Women are Using Power to Empower

By Alyse Nelson, President and CEO of Vital Voices

Power is evolving. All of the traditional ways we think about power — where it comes from, how it’s used and who uses it — are shifting right in front of us.

Why? Women leaders, and the way they lead differently. As more and more women achieve power, they’re changing the way we think about it.

The most consequential women leaders of today don’t associate power with position or title. They define power as the ability to empower others. And they measure their success by how much they’ve managed to improve the world around them.

There’s no question that our world is craving a new kind of leadership. We’re seeing a hunger for authenticity and empathy. Across diverse communities, people want to be heard. They want solutions that work for everyone. In the face of historic challenges, we have an opportunity to do things differently — and the women leaders I know were made for this moment.

For the last 22 years, I’ve partnered with thousands of women leaders from 181 countries. Some are human rights lawyers, others are social entrepreneurs or parliamentarians. They’ve all shown me that women lead differently. And that difference is exactly what our world needs right now.

Just in the last month, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s leadership has captured global attention. In the wake of a devastating terror attack, she acted with immediacy and used her voice to lift up and give hope to the victims’ families. Rather than focus on the attacker and risk giving him a platform to spread hate, she chose to honor the victims and find ways prevent future attacks, fast-tracking gun control legislation and uniting all citizens with calls for tolerance and compassion.

More often than not, women seek leadership to right a wrong in their community. They see a problem or a challenge and they step up to tackle it. Their path to leadership is almost always nontraditional and their motivation to act is so often borne of personal experience.

For Esra’a Al Shafei, becoming a leader meant creating a safe space for persecuted minorities in the Middle East. Esra’a used her skills as a technologist to design innovative, identity-protected platforms that enable LGBTQ individuals to connect, advocate and support one another. Esra’a’s leadership is rooted in service to others. She saw the power of the Internet and chose to use that power to give voice to otherwise silenced groups.

Leaders like Esra’a and Prime Minister Ardern are engaging hundreds of thousands of people. They’re challenging conventional ideas about how leadership works and what power looks like. They’re part of a rising movement of women who are changing the way we see leaders.

Throughout Women’s History Month, Vital Voices highlighted women leaders — including Esra’a and Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern — who seek power in order to empower others. From grassroots activists to global personalities, we’re calling attention to creative and fearless women who lead in service of others.

By sharing the stories and strategies that these women use to improve the world around them, we can expand and spread this new model of leadership, inspiring people everywhere to create their own path and recognize their own power to make change.