More women leading is good for everyone

Sometimes in your career, under the most pressing of circumstances, you have the most inspiring of experiences.

This has been the case with the DELWP and water sector auspiced program Insight, and its partner program Bridging the Gap, both programs being delivered by Dattner Group in the middle of the Coronavirus upheaval.

The Insight program is a Victorian state wide initiative for women who have been identified (both self and others), as CEOs/MDs of the future, near in large part.

This is a group of 13 very wonderful women (the number is not lost on any of us): loving, supportive, vulnerable, kind, generous and oh so very capable. They are mothers and wives, partners and friends, they have pets and chickens and children and gardens. They are cooks, painters and poets. They are, in short, leaders of our time.

The Bridging the Gap program is a partner program, bringing senior men in to work with these women, not as champions, but as partners. Their partnership in changing the narrative of leadership in Victoria, spans 13 organisations. The men have been selected by the women to help advance the change the Victorian Water Sector is determined to bring about: more women leading. This is good for everyone; where women share leadership, things are more collaborative, inclusive, legacy minded and trusted (note the eight leading countries dealing with the global pandemic are all led by women!).

So, these are not 13 ordinary men. They are men selected because of their hearts as much as their heads. At the start of the day yesterday, the women introduced them on video and each woman highlighted the man’s predisposition to curiosity, kindness, industry expertise, real care for women and their role as leaders and, central to this initiative, their willingness and capacity to bring about swift change.

At every turn DELWP, the Insight participants, the men, their organisations and the many others involved in bringing this break through pilot to visibility are focussed on acting for the greater good.

So very proud to be part of this.