When we start into complex, easily overwhelming terrain like gender equity, it’s seductive to want to throw up our hands, to wait for someone else to do something. And yet during the symposium, I witnessed acts of leadership. I saw participants own their part of the mess, pinpoint a personal default that was contributing to the status quo, question an assumption. Those moments were seeds of the incremental shifts across the system that promise to create monumental change. I personally left the day emboldened in deepening my own work in women’s leadership development and committed to a belief that drives that work: If more women engage in more acts of leadership, the world will be a better place for us all.

Jill was one of the co-facilitators at the Level the Playing Field Symposium on November 14.

Jill is Director of the Batten Leadership Institute at Hollins University, where she delivers adaptive leadership programming built on capacity development, productive ambiguity and sound strategy. By design, this model demands that participants grapple with the challenges that emerge in the room – challenges that mirror those throughout our organisations, communities and lives. Whether working with undergrads, consulting clients, or in one on one coaching, her focus remains: keeping one eye trained squarely on the collective work in the moment, and the other on encouraging acts of leadership.