Gloria Feldt Blogs on Leadership

The Massachusetts Victory For A"Everyman" Candidate Begs The Question: What's An "Everywoman?"

2010-01-29T22:11:05Z

I really like this guest post by Nicole Rodgers, originally published in the Huffington Post. Nicole is is a Vice President at Fenton Communications in Washington, D.C. Democratic pollster Celinda Lake has also weighed in on the question of what women candidates can learn from Marthat Coakley's defeat. And in an op ed in the BostonGlobe.com, Ambassador Swanee Hunt and former MA Lt. Governor Kerry Healey say women should "start their campaigns" and not be deterred by any barriers real or perceived. That's why I placed this post into my Courageous Leadership blog, because it is going to take courageous women leaders to keep forging ahead until we reach parity as political decision makers. Let me know what you think.

Scott Brown is from Wrentham, and he drives a truck. He is now a Massachusetts Senator.

This week, as pundits debated whether Brown's win was a referendum on Obama or on health care reform -- and what it says about the "pulse" of the country -- an important discussion about gender was drowned out. Coakley's uninspired campaign produced many legitimate criticisms and it would be unfair to blame her loss on sexism alone. But the typecasting of political actors that electoral campaigns are often reduced to made it nearly impossible for Coakley to succeed in the current political climate. Driving a truck certainly contributed to Brown's win -- but it also solidified Coakley's loss.

Voters want candidates they

What's Your Favorite Martin Luther King Quote?

2010-01-18T18:36:09Z

Here's mine: "The moral arc of the universe bends at the elbow of justice."I love the metaphor and poetry as well as its meaning. As a leader, King used language not just to exhort but to inspire.

This quote inspires me to keep working for women's rights even in the most challenging times. What's your favorite MLK quote? Here are a few to get you thinking, and his "I Have a Dream" speech:

"A right delayed is a right denied."

"A riot is the language of the unheard."

"At the center of non-violence stands the principle of love."

"Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable... Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals."

"I am not interested in power for power's sake, but I'm interested in power that is moral, that is right and that is good."

"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."

"I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear."

"I submit to you that if a man hasn't discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live."

"I want to be the white man's brother, not his brother-in-law."

"In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends."

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

"Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?'"

"Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon."

"Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity."

"The true measure of a man (NB: I assume if her were spaking today he'd include 'women') is not where he stands in time of comfort and convenience but where he stands in times of controversy and challenge."

Thanksgiving to Three Courageous Leaders

2009-11-25T23:05:27Z

On Thanksgiving Eve, I'm grateful to three courageous leaders. First, Dana Kennedy, Executive Director of Emerge Arizona. Dana not only works every day to recruit, train, and support pro-choice Democratic women to run for office, she put her convictions into action by running for Phoenix City Council. Though she didn't prevail this time, I hope she will run again until she joins the ranks of leadership consultant and occasional guest poster here on Courageous Women, Anne Doyle and political blogger par excellence Jill Miller Zimon, both of whom mounted their first political races and won city counil seats in Auburn Hills MI and Pepper Pike OH respectively.

As then-AZ Governor Janet Napolitano, now Secretary of Homeland Security, once told me, "You can't win if you don't run." That's a great leadership lesson, whether we're talking politics or profession, civic engagement or choosing life goals.

Nervous about taking the plunge? Help is a Google away. In the political realm, check out this report featring Emerge Arizona:

http://www.GloriaFeldt.com/leadership

Why Obama Won't Be Our Next "Greatest" American President

2009-11-08T21:58:54Z

A few posts ago, I asked how you rate President Obama's leadership on health care reform.

There were some intriguing responses. I said at the time that I most agreed with Jeff Friedman, who replied via Facebook:

As seems to be the case with almost every issue he tackles, his heart is in the right place, but he doesn't seem to have the stomach for a good, old fashioned street fight. And, unfortunately, until he quits trying to be Conciliator-in-Chief and starts to tackle the Republicans and the Blue Cross, I mean the Blue Dog, Democrats head on, most of his positive agenda for the country is going to fall by the wayside. If only he had the stubborn, confrontational approach for his good ideas that George W. Bush had for his horrible ones.

Still, I had the audacity to hope that Obama would gain strength in his new role and become increasingly willing to put forth bold initiatives to solve problems such as the 40 million or so Americans lacking health insurance and many millions more teetering on the brink of losing it along with their jobs or being so

Courageous Leadership Transition at the Women's Media Center

2009-10-27T20:59:28Z

As a board member of the Women's Media Center, I'm delighted to share this announcement of a very positive passing of the torch, or more properly increasing the number of torches lighting the way to making women visible and powerful in the media: a tribute to the founding president Carol Jenkins and a warm welcome to incoming president Jehmy Greene. Here's the press release that just went out.

It is with great pleasure that we announce to you that Progressive Women's Voices alum Jehmu Greene has been selected as the next president of The Women's Media Center. She brings great expertise in feminist/progressive organizing and media -- and she is, we believe, the perfect woman for the organization's next stages of development. We are sharing this announcement with you before our public announcement

Convictions to Action: Margaret Sanger’s Legacy and Leadership Lessons

2009-09-15T02:02:42Z

Folks have asked me to post this speech that I gave at the Brooklyn Museum Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art on September 13. Today, September 14, would be the 130th birthday of the founder of the American Birth Control Movement, Margaret Sanger. So here you go!

I just got back from my high school reunion in West Texas. It was a long journey from teen mom with little sense of power over or intention for my life to a movement leader and an activist for women’s human right to reproductive self-determination.

So when I tell you I’m amazed to be here with you, so near 46 Amboy Street in Brownsville, where Margaret Sanger opened the first birth control clinic 93 years ago next month—believe it! This is hallowed ground.

Would the girl born Margaret Higgins in Corning NY in 1879, the sixth child of eleven living siblings, have imagined she’d be immortalized by Judy Chicago's Dinner Party as a flaming red vulva here in the Brooklyn Museum?

Maybe!

The first leadership lesson I learned from the founder of the birth control movement is: All worthwhile accomplishments start with a vision. Not a small, incremental vision, but a bold, audacious, flaming red, bigger than yourself vision.

I’ve often turned to Margaret Sanger for inspiration, courage, and practical examples

Margaret Sanger's Leadership Lessons for Today

2009-08-31T01:38:03Z

Who inspires you as a leader?

So often during my 30 years with Planned Parenthood and since as an activist author and speaker, I've turned to stories about Margaret Sanger for inspiration and encouragement when I've faced tough challenges. What must it have been like for her when she started out, with little money, at a time when birth control and even Here's Margaret looking happy as a clam while being arraigned on charges of providing birth control to women--she knew it was an opportunity to build public sentiment for her cause.dispensing information about it was illegal?

But if, as I believe firmly, a leader is someone who gets things done, then Margaret (having worn her mantle, I feel we're on a first-name basis) was a leader par excellence. She founded the movement to bring birth control to American women and the organization that today is called Planned Parenthood.

"We must put our convictions into action," she was fond of saying.

That's why I'm looking forward with such great excitement to speaking at the Brooklyn Museum on Sunday, September 13, at 2pm on "Margaret Sanger's Legacy and Leadership Lessons for Today." It's the perfect date, because September 14 is the birthday of this visionary leader. And the museum is the perfect location too, since her first birth control clinic was opened in Brooklyn in 1916--you can read that story as I wrote it for the New York Times.

I'll get to tell several of my favorite stories about Margaret's life and work, the history of the birth-control movement, the role that birth control plays in women's equality and empowerment, and what activists and other leaders today can learn from Sanger.

By the way, Margaret Sanger is a featured guest in The Dinner Party by Judy Chicago. Be sure to take a look at that fantastic installation while you are at the museum. Her plate fittingly is graced with fiery red female genitalia.

The lecture will be in the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art Forum, on the 4th floor. I hope you'll join me.

Leader's Moment of Decision Led to Women's Equality Day

2009-08-26T01:05:23Z

Leaders make decisions every day, but some days are more significant than others. Those are the days on which we face moments of decision at the moral crossroads. One such crossroads was the reason we celebrate August 26 as Women's Equality Day.

Why August 26? It's the date that the 19th amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified.

After 72 years of organized struggle, and almost 150 years after the American Revolution took place, female citizens of this country finally got the right to vote. But though this decision was clearly about women, it must be remembered that the women who led the suffrage movement had to persuade the virtually all male Congress and state legislatures to expand the franchise

Is Social Media Your Best Leadership Toolkit?

2009-08-18T16:39:28Z

While I was in Arizona recently, I spent some time with the Arizona State University School of Social Transformation folks brainstorming an online leadership certificate course for women that we intend to launch in the fall of 2010. We plan to use a social media platform to create an ever-growing network of contacts for the women who participate in the course.

I'd love to get your feedback on the idea and how you would use social media as a leadership toolkit to further your work. What are you wanting to know or learn to use? What social media do you think have the greatest promise for organizational or leadership effectiveness?

This video is jam-packed with data about the power of social media. Take a look. Do you agree with it?

What Can We Learn From Health Reform's Leadership Laboratory?

2009-08-04T00:26:49Z

The health reform debate gives us an interesting petri dish in which to observe leadership developing, or not.

Managment of controversy always tests leaders. Leaders on the right are typically clearer and more aggressive in delivering their message (whether factual or deliberately not as is the case in the examples below) than those on the left. This calm, factual interview with Kentucky Democrat Rep. John Yarmouth talking about what he anticipated discussing with his constituents during the August recess is a case in point:

And catch demonstrators trying to shout down Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-TX)