very clear why women make such outstanding leaders:
- They are decisive in hitting the nail on the head
- They are adroit in multi-tasking
- Just as their own households, women run their countries very well, especially making ends meet
- They have less tendency for authoritarianism
- They take health matters more seriously
- They are very resilient.
These differential aspects – concentrated in enormous soft power – distinguishes women leaders from their male counterparts.
Leadership Matters Exponentially Now
In the current time of grave crisis world-wide, leadership matters exponentially more according to top New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman and Leadership guru Dov Seidman:
“What started as a health crisis exploded into a humanitarian crisis and then quickly became an unprecedented economic and unemployment crisis. And now it’s also a moral crisis, forcing leaders to balance saving lives and saving livelihoods” (NYT, April 21).
Great leaders also trust people with the truth. Their hard decisions are guided by values and principles, not that of current politics, popularity or short-term profits. The people, in turn expect the whole truth from their leaders, who should emanate hope and humility. These are innate qualities totally missing from many so-called leaders in the world today, including Donald Trump of the U.S., Vladimir Putin of Russia, and, of course, K.P. Sharma Oli and Pushpa Kamal Dahal and their henchmen in Nepal.
Leaders with vision are already thinking of the time after the end/pacification of the Corona Virus [A.C.] – the need to pivot [one foot solidly in place and the other foot moving in a better direction]. They are already thinking of serving the people differently “with a tighter connection between human needs and economic progress and between our environmental needs and economic prosperity” (Friedman/Seidman).
Unfortunately, to date no charismatic personality has taken the plunge to assume the mantle of world leadership. To wit, considering the ascendancy of woman-power [see above], a powerful alpha-female like Hillary Clinton could assume the leadership of an international crisis group and undertake the necessary decision-making. The first act – as suggested by former Soviet leader Mikhael Gorbechev is to call an extraordinary, emergency meeting of the UN General Assembly.
The distinguished and capable Ms. Clinton’s associates could be Antonio Guterres (UN Secretary General), Sheikh Tamim bin Hamid al Thani (Emir of Qatar), Angela Merkel (Chancellor of Germany), Michelle Bachelet (UN High Commissioner for Refugees), Kevin Rudd (former PM of Australia), Ban Ki-Moon (former UN Secretary General) and Shashi Tharoor (former UN Under Secretary General).
Trump: ‘The Fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse’
What Albright left unsaid [see above] was that America today has abdicated its traditional leadership role, becauseDonald Trump hasn’t the charisma and hardihood to lead his country, let alone the world.
Trump is the quintessence of the “Ugly American” – exhibiting the stereotypes of arrogant, ignorant, loud, demeaning, thoughtless, ethnocentric, imperialist behavior.
The November 2020 presidential election is, therefore, of paramount international importance not only to combat and conquer the planetary pandemic, but to confront a myriad of world problems thereafter, not least climate change [which the nincompoop and science-denying Trump categorically rejects].
Thus, another four years of Trump would be a catastrophe of unmeasurable proportions for the world at large, and even human civilization. Trump can be compared to the biblical ‘Fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse’ [Book of Revelations] bringing death and destruction, pestilence and hunger to our common planet.
The writer can be reached at: shashipbmalla@hotmail.com
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