The imperative of Shakti Leadership: your ally in the race for equality

An unstoppable worldwide force is rising. Women's leadership is a topic on the agenda of the most influential companies. As a recent study from McKinsey with 700 companies in Latin America reveals, companies with at least one woman in their executive team are more profitable (source: Valor Econ?mico).

According to the research, this is because women are 50% more likely to increase profitability and 22% more likely to grow the average EBITDA margin.

We could ask ourselves though, why do we need to prove the importance of women in leadership through profitable numbers? The fact that companies must exist to provide profitable results to their shareholders, could be a cold, old and direct answer.

But, really? To say the purpose of business is to make profits is like saying the purpose of life is to breathe. That, is the bare minimum needed to sustain business and life. Beyond that lies all the great promise of what value can be generated to enjoy and serve so much more!

Companies have the incredible power to care about their employees, the long-term good of their market, the sustainability of the environment and contribute to raise a better future. Don’t you agree?

When we bring “caring and raising” to this subject, probably the first reaction is that those words are not “corporate” enough. But they are the core of the future, our future.

That’s what Shakti Leadership, the model outlined by Nilima Bhat and Raj Sisodia, offers for the future, and gives the elements to implement it, at the present, with presence.

Shakti is the inner force that provides the caring, the raising. That energy which is responsible for giving birth, the “Mother Principle", present in our innate Nature, which sustains all Life.

Bringing Shakti energy to leadership, Nilima and Raj awaken in business the need to care about the future, implementing actions that connect us to our responsibilities, as leaders; making us accountable for our everyday decisions. Because, as Walter Robb used to say as co-CEO of Whole Foods Market:

“the leader you are, is the person you are”.

On October 2018 at the University of San Diego, the first class of The Shakti Fellowship, a 9-Month Advanced Leadership Global Program for Women, began a new cohort of women prepared to step in, step up and step out as change makers through Shakti Leadership, Conscious Capitalism and Peace through Commerce.

Those models brings a combination of strengths that promote a high level of leadership. The course is exclusively for women. Why create a graduation exclusively for women when Shakti is a leadership consciousness of balance between masculine and feminine forces?

There is a reason for this.

According to the "Getting to Equal 2019: Creating a culture that drives innovation", a recent study published by Accenture, "equality culture drives innovation and that an empowering environment with a high sense of belonging and learning, is an essential ingredient".

Balance is the goal to reach. Research shows that companies, entities and governments are working to create an equal environment. But what are we, women, investing and promoting to be able to reach those spaces with responsibility, capability and enough content to hold the space that we deserve?

The Shakti Fellowship is an international program and graduates women from different parts of the world. We can identify that each country and culture have their particularity but all of them need their female leadership as an important voice. Women and girls are underserved and empowering them has been identified as one of the 17 SDGs by the UN, for the future of Humanity and Nations. Also, women bring more feminine values and behaviors such as caring, sharing, inclusion and creativity that the global economy needs to restore balance in a polarized, inequitable world.

So the rise of women's leadership is an inevitable and important imperative worldwide; and for women to claim their space and hold themselves accountable as equal stewards of our shared future. That’s the purpose of The Shakti Fellowship: to bring balance and inclusive growth to our workspace, by preparing women to handle the roles and responsibilities that they deserve, want and need.

*****

Shakti Fellowship Sep 2019 - May 2020

The Shakti Fellowship jointly certified with University of San Diego's Conscious Leadership Academy; Incubated by Peace Through Commerce

Nilima Bhat  

Co-author: Shakti Leadership and My Cancer Is Me | Founder Director: Shakti Fellowship

Elisa Tawil

Mentee of the first class to be graduated by The Shakti Fellowship for San Diego University. Member of the Empowerment and Women Leadership group for the FISESP (Israeli Federation of S?o Paulo). Author of the Podcast Vieses Femininos, her project on the fellowship program, with the purpose to creates an inclusive and inspiring space, so that, together we awaken our personal journeys, bringing us back to our courage, empathy and sisterhood.