china

Archbishop Desmond Tutu is quoted as saying if he had one wish to change the world, he would have more women leaders. At Davos this year, joking that he may need security to escort him offstage, he suggested, “What we need is a revolution led by women. I think women ought to be saying to us men: ‘You have made a mess, just get out and let us in.’” While radical revolution was not on the agenda at the World Economic Forum’s Women Leaders Dinner, the question of leadership for the messy world was. As posited by moderator Laura Liswood, Secretary-General CWWL, in these turbulent times do we need the bold John Wayne style of leadership or do women see — and bring — something different? The conversation was taken up to a refreshingly higher level than the stale ‘what will it take for women to be leaders,’ or ‘how are women better or different leaders than men?’ Instead, the question we lived in was ‘what kind of leadership is demanded in these challenging times?’ It is the right question to ask. As large swaths of the world lurched from one crisis to another through the last five years, our paradigms of leadership have been challenged. At Davos last year and again this year, people groused that our current political leaders do not seem fit to lead and that global corporations are often filling the vacuum of political leadership. One participant put it bluntly, “people are scared; they have forgotten how to lead.” The women leaders assembled agreed that this environment calls for ‘an era of hybrid leadership.’ As Michelle Bachelet, UN Women Executive Director and former Chilean president, said, “We can’t generalize. For good leadership in changing times, one day they need to be the general, the next the consensus-builder.” Her comments were echoed by Josette Sheeran, UN World Food Program Executive Director and new board member of the World Economic Forum, “Today’s leadership still needs to be hierarchical but also needs to be flexible.” If the leadership establishment is equated with inflexibility or in many cases, immobility, we need leaders — especially women — who can offer flexibility of thought, facilitate creative new solutions in a fast-changing world, rally resources and think in new ways. And I agree with those who feel our perpetually shifting environment calls for leadership that is more decisive and crisis-oriented than slow and consensual. As Diezani Alison-Madueke, Nigeria’s Minister of Petroleum Resources, said, “We need [leaders] to have thick skin.” I have rarely sat through a discussion of women’s leadership where the conversation did not drift to ‘masculine v. feminine’ leadership styles. Although that dissection still surfaced plenty at Davos, many felt this framing is passé. As summed up nicely by Valerie Germain, Heidrick & Struggles Managing Partner, Head of Strategy and Business Development, “the discussion of male versus female leadership traits is stopping progress. There is a style of leadership that is needed: flexibility.” UN Undersecretary-General Bachelet said, “We don’t believe we need to make a trade off between being feminine and tough. Women are of course capable of strong and tough decisions.” In this vein, some women argued that equating leadership to people in positions of authority was also passé, that the true definition of leadership is mobilizing and facilitating various resources toward progress. As posited by a member of the Forum’s ‘Global Shapers Community,’ we often keep individualizing leadership but leadership does not happen without teams. The ability to lead from within or outside a hierarchical structure is more possible and more critical given the current technologies and global culture shifts toward the importance of civil engagement. Through this leadership lens, our workplace gender equality metrics and measurements are incomplete when we focus on how many women are (or are not) in the C-suite or board seats. If we really buy into this concept that ‘leaders are people mobilizing resources,’ not just those with powerful titles, then perhaps we have more women leading then we currently measure. The ability of leaders to mobilize resources takes an ability to synthesize which in turn takes an ability to listen and to be inclusive, all characteristics identified as essential for the current contexts. Valerie Germain argues that the kind of diversity that is most critically needed is ‘diversity of thought.’ “The strategic priorities at Davos reflected what we’re hearing from our clients globally. The theme is the next generation of talent and how we continue to pursue a more diverse workforce. Getting to optimal solutions requires the right mix of diverse perspectives and most [corporations] are currently far from equilibrium. Gender is part of that diversity of thought and experiences — the future state of the world is going to built on new perspectives, skills.” The Davos discussion on women’s leadership was eloquently stitched up by Beth Brooke, Ernst & Young Global Vice-Chair, Public Policy: “We need to focus on what we can do collectively, but also individually. Do women leaders exercise the power we have?” One of the Forum’s Young Global Leaders, Mina Guli, founder of Peony Capital and CEO of Thirst, argued eloquently for not neglecting the steps women can take immediately and personally. “I’m so focused on action right now launching a global movement on water conservation and doing it from China. So it’s fine to talk about the esoteric nature of leadership, but individually we need to look now at how we can be the best leaders we can be. Are you the best you can be, and if not, why not? We should focus on strengthening our strengths, mitigating weaknesses.” I completely concur with Beth and Mina. There is still plenty of need to focus on removing systemic and cultural blockages that prevent diversity of thought (including gender equality) in organizations and politics. But individually, when we spend time looking at barriers around us in our workplace or society, barriers is what we will see — and if ‘seeing is believing,’ focusing on barriers often limits our personal vision of what we can achieve. One of the Davos sessions asked the question, ‘Do women have a vision?’ For our vision of a better world, we should have a vision for diversity of thought in organizations and politics. We should have a vision for leaders who can listen, synthesize and then act decisively. And as those leaders in action now, we should have a vision of ourselves continuously improving our own abilities to be the best change agents we can be.

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has swept aside your target of what a fair price for oil should be. And perhaps, the worst miscreant in that coven of reprobates is Your own benighted subject, Saudi Arabia�s Oil Minister, Ali al-Naimi. The man shows no respect. Why, only not that long ago he brayed to all who would listen, that You in Your wisdom viewed a price of $75 a barrel as a fair price, a price he vested with the term as being �noble� (Please see �OPEC�s Noble Cause� 12.17.08). And just last week he let it be known, clearly in contravention to his Monarch�s proclamation, that the current price of $100 for oil quoted on the New York Mercantile Exchange, is just fine, and $110 for Brent quoted in London is even better (please see �Saudi Arabia Targets $100 Crude Price� Financial Times� 01.16.12). Especially so, we are given to understand, the big public spending increases needed to forestall the political unrest sweeping the Middle East (makes you feel warm and cozy up there in Maine?). Cunningly, he put it in such a way, that we should be happy to have oil at these levels (leading to near $4.00/gallon gasoline at the pump Stateside), considering all the troubles with Iran and those narrow Straits of Hormuz. King Abdullah, it is not befitting Your regal eminence, that You are �overcut� so heedlessly, relegating Your royal pronouncements into the dustbin, and makes one wonder who truly is in charge; You, Your Highness or Your peripatetic Oil Minister? Also, Your Highness, this is not good timing. Everyone is concerned about those messianic fanatics situated across from You on the far shore of the Persian Gulf. No telling what they are up to these days. One thing is for sure, were it not for our �good ole� U.S. Naval Flotilla steaming off your shores in the Persian Gulf they�d be knocking at Your Palace door much to Your displeasure, unless of course, You would enjoy be paraded down Main Street in Teheran. And if You tolerate the machinations of Your Oil Minister in pushing the price of oil to levels beyond what You, Yourself said is a fair price, and he forever waiting to bestir it ever higher, the price of Your inaction may become intolerably high for You and Your many Princely cousins. You see, we have an election coming over here, and all that may entail. That said, and with this nation�s growing volition to disengage our foreign entanglements, we will be reexamining many of our policies and decide the price of oil at current levels and the much more than $100 million/day it costs the American public to keep a task force in the Persian Gulf to safeguard your coast line, is more than we are willing to handle. That we may just have or task force weigh anchor and leave you to your own devices. And in case Mr. Ali al-Naimi didn�t tell you, we are at the cusp of becoming energy independent. In the last few years, with new drilling techniques, efficient hybrid cars, wind and solar and vast resources of coal we are quickly veering toward energy independence. To the point, as the development of shale gas and shale oil grows, the United States will become an important exporter of fossil fuels and energy commodities. In natural gas alone the expansion of proven resources using the new technology is enough to service this nation�s needs for 150 years, and growing. Your Highness, just in case you have not been doing Your sums consider the following; where natural gas and crude oil were traditionally priced in tandem almost step by step, with the vast new supplies of natural gas here, that relationship has now changed dramatically. Natural gas has become so abundant that its price has retreated to levels last seen some ten years ago. Today the price is $2.75/mmbtu, a price at which it delivers an energy quotient equivalent to crude oil priced at less than $17/barrel- or levels reflecting quoted crude oil prices a little over 10 years ago! While Your Mr. Ali al-Naimi wants us to pay $100 per barrel and more, please understand we are not that stupid to sit idly by. If he wants to keep oil prices at that level we will have Compressed Natural Gas powered trucks and then cars traveling our roads in short order -please see �What is CNG� (http://www.cngnow.com/what-is-cng/Pages/default.aspx). And please Your Highness, do not have Your Mr. Ali al-Naimi then ask around what he should do with all Your oil, as the answer would not be adequately elegant.