042. Feminist leadership: organizational practices to make it real -- Kirthi Jayakumar & Leila Billing

Summary

Today, I am interviewing Kirthi Jayakumar of World Pulse and founder of the Gender Security Project, and Leila Billing, senior advisor on youth, gender, and social movement building on Feminist Leadership. Leila, along with Natalie Brook, runs an open enrollment Feminist Leadership training program (We are Feminist Leaders), and Kirthi is one of its alumni.

As some NGOs and development organizations have embraced, how much of its subversive elements get diluted and cooptated; and how should we think about this? Is there still good being achieved, or is there a real danger here?

Kirthi’s Bio:

• Founder of the Gender Security Project
• Head of Training at World Pulse
• Digital Engagement Manager at Every Woman Treaty
• Advisor at Women7
• Editor at Cactus Communications

Leila’s Bio:

• Senior advisor on gender, youth, and movement building
• Co-founder of We Are Feminist Leaders training program
• Trustee at Gender and Development Network
• Head of Partnership to End Child Marriage

We discuss:

We start from the premise of Srilatha Batliwala's beautiful phrase: "the self as a site of change". Self-reflection and self-awareness have to be at the start. But that is not enough. 

We also have to put in place concrete organizational practices that embody feminist leadership, such as:

• Normalization of a focus on staff/volunteer well-being and care – instead of on productivity and numbers
• Organizations with zero deadlines and where people co-own the mission
• Organizations where everybody has the same base salary, and people receive extra pay based on their caregiving responsibilities
• Organizations where performance appraisal processes focus more on collaboration skills and attitude/aptitude and on sharing power rather than productivity against set targets
• Cultures where it is OK/encouraged to bring your full self to work, and where emotions do not need to be checked at the door
• Organizations where joy and dreaming are part of the parlance of the organization
• Organizations comfortable with the messiness of emotions; as well as with the political dimensions of Feminist Leadership

Resources:

Kirthi’s LinkedIn

Kirthi’s Email

Leila’s LinkedIn

Article by Leila in Medium on how grief in the workplace should be addressed by leaders: HERE

'We are Feminist Leaders'  training program on feminist leadership, co-hosted by Leila Billing: HERE

Five Oaks Consulting School's Online course on Virtual Team Leadership skills

Youtube video of this podcast

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