Engendering Leadership In Institutions

Date 10-Mar-2016 to 11-Mar-2016

Location New Delhi, India

Format Institutional

PRIA and Martha Farrell Foundation are organising a conversation about ‘engendering’ organisations in India to achieve balanced leadership for sustained growth.

Recent studies have demonstrated that India can improve its GDP growth by more than 2% per annum if gender equality in the country increases. How is this going to be possible given the conditions outlined below?
• Smaller and poorer countries have better gender equality score on UNDP Gender Index than India.
• Women’s labour force participation, especially in urban India, is declining as per 2011 Census.
• Talented and educated young women in India are constrained to reduce (or drop out from) their workforce participation due to fear of harassment in public spheres.
• Hostile work environment which systematically demeans women’s contribution continues in most Indian organisations.

Experiences around the world have begun to focus attention on the way women’s participation and contributions are regularly discriminated against in various organisations; such constraints and restrictions are caused by the way institutions are designed and function. In India, gender discrimination and restrictions in organisations is widespread  girl students and teachers in schools and colleges; women artists and actors in cultural institutions (including Bollywood); nurses and women doctors in hospitals; women political leaders in political parties; lawyers and judges in courts; women sports-persons in sports associations; journalists in media;  women in the police, paramilitary and armed forces. Various government and non-government organisations are no different.

While a large number of public policies and interventions focus on women’s empowerment by improving their access to education and employment, very little attention has been paid to the systemic nature of exclusion they face inside an organisation. Systems and practices in organisations tend to make the assumption that women are primarily responsible for reproductive and care-giving roles in family; only a few organisations offer women workers some flexibility to fulfil this role. Women’s productive, economic and professional contributions are overlooked. And male employees are expected to ignore their own responsibilities of care-giving in the hope their wives, mothers and sisters will take care of the same. Such cultural practices, norms and mores are prevalent in all types of organisations in India -- private business, NGOs, government departments, police, judiciary, educational institutions, media, political parties, etc.

Engendering organisations requires a new kind of leadership. Organisational leadership not only provides policies and procedures, but also defines its culture. Stories and anecdotes of successful and effective engendered leadership are occasionally heard from all types of organisations. Yet, very little systematic understanding of how institutional culture and leadership can enhance gender equality is largely absent in India. There are hardly any efforts at collectively promoting ‘engendered leadership’ in organisations. How can leadership in organisations create a balanced approach that values and supports women’s participation and contributions? How can we understand and promote such ‘engendered leadership’ in all kinds of organisations in the country?

Participants from the corporate sector, non-govermental organisations, the police, the Indian Navy, educational institutions and the media will share their experiences and debate and discuss such questions during the two-day multi-stakeholder dialogue.