A Google search of “great leaders” displays, not surprisingly (in the patriarchal hegemony), predominantly men – Gandhi, Churchill, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King*. The one woman that shows up on some of these lists is Mother Teresa, who, though admirable, her service to her version of God is not one I wish to emulate. Cleopatra turned Egypt into one of the world’s greatest powers of that time, however she is portrayed primarily with regard to her love affairs with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony.
Examples I turn to include the likes of Maya Angelou, Oprah, Ruth Bader Ginsburg. As I reflect, a singular person rising to the top for me is Rosa Parks**. Her defiance, born of authentic fatigue with the status quo, became an important moment in the civil rights movement. A significant, but typically understated component in the maintenance of unjust systems is the perpetuation of the status quo, either because people think things can’t change, or because the prevailing thought is that “leadership” happens from above, or from people in formal leadership roles. Rosa unwittingly demonstrated the power of following the sincere impulse toward dismantling systems of oppression.
* And, by the way, Janzen (2018) points out that Martin Luther King and Ghandi were both imprisoned and later assassinated.
Janzen, R. (2018). Chapter 3 A Framework for Conflict Transformation. In: Conflict analysis and transformation : an introduction for students, activists and communities. Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
** Rosa Parks became famous in December 1955 when, in the racially segregated US, she refused to give her bus seat to a white passenger. She was arrested for civil disobedience, but her action led to the “Montgomery bus boycott”.