Leadership making a real difference
9 Nov 2018
Over three years ago, we started The Link for women in payments. Founded and led by our GM Strategy and Corporate Affairs, Jane Retimana, the objective of The Link is to provide a platform for women to connect, share experiences and discuss challenges.
We’re pleased to have seen interest in this network grow exponentially over this time. We’ve received positive feedback from attendees about how the events have helped them develop professionally and connect with other like-minded women.
In that spirit of community and professional growth, we recently held a special edition of The Link in Auckland and Wellington. In partnership with The Hunger Project, we ran a unique leadership workshop called “Rethinking what’s possible”. The Hunger Project is a global organisation which works to empower women and communities in developing nations to mobilise change around solving hunger and poverty.
And in the spirit of diversity, we opened up the workshop to our male colleagues. After all, it takes a community of people working together to achieve greatness.
We had a good turnout to the workshops from across the payments ecosystem.
Rethinking what’s possible
The workshop was based on The Hunger Project's unique 5-step Methodology to Effective Leadership, developed over the past 40 years. It offered a fresh perspective on leadership, taking lessons learned from leaders in developing countries and applying them to our own lives and the workplace.
Our facilitators Paula ter Brake and Millie Allbon from The Hunger Project, delved into the session with an introductory exercise where we learned more about each other.
They then took us through steps to shift our thinking from an “I can’t” scarcity type mindset to an “I can” growth mindset to a “we can” benefits mindset.
The workshop had a strong interactive learning component. We listened to moving stories about women from developing nations who overcame seemingly impossible obstacles along their path to leadership. Through The Hunger Project’s transformative leadership coaching, these women ended up leading change not just for themselves but their communities too.
One of the interesting takeouts from the workshop was the significance of having a personal vision of your end goal that can keep people going through tough times. Patience, perseverance and commitment are also important traits to achieving any vision.
Supporting a great cause
We’d like to say a big thank you to all who attended the workshop including our male associates for supporting this event.
The money raised from these workshops has gone directly to The Hunger Project for use in their global development programmes.
If you’re interested in finding out more about The Hunger Project and what they do, contact details can be found on their website www.thp.org.nz