Women leaders: collective and compassionate.

No one leads in a vacuum. Yet the hierarchical, top-down approach to leadership sets up the leader to be all-knowing, consistently right and unable or unwilling to ask for help or listen to various viewpoints. We've all seen where this model has led the country during the past eight years.

This hierarchical model comes from the military, which has a particular need for it in times of conflict. But repeatedly adopting this model as a standard for other organization causes ineffective leadership, bad judgment and in most cases a lack of women's participation.

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Dr. Margaret Grogan and Dr. Charol Shakeshaft want to replace the old paradigm of top-down leadership with the emerging field of "collective" leadership. Grogan spoke about the model and its relationship to social justice as part of the panel at the symposium "Women Weaving the Web of Social Justice" held in October in conjunction with the inauguration of Dr. Helen Sobehart as president of Cardinal Stritch University in Wisconsin.

Grogan, dean of the school of educational studies at the Claremont Graduate University in California, was on a panel of international scholars who discussed the issue of social justice through the lens of women leaders.

She noted that while other countries face difficulties in increasing the number of women leaders at all levels, the United States cannot be held up as having already "evolved" yet. "I wish we could say differently," she admitted. "Many Native American cultures have been more collectively organized and have a great deal to teach us."

Leaders in education