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Marta Oti Sears

Marta Oti Sears

Tag Archives: leadership

Dare Mighty Things

22 Tuesday Apr 2014

Posted by Marta Oti Sears in calling, equality, gender, leadership

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Christian women, Dare Mighty Things, Halee Gray Scott, leadership, women and leadership, women authors

Twice this week I’ve read that the word “resurrection” literally means “to stand up” or “to stand again.” Two days this side of Resurrection Day, I thought it fitting to share an excerpt from a new book that’s helping women stand up.

Halee Gray ScottThe book is Dare Mighty Things: Mapping the Challenges of Leadership for Christian Women by Halee Gray Scott, PhD, an author and independent social researcher who focuses on issues related to leadership and spiritual formation. I met Halee through Redbud Writers Guild and I admire and appreciate her and her writing. I think you will too.

Excerpt from Dare Mighty Things by Halee Gray Scott:

Christian women have been shamed into a corner. Many have bought the lie that they are the second sex—they do not matter and they are not gifted, at least not in the ways that matter most. They got the message that they need to limit their horizons, temper their ambitions.

They are leaving. Research shows not only are there less women in church, there are less women going to seminary. Women’s advancement in leadership has altogether stalled, right along with the wage gap. Women, especially Millennial women, see this lack of progress and start to wonder if leadership is even worth it. So they look for “the good life” elsewhere. As the French say, “Ça ne vaut pas la peine.” It is not worth the pain.

Dare Might Things bigIt isn’t enough for me to simply tell you the stories of Christian women who are daring mighty things and outline the challenges you will face, so let me tell you this:

Your life matters. We can learn from our ancestors, from Christian women who dared mighty things and brought about massive cultural reform. It was not too long ago that women in the nineteenth century, women with far more limitations than we have today, worked to abolish slavery, alcoholism, poverty, illiteracy. They created legislation to prevent women from being sexually exploited by men, built homes to keep them safe, and provided aid to immigrants.

You are gifted and called. The Lord can do more than you can possibly imagine through your life.

You are needed. The same problems that confronted the women of the nineteenth century confront us today. Women are still exploited by men. Slavery is not abolished for all. Fifteen million children go to bed hungry every night in America alone. We can find the good life by daring mighty things, by overcoming our personal challenges in order to make a good life for others.

God is working through Christian women. The first challenge for most Christian women? Believing you are a leader at all. Believing you have gifts. Believing that God wants to use your life as a force for good. Not every woman is called to be a pastor, a minister, or a CEO of a non-profit. Some women are called to lead in other ways—leading an at-home Bible study, starting a food pantry at their church—but these women are leaders, too, and their contributions have been minimized for far too long.

Sometimes the mightiest thing you can do is to do that which seems very small—dare to dream big dreams. Dare to believe that you can make a difference. Dare to believe that overcoming obstacles and facing challenges is worthwhile. Women have overcome them before; all you have to do is dare to believe that you can too. That is where you start.

There is no passion to be found playing small – in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.

– Nelson Mandela

 

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Does “Bossy” = Leadership?

14 Friday Mar 2014

Posted by Marta Oti Sears in equality, gender, justice, parenting

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#BanBossy, assertive, ban bossy, bossy, girls and leadership, leadership, personality and leadership

BanBossyHoldBackHave you heard about Ban Bossy—a campaign initiated by the Girls Scouts and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg’s nonprofit organization LeanIn.org? If you haven’t, here’s the core message of the campaign in a nutshell:

“When a little boy asserts himself, he’s called a “leader.” Yet when a little girl does the same, she risks being branded “bossy.” Words like bossy send a message: don’t raise your hand or speak up. By middle school, girls are less interested in leading than boys—a trend that continues into adulthood. Together we can encourage girls to lead. Pledge to Ban Bossy.”

I totally agree with this message. Parents, educators, and youth leaders need to pay attention to, and change, the way we talk to girls.

BanBossyAirtime

The words we use reveal the messages we live by.

Do I tend to think of men and boys as leaders? How often do I use the word “leader” to describe a woman or a girl? Am I more put off by qualities of assertiveness and directness when I experience them in women than in men?

By asking us to think about the words we choose, Ban Bossy is causing us to think about deep-seated myths about gender.

I’m grateful to LeanIn.org and the Girl Scouts for challenging us to recognize that leadership is not bound by gender. I’d like to add that it’s not bound by temperament either.

Several years ago, my kids were playing with a little boy who had an assertive personality. He was speaking louder than the other kids, doing the majority of the talking, and telling the other kids what he wanted them to do. His mom, somewhat apologetically, said, “We’re working on trying to help him be a little less bossy.” After a brief pause, his dad said, “Or we’re just going to start calling him a leader.”

I laughed along with the other parents, but I remember being annoyed that this person was equating “bossy” with “leadership.”

BanBossyCondiRiceQuote

Having an assertive personality doesn’t automatically make a person a good leader.  Unhealthy assertive types can make particularly bad leaders when their assertiveness disintegrates into aggression, dominance, control, and abuse of power. We rightly refer to these people as dictators rather than leaders.

Assertive personality types can be great leaders, of course, especially as they learn to listen well and often, welcome other people’s ideas, and share power.

But people with more withdrawn personality types can also be great leaders. They naturally tend to listen well and share power, and they can learn to assert themselves and exhibit confidence through their body language and the vocal volume.

BanBossyTeacherTip

Spiritual Direction Tip: Parents, pay attention to what bothers you most in your child or what you are most worried about for your child. Are you worried that your son will be seen as weak and called a “wimp?” Are you worried that your daughter will be seen as overbearing and be called a “bitch?”

Do you tend to judge a quality as bad or good? Can you see the value of sensitivity, or do you tend to judge it as “over-sensitivity.” Can you see the value of assertiveness, or do you tend to judge it as “pushy.”

We often try to shut down in our children the things that we haven’t come to terms with in ourselves.

Christians look to Jesus as our flagship example of a great leader. Jesus embraced and exhibited both lion and lamb-like qualities. He turned over tables and held young children. He challenged the religious establishment and wept over the city of Jerusalem. He was decisive about healing people on the Sabbath and he hesitated in the Garden of Gethsemane, questioning whether there might be another way.

To follow Jesus’s example of leadership is to integrate both the lion and the lamb within us.

BanBossyBraveisnotDramatic

If a father hasn’t learned to embrace both the lion and the lamb within himself, and over identifies as a lion—believing that this is what makes him a man—he will shame his son when his son exhibits lamb-like qualities.

A mother can also over-identify as a lion, believing her lion qualities are what make her a strong woman. She may shame her daughter for exhibiting lamb-like qualities out of fear that her daughter will one day be taken advantage or abused by a man if she doesn’t become strong enough.

A mother may also over-identify as a lamb, believing this is what make her “feminine” or “a good Christian woman.” She may shame her daughter when she exhibits lion-like qualities, fearing that her daughter will not fit into the narrow view of “Biblical womanhood” that she lives by.

BanBossyLittleBoy

Words matter. Collectively they make up the messages by which we think and act.

We are not immune to cultural messages and neither are our kids. If we think certain messages are hurting our kids, we have the opportunity and the responsibility to change them.

So notice the next time you use the word “bossy,” or almost use it. Is there a better word? Better yet, is there a better way to think about and engage with the assertive person before you that both values the way God designed her, and at the same time values the other person with whom she is relating.

(A special thanks to Catherine Skurja for her work on the lion/lamb concept as it relates to spirituality and personality. Read more in her book Paradox Lost. Thanks also to Richard Rohr and Andreas Ebert for their insight on Jesus and personality in their book The Enneagram: A Christian Perspective.)

 

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