A call to action for men in leadership
I love men. And I am a man’s equal.
For most of my life I’ve had male leadership in the workplace. I appreciate men’s logic, reason, and rational thinking. I appreciate how they can hold the container for creativity and innovation. I appreciate their directness, and how they can unapologetically stand in their truth. I appreciate all that men are, AND I’d like to hold them responsible to do better.
Let me reiterate: I love men. Yet our system is so rooted in patriarchy — in the old way of doing things — that as a collective we are not seeing our blind spots.
I’ve received incredible direction and mentorship from men. And I’ve also received disgusting attempts at maintaining power that have involved gaslighting, sexual provocation, and sneaky-powertrippy-gross manipulation.
This is not meant to be a victimizing rant, but moreso a call to action for men in leadership — and men in general — to do better.
Men: I know you want to step up for us, and I know you want to be in your power. I believe that you can do this while honouring and respecting the value of your feminine counterpart.
Let’s begin by cultivating awareness of our culture’s current imbalance of masculine vs feminine energy, meaning the doing, producing energy versus the creative, receptive energy. Let’s think about how we can do better. Even the female leaders are so caught up in doing things the man’s way that there is still no equilibrium. If a woman is a leader, she must help to bring more balance to the system by embodying her innate gifts. Can you imagine a world where intuition, creativity, compassion, and collaboration were more honoured than they currently are? I can, and it’s a pretty sweet vision.
If we have more awareness of our current imbalance, then maybe, finally, patriarchy can take a back seat. Am I naively optimistic? Probably, but I believe it’s possible. We literally have no choice but to change right now, so let’s redefine leadership by asking the question, what does it mean to be a leader in 2020 — regardless of gender? What does it mean to decide not to have power over, but power with?