Women are powerful agents of change, and the far-reaching benefits of diversity and gender parity in leadership and decision-making are increasingly being recognized in all spheres. Still, it has been seen that women are vastly under-represented in decision-making in politics, businesses, communities, etc. India is poised to become a 5 trillion-dollar economy by 2025 and women will be important contributors in this goal. With this vision, a special leadership programme for women officers from various fields was organised by the Lal Bahadur Shastri Academy of Administration (LBSNAA), Mussoorie on 18 July.
The programme was envisaged by Director LBSNAA, Mr. Srinivas R Katikithala. This was the first-ever programme of its kind held at the prestigious institution and was conducted with the joint effort of Sardar Patel Leadership Centre, National Gender and Child Centre, Women Lift Health and Centre for Creative Leadership. The main objective of the programme was to equip mid to senior level lady officers with leadership skills and tools to be able to use their potential to maximum and play a critical role as a leader and as an agent for social change.
WOMEN LEADERSHIP PROGRAMME
The five-day programme focusing on leadership had 43 participants representing civil services like IAS (9), IFS (2), IPS (2), IRTS (1), IDAS (1), IDES (1), IIS (2), IES (2), JKAS, defence services like IAF, IA, IN, Indian Coast Guard, Sahastra Seema bal, Scientific institutes like ISRO, DRDO and Academic Institutes like IIMI, IIMR, GU, EFLU and EDI.
Ms. Ity Pandey, the only Railway Traffic officer in the group, old Indian Masterminds that under the programme, a workshop was conducted taking all the participants through a number of studies which highlighted about women taking a secondary role as far as leadership is concerned.
She said, “People generally associate men with the adjective ‘charismatic’ but not with women. Many such adjectives were also highlighted during the programme which are gender bias along with the major ‘imposter syndrome’ women carry with them. It was found that women mostly undermine themselves and consider them less knowledgeable than others.”
The programme was formally inaugurated by Honourable Justice Abhilasha Kumari on 18 July but the course started with meaningful conversations from the pre-course cum orientation on 17 July. The key themes of the classroom sessions were focused on understanding the leadership landscape, navigating competing priorities and gender roles, Burn Bright Resilience Tactics, battling Imposter Syndrome and bringing Authentic Leader Identity to work, leading with purpose, handling conflict dynamics, listening and feedback skills, and leadership presence.
AWARD WINNER
The course used individual reflection, group work and peer group discussion as the main teaching-learning pedagogy. The facilitators actually pushed the participants’ learning horizons beyond their pre-existing beliefs and perspectives. Throughout the course, each participant was asked to select a key leadership challenge they are facing, add the learnings of the sessions every day and discuss this with their peer group. Participants were also asked to submit a reflection paper which was assessed and awards were distributed to Ms Meenakshi Lohia (IDES), Ms Sonali Giri (IAS) and Ms Ity Pandey (IRTS) for emerging as leadership examples in this programme.
Ms. Ity Pandey mentioned, “Commonly working women like us face issues like performing dual roles, by managing both office and home. Moreover, women have to contribute a lot of unpaid work which includes household, children, work, relationship, etc. Even in office, it is seen that women have to double proof themselves to prove they are right, which makes it even tougher.”
The participants, with their energy and enthusiasm, tried to live, learn and experience as much as they could in this short period of five days. Other than the engaging days of classroom sessions, participants took the 21-days yoga challenge and performed yoga. Some participants also learned unarmed combat training, i.e. Krav Maga, under the guidance of trained faculty IPS officer, Hari Lal Chouhan.
All participants set a very high benchmark by their participation and openness to learning for all future programmes, and their energy levels were unmatched.
EMPOWERING RUN
The programme, which concluded on 23 July, ended with an empowering run from none other than IRTS officer Ity Pandey, who also dons the hat of a marathon runner. Starting at 5:15 am from LBSNAA, she ran 33 kms down to the valley of Doon and reached in about 3 hours 20 mins. Each participant went home with a lot of insights and sweet memories to cherish forever, with learnings to groom and mentor other women officers around them.
