Purpose and Target Audience
This package seeks to strengthen existing leadership development curricula for pre- and in-service health workers and managers through a suite of gender-transformative sessions, which challenge participants to identify and respond to unique considerations for women in leadership. Rather than expecting women to “lean in” to professions and organizations that have largely excluded them from leadership and senior roles, gender-transformative leadership addresses discrimination, bias, and inequities in the system (both formal and informal) so that women are included on an equal basis to men. In this way, gender-transformative leadership can be used by and benefit decision-makers, the institutions they work in, and the health system itself.
Gender transformative leadership seeks to cultivate individuals, including decision-makers, who empower themselves and their organizations “to pay close attention to gender power structures and discriminatory practices—both formal and informal—in order to advance gender equity in their organizations” as well as in the communities and constituencies they serve.
UN Women, Transformative Leadership: Leading for Gender Equality and Women’s Rights
Unlike traditional leadership development programs, which tend to focus heavily on building individuals’ confidence and skills to lead, this package goes further to also explore how formal (policies, laws) and informal (norms, workforce cultures) systems present opportunities and barriers to achieving gender equality in health sector organizations.