For International Women’s Day 2024, I’d like to highlight and recognise one of the most influential women in the history of leadership: Mary Parker Follett.
It’s difficult to overstate Mary’s impact on leadership theory.
Just about every theory today – from trait, relational, distributed, situational, authentic, transformational, servant and pretty much every other theory – has been influenced by her studies.
Many of her ideas could help us with several of our current challenges of leadership, like how to distribute power, navigate uncertainty, and make diversity a valuable asset.
Unfortunately, Mary was born in 1868 in Massachusetts, where accepting women in academia was not without its challenges.
Despite being accepted to the University of Cambridge, her studies were slowed by the negative influence of male counterparts.
Nevertheless, Mary continued with her research and wrote prolifically for over 30-years and was accepted to Harvard. She was also the first women to speak at the London School of Economics and was asked to support President Roosevelt on approaches to management within NGOs, not-for-profit and volunteering organisations.
After her death in 1933, her writings were largely forgotten.
The ideas of creating high-performing teams based on individual strengths and great cultures fell out of fashion, as the world lurched toward war and the traditional autocratic, command-and-control styles used within the military at the time.
It wasn’t until the turn of this century that her writings were re-discovered, re-published and found a new following with today’s leadership thought leaders.
However, Mary Parker Follett is still little-known outside of academia and leadership study circles.
That’s something I hope might change with you reading this – and I encourage you to look into some of her work.
