During his tenure as president, Barack Obama was known for his progressive opinions. After all, he was the Home and Change guy of the United States (US).
His sterling reputation still holds true till today, as he imparted an interesting perspective during his speech in Singapore — the world will be a better place if women ran all countries in the world for the next 2 years.
This was reported in TODAY Online on 16 Dec, the same day the 44th US president had spoken at a public dialogue at the Singapore Expo Convention Hall and Exhibition Centre.
About 4,500 people turned up to hear what Mr Obama has to say.
According to TODAY Online, Mr Obama pointed out a few intriguing points. One of which, was when he talked about having women leaders in the world.
He states that if countries around the world were to let women run them for 2 years, there would be significant improvement to things such as standards of living.
There would be less war, kids would be better taken care of, and there would be a general improvement in living standards and outcomes.
The ex-president added that if the world were to give a chance to let women run the world of 2 years, they would soon realise that women should run things instead of men.
Mr Obama’s provoking thoughts on women leadership are linked to a bigger picture that he would later elaborate on — leadership diversity.
He painted a picture of what he was trying to talk about using the game of basketball as reference.
A basketball team can’t have all shooters. Some people have to rebound, some people have to do the dirty work, some people have to play defence.
When applying the analogy to governance, Mr Obama had this to say,
The same is true in terms of the diversity of talents that we build on any team, whether it’s in the private sector or the Government.
Basically, he is trying to say that in a government or organisation, there has to be different people who play different roles for things to work effectively.
This way, everyone in the team can cover each other’s blind spots and give constructive feedback on how to amend them.
One way Singapore has adopted this thinking is through forming the 2 electoral constituencies that are governed by different MPs — GRCs and SMCs.
Each GRC or SMC are made up of team members from the different ethnic groups and gender so that they can understand each other’s perspective and provide their citizens with a better living area.
Mr Obama also espoused that leadership renewal is a problem around the world, saying that “old men are not getting out of the way”.
He feels that for a country to grow and improve, there has to be fresh leadership and ideas that give solutions to complex issues, not people who cling to power and have outdated ideas.
He jokingly mentioned that when he was moving with his team, he told his team that it was time for fresh legs and new ideas, although he did not anticipate what these new ideas would be.
Considering the fact that we’re now living in an age where a country has just named a woman as the world’s youngest prime minister, perhaps Mr Obama’s reality of widespread female leadership won’t be too far-fetched.
Source
Fun fact: Ms Marin is also the youngest elected prime minister in the world.
What do you think of Obama’s take on improving global changes under female leadership? Let us know in the comments below.
Featured image adapted from Twitter.
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