‘Create a community’

Businesswoman, author and PR guru Lynne Franks is the founder of SEED, a global women’s network offering learning programmes

The working landscape is finally getting better at nurturing women’s success – the recession has stung women less (the number of men in work has fallen by three per cent whereas the number of women has only fallen by 0.8 per cent). And according to recent forecasting statistics from the Europe Business School we can expect double the number of female MPs, 100 per cent growth in women-owned start-ups and 11 per cent more female millionaires a year over the next decade. About time.

Safe to say that girls are doing better at school than boys, and that more girls are going to university. It’s a fact that women’s brains are equipped with certain emotional intelligence that often makes them better leaders and managers.

Yet we do still live in a world where most countries, corporations, religions and academic establishments are run on an old patriarchal system with very few women at the top and where there is indeed a glass ceiling.

Recent research stated that in this current economy, an increasing number of households in the US and the UK have women as the major wage earners. And more young dads are happy to stay at home with the children if their partners are the high flyers of the family.

As more women take leadership roles, I feel it is important for us to have the confidence to lead with new values and a passion to create change. For too long women have felt they need to behave and dress like men, particularly in business, rather than acknowledge the differences in the way we communicate and relate to others.

We are living in a time of economic meltdown; drunken children on the streets of Britain killing each other; unnecessary wars and sexual violence used as a weapon against women and girls all over the world.

It is a time for a new way of being – and I believe it is women that can lead the way to this revolution. It is women from the grass roots who can show us the way to create a community that supports and nurtures each other, instead of exploiting and hurting each other.

I believe that women are often choosing not to break open the glass ceiling because traditional organisations don’t generally reflect the feminine way of living and working. And, of course, our own lack of self-confidence can often hold us back.

It’s not just about being available for our children and working in our own time – which the new technology allows us to do. It’s about bringing the feminine strengths and principles into the workplace. Multi-tasking, intuition, relation building and nurturing are not qualities that have been taken seriously in traditional business or the political world.

So women are starting their own businesses, working from home or getting involved in the running of their communities rather than become part of a national political machine that is archaic and out-of-date to the population’s needs.

We want to live in a more harmonious way as part of a cooperative society which is organic and evolutionary based on the principles of the sacred feminine. First and foremost, it’s cooperation between male and female. As women, we know that the best and most efficient way to get things done is to work together, and that means living and working with men in harmonious coexistence, valuing the perspectives and strengths of both sexes, and creating a higher quality of life for all.

It must also be a world of cooperation between business and community, human beings and the planet, national governments and non-governmental organisations, young and old, spirituality and science and our inner and outer selves.

• www.seednetworkingforwomen.com.