Oprah Winfrey’s Words are Meaningless in the workplace

This article was lifted from a press release titled Are Oprah Winfrey’s Words Meaningful or Meaningless? written by Fabianne Keily of Real Woman Global.

“Follow your call” was the key message from Oprah Winfrey as 15,000 women (and a few men) sat awestruck in a packed auditorium recently as Oprah embarked on her national Australian tour ‘An Evening with Oprah’.

‘True happiness and sustainable success is directly attributed to our ability to connect with our purpose and fulfil it’

‘Our core beliefs about ourselves, directly affects what we are able to achieve in our lives’

These were just a couple of the gems that Oprah shared with the women on the night. And while these words were inspiring and provoking, it felt like the ‘call to arms’ was meaningless without some tangible tools and available mentors to show women HOW they could actually achieve this.

As Oprah calls Australian women to ‘connect with their purpose and fulfil it, many women struggle with how they can actually achieve this in a workplace environment that is focused on masculine based ‘skills’ rather than offering women a meaningful way to build their inner levels of confidence and cultivate a sustainable belief in their abilities.

Despite there being massive opportunity in Australia right now for women to step up into senior management and board roles, statistics show that there has still not been a significant increase in the number of women in senior management roles or on boards since 2009.

In fact a report compiled by the Equal Opportunity for Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) ‘Australian Census of Women in Leadership’ noted the following observations:

• In 2012 of the 278 executive directors in the ASX200 only seven of these CEO’s were women (Page28)
• Companies that have at least some female board representation outperform those with no women in terms of share price performance (Page 37)

This is further evidenced as Christine Holgate (CEO of Blackmores), recently took out the CEO of the Year Award in recognition of her outstanding leadership and being instrumental in taking Blackmore’s share price from $18 to $189.

So could it be that women and the equal opportunity leaders have been barking up the wrong tree and focusing on upskilling women rather than building confidence and self-belief. Is it possible that women have the skill to be leaders and in senior management positions, but simply lack the confidence to apply for roles when they become vacant.

One organisation in Australia that believes that women represent an enormously under-utilised resource in business and the broader community is Real Woman Global and they’ve decided to ‘do it different’. We are hosting Australia’s first personal empowerment conference for professional women ‘Stepping Up’.

The conference is open to women of all backgrounds and professions who are looking to step up to achieve a greater level of leadership and includes keynote addresses from Internationally renowned Corporate Motivation and Activation Coach Eric Bailey, AFL’s leadership expert Belinda Duarte, TV Celebrity and Women’s Health Ambassador Tania Zaetta and Corporate Work/Life Balance Expert Shannah Kennedy.

For more information visit the website www.realwomanglobal.org