Women Leaders Are Powerful Keynote Speakers: 3 Examples
Women business leaders and successful women in business have overcome hurdles which both business women and men can relate to, and therefore make excellent motivational speakers or keynote speakers. Especially when overcoming gender bias roles, women business leaders can exemplify the leadership traits and qualities that propel them to become industry leaders.
Differentiating “women” as leaders is compelling because there are some industries that are traditionally male-dominated, and notable women leaders have overcome remarkable odds in reaching the top of their organizations. Especially within technology, financial or defense sectors, women are the minority, so the experience of those exceptional women is a powerful statement that resonates.
Creating a leadership style for a woman has different characteristics than a man’s leadership style, in fact there have been studies that share that:
- Women leaders have to be more persuasive
- Women overcome adversity by adopting an “I’ll show you” approach as opposed to the traditional “I’ll tell you”
- Women typically demonstrate higher team building styles
- Women take risks and “draw outside the lines” to create a new rulebook
Notable women leaders such as Carly Fiorina, Sheila Bair, and Marty Evans are excellent representations of powerful women leaders.
- Carly Fiorina started her career as a secretary and became the first woman to lead a Fortune 20 company - Hewlett Packard. Rising to the top of a technology company is not a simple feat for a woman in the male-dominated technology sector.
- Sheila Bair, former Chairman of the FDIC, is another powerful woman who can attract a diverse audience. Bair led the FDIC through the stormy economy of the Great Recession, and as a speaker she clearly demonstrates that ‘can do’ attitude. Not only is she a recognized authority on the financial industry in crisis, she is a woman leader who rose to a position of leadership within our national financial system, another male-dominated environment.
- Marty Evans, the first female to command a U.S. naval station, is another excellent example of a powerful women leader in a male dominated environment. At the time of her retirement, she was the highest ranking woman in the Navy. Marty Evans also had leadership roles at the Girl Scouts of America, the American Red Cross and was instrumental in the national response to hurricane Katrina.
Each of these exceptional women business leaders has a message that inspires an audience to overcome gender barriers or bias and to be a leader in every sense of the word.
