In Leadership-Starved Times, Women Have Stepped Up To The Plate

Ten who hit home runs

History reminds us that several notable women have left lasting legacies in business as well as globally. India’s Indira Gandhi, Golda Meir of Israel, Britain’s Margaret Thatcher, and Katharine Graham, a Pulitzer Prize winner and the first woman CEO to lead a Fortune 500 company, are among the great women leaders of the twentieth century.

But in many cases, women leaders, whether they were elected officials, titans of business, or played other important roles, have been inadequately recognized. We have much to learn about the strong will and courage that makes women such able leaders. 
 

Here are 10 exceptional women who have, or had, a significant impact during or after their time and showed exceptional leadership.

Rosa Parks, whose courage and small act of defiance on a bus that led to the Montgomery bus boycott and propelled the civil rights movement forward, was to most white Americans nothing more than another disgruntled African American causing trouble for the establishment. History has given her a new title: Hero. 

Malala Yousafzai, a 2014 recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, exemplified self-assuredness and calm when she was shot, point-blank, by a would-be assassin. Exhibiting confidence and strength, Yousafzai has been unstoppable in her quest to secure educational freedom and equal rights for girls and women around the world. 

Rep. Barbara Jordan, a Texas Democrat and civil rights leader, supported a wide range of Democratic causes but wasn’t afraid to break ranks with traditional party thinking. As the chair of the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform from 1994 until her death in 1996, Jordan favored more controls on immigration, including increased enforcement against illegal immigrants and their employers. 

A pragmatic and independent senator who often broke ranks with her party, Sen. Olympia Snowe, a Republican from Maine, served as co-chair of the Senate Centrist Coalition, a bipartisan group. “We can have our differences here, but we ought to be able to talk with each other without being punished for it,” Snowe said in 2001. It’s a message that rings true more today than ever.

Immaculee Ilibagiza, a Rwandan genocide survivor, inspires others through her talks and writings. Buoyed by her Catholic faith, Ilibagiza has, incredibly, forgiven the people who killed her parents and siblings during the Rwandan genocide and serves as a shining example of humanity and grace, both characteristics that are often sorely lacking in business and politics.

Jacinda Ahern, New Zealand’s prime minister, continues to impress the world with her leadership skills and decisiveness. Few heads of state have responded as skillfully and sensitively as Ahern did after the horrific March 15, 2019 attack on two Christchurch mosques that killed 50 Muslims. Ahern sought and gained the approval of sweeping gun legislation to strengthen the safety of all New Zealanders. Today, her competency, empathy and dispatch are largely responsible for the low rate of COVID-19 infections in her country.

The late New York Rep. Shirley Chisholm was known to go out on a limb and criticize Democratic and Republican congressional leaders alike. Chisholm also was practical and realistic – traits needed in the business world, too. She insisted to her fellow African-Americans that they had to work with white politicians to get things done, no matter their bitterness and resentment. “We still have to engage in compromise,” Chisholm said, “the highest of all arts.”

Indra Nooyi, PepsiCo’s former chair and CEO for 12 years transformed her company into one of the most successful food and beverage giants in the world. She was known for writing personal notes to employees’ parents and understood the strength of reaching out to people on a more personal level. Under her guidance, PepsiCo listened to consumer preferences and now offers more healthful products in addition to their tried and true staples. 

Despite Jackie Robinson’s incredible athletic ability and his spiritual upbringing, it is unlikely that he could have weathered the years of racial taunts, death threats, and opponents’ numerous intentional attempts to hurt him and end his baseball career without his wife, Rachel. At one point, when talking about himself, Jackie stopped using the pronoun “I” instead using “We” as in Rachel and me. The bond they shared could not be broken. No stranger to the world of work, Rachel was a clinician and researcher at New York’s Einstein College of Medicine and as a professor at the Yale School of Nursing. It is important to note that the Jackie Robinson story is rightfully also the story of Rachel Isum Robinson, his equal!

In 1941, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, a woman of great conviction and a tireless devotee for civil rights for African Americans, visited Alabama’s Tuskegee Institute during a time when much of our nation was highly skeptical of African Americans’ intelligence and aptitude or ability to serve in the military. During her tour, she mentioned that many had told her that black people were not suited to fly airplanes. She asked Charles Alfred Anderson, a black flight instructor, if he’d take her up. To the horror of her staff and her Secret Service escorts, Anderson said yes, so the First Lady strapped herself into the back seat of a plane and flew with the sole black flight instructor at the time that had a commercial pilot’s license. Anderson would later become the chief flight instructor for the famed Tuskegee Airmen. 

Roosevelt also was a rare vocal critic at the time of her husband’s order to intern American citizens of Japanese descent following the Pearl Harbor bombing. Unknown to many, Mrs. Roosevelt also established Val-Kill Industries, a small factory, with three other women, to provide supplemental income for local farming families who would make furniture and other products.

In her own words, Eleanor Roosevelt recognized the fortitude and resilience of women under pressure. She said, “A woman is like a teabag – you never know how strong she is until she gets in hot water.”

Ritch K. Eich, Ph.D., a retired naval reserve captain who commanded three navy units and served at NATO, JCS, Naval War College, Pacific and Atlantic Fleets and Central Command, was chief of public affairs for Blue Shield of CA. After receiving his doctorate from the University of Michigan, he spent 20+ years as a hospital executive. Eich has published four books on leadership and is currently writing his fifth. He served on Congressional committees for U.S. Senators Carl Levin of Michigan and Dan Coats of Indiana and also served on more than 10 boards of directors including chairing the Los Robles Hospital and Medical Center board of trustees. He is a Fellow of the University of California, Merced Foundation. Currently serving on the International Editorial Board of the Journal of Values-Based Leadership, Eich resides in Thousand Oaks, CA. Connect Ritch K. Eich