#31: The case for feminist leadership
A Q&A with co-founders Leila Billing and Natalie Brook
Pass It On is a bi-weekly newsletter bringing the tech and non-profit sectors closer together through knowledge sharing, written and edited by Lauren Crichton.
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Who holds power in the organisations and institutions around you? And what does that power look like? When this week's Q&A guests, Leila Billing and Natalie Brook, asked each other these questions, they didn't like the answers. So they decided something needed to change. Together, they combined their years of experience in the women's gender-based violence and the international development sector and founded We Are Feminist Leaders—an initiative that helps individuals and organisations embed feminist leadership principles into the way they lead and work.
If you're wondering what feminist leadership is and why it's important, this Q&A is for you.
Embracing feminist leadership - with Leila Billing and Natalie Brook
You launched We Are Feminist Leaders several months into the pandemic. What made you take the leap?
Leila: Natalie and I had been interested in feminist leadership (FL) for a long time, but it was the pandemic that galvanised us to start a feminist leadership programme. I remember feeling surrounded by so many failures of leadership that led to so many deaths: Bolsonaro dismissing Covid-19 as "a bit of the flu"; Boris Johnson shuffling deckchairs on the Titanic, refusing to impose any restrictions. So many of us were yearning for a different form of leadership—one centred on people's humanity, which integrated an ethic of care and compassion, and which sought to end the types of inequalities that the pandemic had laid bare. A sense of urgency lay behind We Are Feminist Leaders (WAFL) back then, and that sense of urgency remains today.
WAFL exists to help emerging leaders and organisations embed feminist leadership principles into their ways of leading and working. We do this by providing bespoke support to organisations and a 12-week online feminist leadership programme for emerging leaders. By doing this, we aim to cultivate a vibrant community of feminist leaders, all keen to support each other to lead in a radically different way.
What is feminist leadership? How is it different from traditional forms of leadership, and why do we need a change?
Leila: Feminist leadership (FL) is so much more than "good" leadership or having women in leadership positions. It's all about transforming the unequal power relations in our workplaces and creating a more just society that benefits women and other marginalised groups. FL encourages us to share power, not hoard it; to work in collaboration rather than competition; and to ensure everyone can show up as their whole selves in the workplace, no matter their race, class, sexuality, gender, ethnicity, religion, etc. FL also draws on the idea that the personal is political: we must embody the change we seek in the world.
As you can see, feminist leadership makes quite a few demands on us as individuals. That's why feminist leaders must create an ethic of care in the way they lead. Here I'm talking about self-care and collective care—leaders caring for themselves as individuals while cultivating caring workplaces. Practising collective care in workplaces means doing things like:
Taking incidents of racism seriously
Tackling sexual harassment as a systemic issue
Adjusting expectations of our employees during the pandemic (as opposed to offering some flexibility in exchange for the same pre-pandemic level of output)
Is feminist leadership inclusive today? If not, what can we do about it?
Natalie: The short answer is no. Many groups do not experience feminism as a welcoming or safe place because the agenda and power are typically held by a privileged few, namely white middle and upper-middle-class women. Feminist leadership, however, has inclusivity and intersectionality at the heart of its theoretical roots. So we would argue that if you are not practicing intersectional feminist leadership, you aren't practising feminist leadership at all.
Feminist leaders can move towards a more intersectional and inclusive approach in a number of ways. For example, we must reflect on and understand our power, privilege, and positionality. We must also share our power and elevate the voices of those most often left on the margins. As we embark on this work, we should remember that the issues we all face aren't simply individual or about a difference of identity; they are structural. So if we want to create lasting change, we need to change the system. Creating systemic change is deep, transformational work that takes time, commitment, and courage. At the same time, it can be full of joy—especially when it's grounded in compassion towards others and ourselves.
In recent years, women have been encouraged to "lean in" to claim a seat at the leadership table. Is "leaning in" a form of feminist leadership to you?
Leila: The whole concept of leaning in, as coined by Facebook CCO Sheryl Sandberg, demands that women give the system exactly what it wants. Feminist leadership, by contrast, requires us to transform the system.
Leaning in requires women to perform an excessive amount of emotional labour. It's about making men and other dominant groups comfortable. Case in point: in an early edition of Lean In, Sandberg advises women to be "relentlessly pleasant". The concept also assumes that women leaders are white, middle-class, heterosexual, and not living with disabilities. In reality, everybody is not able to navigate the workplace in the same way: Black women, other women of colour, and working-class women have long critiqued Sandberg's book for failing to be relevant to them.
In 2019, the New York Times published "Enough Leaning In. Let's Tell Men to Lean Out." The author argued that the assertiveness movement had taken a male-defined value system and sold it back to women as feminism. Is it women's responsibility to encourage the men around them to change?
Leila: This is a contentious issue. I don't think we should expect women to do all the heavy lifting of educating their male peers. However, I do think we need men to do the hard work of self-education and apply feminist leadership approaches. After all, FL requires everyone to consider their privilege and power, seek to share power, and dismantle unequal expressions of power. We need men to do this work. That said, there's a danger of treating men as a monolithic, static group. Within groups of men, we can find coalitions of the willing. Perhaps that's where the work should begin, rather than with the men who are trenchantly opposed to a progressive agenda. In general, I find the woman as victim/man as oppressor discourse both simplistic and problematic: some women of colour will tell you that their biggest oppressors in the workplace aren't men; they're white women.
What have been your biggest learnings from founding WAFL?
Natalie: Setting up an initiative and brand from scratch was uncharted territory for both of us, so having an open mind has been key. We have learned to go where the energy is and try hard to live by our values. That means listening carefully to our participants and using their feedback to evolve the programme structure and content. It also means frequently reflecting on our work (alone and together) and seeking continuous improvement. Last but not least, we focus on embedding a culture of care into our programme so that every participant feels safe and supported. Overall, staying true to our values has kept us grounded and focused.
You both have extensive non-profit experience. How can the tech and non-profit sectors come closer together?
Natalie: We'd love to see support from the tech sector in three key ways:
Providing non-profits with lower-cost access to the tools and platforms they build—especially tools facilitating online learning.
Seeking greater consultation from those with lived experience. It helps prevent reductive solutions to problems—like an app for women to track their friends' journeys home.
Embracing feminist leadership! The tech industry isn't short of racism, sexism, and sexual harassment cases—issues that an FL approach seeks to understand and resolve through the lenses of power, inequality, and transformation.
Which three books have had the most significant impact on you as leaders and why?
Leila: bell hooks' All About Love. Love, leadership, and workplaces aren't often mentioned in the same breath, but all my favourite feminist leaders speak a lot about love! hooks taught me about the relationship between love and accountability and the importance of being intentional about care. I wish every leader would read this book.
Natalie: It's bell hooks for me too! In addition to All About Love, I'd choose Ain't I A Woman for expanding my understanding of Black women's lives and the role of racism within the feminist movement.
More questions for Leila and Natalie? Email them at hello@wearefeministleaders.com, catch them on Twitter, or:
Can’t wait to hear what you think of this one,
Lauren
So much of this resonates with me. Thank you! One nuance I'd like to add. The idea of "leaning in" can mean what you say here, that it's buying into a male system. I would argue, however, that in any system, including those led by women and feminine values, success in leadership requires focus, dedication, vision, and presence. To me, these things can be described as "leaning in" and doing the hard work to make an initiative, organization, or idea manifest into reality. I think "leaning into your work" can bring success in big companies, entrepreneurial endeavors, vocations, and hobbies. It's a human opportunity to commit to doing the work, not a gendered trap. It's become a quick way to dismission SSandberg's work, but I'm not ready to throw out the term, myself.