Dr Keely Bumsted O’Brien heads WEHI's Scientific Education Office, providing academic, professional development and pastoral support to the Institute’s students. She is a member of VCCC's Cancer Education and Training Advisory Committee and teaches into the Masters of Cancer Sciences in a consumer role. The following article is co-authored with Martin Pal, who specialises in applying genome editing technologies for cancer research. Martin was WEHI’s Scientific Education Officer in a secondment role last year has been a working party member of the Foundations of Cancer subject within the Master of Cancer Sciences.
This International Women's Day we are encouraged to be responsible for our thoughts and actions and call out gender bias and inequality:
"We can all choose to seek out and celebrate women's achievements."
Martin and I would add an additional challenge: Realise we all have the capacity to choose to be leaders as women and for women. It is our actions that will lead the way to change.
Many of us have heard about the importance of leadership. This may lead you to question - how can I become a leader and what does leadership mean to me? Maybe you've been told you need leadership skills to get ahead and be successful. We agree leadership is important and good leadership is even more critical. We believe that everyone is a leader; we'd like to challenge you to start thinking about your own leadership quest.
According to the Cambridge Dictionary, leadership is defined as the ‘position or fact of being the leader' - not very helpful in letting us know how to be a leader. Let's ask the question in a different way: What do people mean when they talk about leadership? Looking into the dictionary again, the term leadership is used to describe the 'set of characteristics that make a good leader’. That's getting us closer, but still not answering our question.
Let's rephrase the question again: What are the characteristics that make a leader, a good leader? More importantly: How can I apply these to myself?
There are literally hundreds of leadership quality descriptions, some are more general, and many overlay a specific lens, such as ethical leadership. It can be overwhelming. Here is a brief compilation list that resonates with us. We challenge you to reflect on how you can use these to develop your personal leadership style:
Women often face challenges in developing themselves as leaders. We've compiled another list. Our Top 5 Challenges for women in leadership is not a long list, but resonates with us as a summary of issues we may all face at one time or another:
We challenge you to reflect on these, think about how they relate to you and how you might help others to overcome and achieve. By your choices and actions, you can help yourselves and others face these issues. Becoming a good leader takes work, introspection, facing your own challenges, and challenging others.
What? Doesn't leadership start at the top? Leadership starts with you. We strongly feel that anyone at any level, role or capacity can be a leader. Leadership does not only apply to people in the top positions. Leadership is a mindset rather than a title. Just because your title lacks the term leader doesn't mean you can't be a leader. We encourage you to clarify your own personal definition of leadership and live by those tenets. A great first step is #ChooseToChallenge. Don't just say it - do it.
The key to thinking about leadership is to find a model that fits with your values, beliefs and context. Remember that everyone, regardless of level, gender, orientation, and background has the potential to be a leader, so get going. Lead the way.
Keely was recently appointed Co-Chair of the VCCC Strategic Program Steering Group - Program 9 Leadership Development.
