15 Women and 2 Men were invited to the first of a series of Focus Group Meetings initiated by Premie Naicker, whose research seeks to create a new ontological foundation for understanding and practising feminine leadership in South Africa – thereby drawing deeply on methodological frameworks of African Feminism, Intersectionality and Womenism.
Facilitated by TRANS4M Senior Fellow Dr. Loshnee Naidoo, together with Premie Naicker, the focus group – within a very animated and engaged atmosphere – explored the underlying challenges that women in leadership positions face in South Africa, their root causes and innovative solutions to address these challenges.
The dialogical format that characterised this first focus meeting group allowed to surface deep thoughts, experiences and insights, and provided an excellent foundation for forthcoming focus groups, designed as a process to participate in the co-creation of a new African Women Leadership Framework and processs, that each of the focus group members can then also actively bring to her own workplace. Such a co-creation also clearly transcends the format of an overly individualized and personalized PhD research, towards a more collectively owned research to innovation process.
Premie Naicker is hence positioning her PhD journey, from the outset, as an opportunity to invite a larger community of concerned women into the co- creation of a prospective social innovation, enabling large scale impact with regards to the transformation of the currently predominant masculine (and western) leadership paradigm in South Africa.
