Women Emerging Podcast

Two powerful Botswana leaders Pelonomi Venson Moitoi and Joyce Wema Isa Molwane reveal their realities and secrets. Nothing sanitised here, just unvarnished advice. Botswana becomes a more and more interesting place for me. But it’s still tough “you can be a leader but don’t reveal your power” Botswana women leaders have told me it’s the best possible place on earth to be women leaders. It will be...

Botswana. Rebecca Binns said that she loved the expedition but that it not speak to her fully. It didn’t feel ‘like home’ So she took me home. To meet 7 powerful women leaders in Botswana, Priyanka Handa Ram, Tebogo Matenge, Rosalind Kwinje, Kelly Ramputswa, Pelonomi Venson, Joyce Isa Molwane, Sharifa Noor. And the result is this week and next weeks episodes. I asked each one “ if we are going to...

The spiritual texts are abound with extraordinary women. This week Hatoon Alfassi, Amany Lubis, Ani Choying Drolma and Juliette Neuberger reinforce the message from Islam, Judaism and Buddhism. The women they tell the stories of were extraordinary leaders, in many cases with hidden and unrecognised leadership skills. They had compassion and they never gave up to despair. They knew they were equal...

We don’t talk enough about faith when we talk about women leaders. There are amazing women leaders in the #sacredtexts of #Buddhism, #Islam, #Christianity, #Judaism and #Hinduism. Women - sometimes little known - who show us that women have been leaders for ever. If I am honest this episode and the episode next week have opened my eyes big time. Here Meera Baindur talks to us about the ‘woman of t...

Listening is a big theme of this episode. Speaking to seven seventeen year old students in Karachi Pakistan was fascinating. I asked them “ if the expedition delivers an approach to leadership that resonates with women, what would it need to do to resonate with their generation and geography” Some think that listening was their generations super power, they will listen to hear and not to give orde...

With the expedition two months in, this episode focuses on nine of the members. Their experience so far. What they have learnt. What has sent them into a whirlwind of confusion. What has settled some issues in their minds. For the first two months they have been speaking to women the world over. In villages and in boardrooms. In Nigeria and in Canada. In their teens and in their eighties. It has c...

Yoga teaches leaders self awareness, rugby teaches leaders relationship awareness. Alison covers yoga (and also draws on 35 years of working with me, I have always thought that without yoga Alison would have abandoned me long ago). She covers the groundwork, prioritising, pushing yourself while knowing your limits. She also talks about really “thinking about leadership” before you jump in. Fascina...

Ani Choying Drolma is a Buddhist nun. Ani sings utterly beautifully. Ani gives people deep faith. And Ani is also deeply thoughtful about leadership too. Katrina has only ever talked about faith with Ani but here she talks about leadership. About the need to lead yourself first, to make yourself happy by making someone else happy (including buying pretty, sparkly shoes), about not just crying, and...

The hunger games. Setting people off against each other so that they fight each other rather than the system. Cleaver, manipulative, brutal, dystopian. Possibly more of a reflection of the times than we care to admit. Katniss Everdeen or Jennifer Lawrence gives The illusion that its about female power, the reality that its a tiny turn of the dial on a pretty standard format. This is the third podc...

Angry angry angry. Megha, Asifa and Hila are angry. They know it is one of the things that drives them all for very different reasons. Sharing that anger will be crucial to leading the new generation. Not for them the usual patronising put down, women shouldn't be angry, dont be so emotional. But they are being strategic with their anger. This is the second episode capturing the zeitgeist as the 2...

Illiberal democracy, a new theory of elites, not just fake information but fake people too, the not so United States of America. Two women, old friends, fiercely intelligent women, each side of the world, women who looking back admit they didn’t spot the very blowing up. These two women share what they hear rumbling now, on its way to thunder. This is the first of four episodes on the zeitgeist as...

This weeks podcast highlights a human approach to leadership and also introduces some of the women who are serving as Guides to the Expedition. Guides are generous women leaders who will take calls from exploration members. They are generous, wise, informed, committed, thoughtful, inspiring. Above all they are totally honest with the replies they give members. Whether the questions are about colla...

Tables turned in this podcast. Amy Stillman asks me about leadership. It’s because people were saying who is the podcast host. This silly woman who giggles her way through each episode, asking silly questions. Does she know anything about leadership anyway. And if she does what does she think. Well Amy should know she worked with me for eight years. Normal service is resumed for episode 14, far mo...

Fast forward to February 2023 the expedition will have delivered ‘an approach to leadership that resonates with women'. This week we celebrate the expedition launch. In the huge global jigsaw, the expedition is only a tiny piece. But it’s a critical one. Without it many of the other pieces will not achieve their potential. Because we need a mass of women the world over say ping “if that’s leadersh...

“What do we need to be careful of” was the question I asked the final three members of the expedition. It was a very interesting question to ask Laura Fleming, Aparna Uppaluri and Katrina Webb who almost didn’t join. Laura because she has avoided women only groups all her life. Aparna because she avoids “monolithic definitions of what it is to be a woman”. And Katrina because earlier this year she...

This weeks podcast is glorious leadership stories from 3 glorious women who are members of the expedition. You will want to listen to this episode twice, I have no doubt. Because there are so many AH Hah’s about leadership.  DR Rhouba Mhaissen on “they started calling me a leader so I realised I would have to behave like one”, Erica Su on “have the courage to self define your story and not wo...

Our guests this week are Andini Makosinski and Fatima Zibouh. The expression renaissance leader might just stick. For women who reject the pressure to choose one or the other of binary options. Whether that’s what they do with their lives, or who they chose to be or how they choose to lead. Ann chose arts and science at school and inventing and filming in her career. Fatima is Moroccan and Belgian...

What is on your white board when you are leading change? Pictures and profiles identifying key people? Lines and Arrows analysing systems? I am intuitively the first. My white board is full of people. Sarah Henry has been thinking a lot about being a member of the expedition. And she took me on  “the way you think Julia sort of implies the problem is women, when actually its the systems that...

Leadership is both very very hard and really quite simple? We put this to the test on this weeks podcast. Uma Chatterjee covers hard, linking  it to the source of good leadership being self awareness. And that self awareness is wonderful and terrifying at the same time. Liz Bloomfield covers simple, she links this to the source of good leadership being listening. Hard intense committed listen...

This week’s podcast is a look back at where the expedition came from. The weekly Women Emerging from Isolation films.  Women from, Polynesia, Egypt, Germany, the UK, Uganda, the US and Zambia. From discussing life as a Trans woman to the isolation of war. This week’s podcast should give you a good sense of where the expedition has come from. The world over!

This week’s Podcast focuses on the topic of disruption within leadership. I believe that it’s no use talking about being disruptor if you are not prepared to be disrupted yourself.  This is why we have appointed an ‘Expedition Disruptor’ and very deliberately built diversity into the Expedition Team. Our expedition disruptor is Lissa Young, who makes the case for disrupting from the inside, s...

This week’s episode discusses some of the reasons we have to be discouraged at the state of Leadership. We hear from women across the world who explain their individual perspectives and frustrations with the current ways of leadership and in turn, remind ourselves why we are doing this Expedition. To find an approach to leadership that resonates with women. They say “but Women have made progress”....

The Expedition podcast is now launched. Our launch Trilogy is complete. Now you know the WHY, the WHAT and how the WHO was formed. Yvette Hopkins has spoken to every one of the 20 members of the expedition and says “if these women can’t land an approach to leadership that resonates with women, none can!” I can hear the cries already ”If that’s what leadership is….I’m in” And with this podcast you...

What happens on an expedition if the van breaks down? Or the rain doesn't stop for two days?in this second podcast Ana Porzecanski asks me what the equivalent questions are for a virtual expedition and how prepared we are for them. And then Mona Sinha asks the even more killer question. What happens if our group of 20 women setting off on our virtual expedition “ to find an approach to leadership...

Join us to hear about Women Emerging, a non-profit dedicated to redefining women's leadership and our exciting Expedition to discover an approach to leadership that resonates with women. On today's episode we tell you a little about us, the expedition. Meet our founder, Julia Middleton, as well as two of the incredible women who will be taking part on this virtual expedition. Dr Hinemoa Elder, a M...