As the world prepares to enter the 21st century, a "disproportionate'' number of countries (including Bermuda) have chosen women as their leaders.

It was this realisation, some two or three years ago, that caused international management expert Dr. Nancy Adler to turn her attention to this apparent phenomenon.

Last week, she led the highly successful Global Women's Leadership Conference, held for the first time in Bermuda. Organised by Maria Thacker of Bermuda Cultural Services in association with Benedict Associates, there was a two-day workshop for a small, selected group of women that examined leadership management in a global perspective and included a one-on-one executive coaching session for each participant. In addition, more than 50 people attended a public lecture by Dr. Adler on women as political and corporate leaders.

"Normally, my focus is on global leadership in general, but this time, I decided to talk about women,'' she told Living . "We have been looking at women's roles as senior leaders in both the political and corporate world.'' Dr. Adler, Professor in the Faculty of Management at McGill University and a consultant who lectures internationally on transnational company management, added Bermuda's Premier Pamela Gordon to the long list of political and corporate leaders she has interviewed around the world.

"She is very articulate and definitely has a message right now that wouldn't hurt the rest of the world to heed! I am not really into politics, but it was interesting that she chose to talk about the importance of Bermuda's society learning to live together -- recognising and respecting our differences as well as our likenesses -- and finding a way to use those differences to the advantage of society in general.'' Noting that Bermuda's Leader of the Opposition is also a woman (Jennifer Smith), Dr. Adler said she was fascinated to discover that the Island echoes the present trend towards women taking leadership roles. "Some of the things that are going on here are playing out even louder elsewhere around the world.

When I began looking into this, I found that there have been 41 women presidents and prime ministers. If we look at post-World War II, there were no women in office in the 1950s, three in the '60s, five in the '70s, eight in the '80s and, so far, 25 in this decade -- and it's not over yet. This is absolutely amazing and I believe there are some basic reasons for this.'' Noting that, surprisingly, the area with the largest number of women leaders is Asia, Dr. Adler said that there seems to have been no consistency in this turn of events. "You have some of the world's richest, poorest, largest, smallest (Bermuda!), highest literacy, lowest literacy, highest and lowest infant mortalities, countries that are democratic and some that are not who have chosen women as their leaders. So I think we have to accept that a disproportionate number of countries are going through major changes and are electing women for the first time -- they look different, and sound different, and are symbolic of change. There is the feeling, perhaps, that if we choose women, other changes are possible!'' This feeling has so far not penetrated the continent perhaps most associated with women's rights. "The US has never elected a woman leader and Canada had Kim Campbell, but only for a few months.

She is the only woman in the whole of North America to have been elected.'' Dr. Adler (who includes Ms Gordon in this observation) has reached the conclusion that women are symbolic of unity among the various people in their countries. "This is certainly true of Mary Robinson, for instance, who became President of Ireland. She was one of several leaders who is vision-driven, with a human rights/peace agenda. As a person who was in a Catholic/Protestant marriage, she was able to bring about a sense of unity.'' Dr. Adler also cited Agatha Uwilingiyimana. "Rwanda is known mainly for genocide but there was a brief moment in history, in 1993, when they decided to sign a peace treaty between the Tutsis and Hutus. They chose Agatha (also in a mixed, Tutsi/Hutu marriage) as prime minister and even though she knew she was literally risking her life -- she had already been attacked with her children -- she had the courage to stand up and say `Enough, already!' when none of the men would do that. She was a Hutu and the Hutus murdered her.

Similarly, Corazon Aquino did not want to run for the presidency when her husband was murdered but she did and her first cabinet included the opposition as well as her own party. The press labelled her as naive but she was not. She was courageous, and said she didn't want anyone else to die because they couldn't sit down and discuss their differences.'' Conceding that the trend for women leaders may be "a blip'', Dr. Adler added, "What is important is that it seems to be breaking it open for other women to succeed. Two women will be running together as party leader in Bermuda this year, and the exact parallel will be happening in New Zealand.'' Politically, the world seems to be responding to a `grass roots' sense of hope in electing women. Even though many (particularly in Asia) have belonged to dynastic families, it is still interesting to note, said Dr. Adler that, even in mainly Muslim countries, women (Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan, Tansu Ciller in Turkey) have forged ahead of assorted brothers, cousins and uncles to take the top post.

In the corporate field, Dr. Adler made the observation that most of the women who are now making it to the top do so mainly through `lateral' transfers.

"They come from outside the traditional system and it's important to understand this because in the 21st century there will be a merging of business and politics -- it's happening already, in fact -- where you have a situation in which business is really running government. So you need to employ people who understand these dynamics -- not someone who's been in a `chimney stack' career who goes through one company, starting from school.'' An interesting example of an outsider who took the business world by storm, said Dr. Adler, was Margery Scardino, a journalist by profession. "Last year, she became the new boss of the FT 100 after being managing editor of The Economist at Pearson Plc, a conglomerate that owns The Financial Times, Penguin and so on. Their leadership was all elite, Oxbridge people and along came Margery, who's a Texan, a complete cultural outsider, an American, and a woman. She is going to take The Financial Times global and hit the Wall Street Journal head-on!'' Anita Roddick (The Body Shop) was another, vision-driven woman who started her own business and was then successful in taking it global. Some of the increasing number of women who now head organisations with revenues or assets of over US$1 billion include Sawako Noma, president of Japan's largest publishing house, Khatijah Ahmad of KAF Financial Services in Malaysia, Galia Maor, CEO of Bank Leumi le-Israel, Elen Schneider-Lenne of Deutsch Bank AG, and Maureen Kempston Darkes, president of General Motors of Canada. The interesting point here, said Dr. Adler, was that, again, fewer women are CEO's and presidents in North America than in the rest of the world.

Dr. Adler's work has been featured on BBC television, she produced her own film entitled `A Portable Life', has authored more than 70 papers and published two books. Although there have been various studies on women in management, she said very little had been done on those reaching Premier and CEO levels. "We are only just beginning to learn about it. I felt this was a very successful conference -- and I would say that you have some powerful and insightful women in Bermuda!'' Dr. Nancy Adler CONFERENCE CON