What a great way to start a day… in a room packed with powerful women…and one enlightened man who has already said how lucky he is. Congratulations, Harve and today’s organizers on this turnout of support.

This room probably has an extra jolt or two of power, given the presence of the President of this great University:

Donna Shalala, a woman who has used her power to improve the lives of the citizens of this community and this country…

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I had the privilege of serving on the national United Way Board for a couple of years…when Dr. Johnetta Cole was the Board Chair. We heard the remarkable stories of lives transformed by the work of United Way organizations all over this country and I know that United Way Miami Dade is a leader among all United Ways in creating transformational changes in the lives of children and families in South Florida.

I congratulate them and you for what you do and what you give to continue this important work,

And I want to suggest this morning that all of us, have the power to do more, give more, have more impact.  We just have to acknowledge and embrace our individual and collective power.

And in order to do that, we, as women, need to get a lot more comfortable with the concept of power.

I have been thinking a lot about this lately, having just participated in two women and power conferences. One convened by the Omega Institute, a retreat in upstate New York and the other, the annual Fortune Most Powerful Women’s conference in California. And of course, if you’ve been near a newsstand recently, you’ve noticed that couple of cover stories on the subject, too.

So why is it that power as a topic continues to create a certain level of discomfort for many women?

Well, let’s start with the fact that as women, we’ve had less of it throughout history…less experience with it…and because of since most of our experiences with power, our images of power, our perceptions of power have been defined by the gender that had more of it…one gender, pretty much one class and primarily one ethnic background, too.

And power has been further defined by titles and positions rather than by actions or outcomes and when considered as a whole, many of the actions we associate with power are also associate with force, domination, conflict.

So as we begin to rethink our images and perceptions of power, we have to separate power from force. It’s understandable that they are often interchangeable in our minds, given how often power has been used to enforce, to dictate, to dominate. We have far fewer images of power being used to negotiate or to build bridges of understanding and compassion, to strengthen trust and create coalitions or to teach as well as to lead.

So our visual image of power is distorted: usually a man in a power suit. But we know that power comes in all kinds of suits today, including very pretty feminine ones that I see in this room today.

So why are we still reluctant to accept that we are powerful and could be more so if we got a little more comfortable with our personal and collective power as women.

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I had a fascinating conversation about this with a woman who is one of the nine ever awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, Jody Williams,  who was awarded the peace prize for her work in negotiating the first global ban against the use of landmines. Such an impressive result qualifies her as powerful in my mind…but not in her own.

She insisted in our conversation that she was not powerful and that working for peace and an end to violence is the opposite of power. True enough, but it will take power to replace weapons of war with the processes for sustainable peace. That’s why I believe so strongly that Jody’s power is so critical to the success of her work….her power as a Nobel laureate and as a skilled negotiator  and as someone who knows about to build coalitions and lead successful action campaigns.

All during that weekend at the Omega Institute, we debated the power question and I realize how much of our power as women is held captive by our own doubts and fears about being powerful. And yet everywhere we look today, gratefully, there are great examples of women with power who are using it to make life better for themselves, their communities and countries.

One powerful woman leader I admire greatly and met at the conference is Rigoberta Menchu Tum who won the nobel peace prize in 1992 for her work among indigenous people in Guatemala and throughout central America. She epitomizes women power to me with an open smiling face and courage that matches her resolve to make a difference. She just ran for the Presidency of Guatemala, the first indigenous woman to run for President of any country…and while she didn’t win this time, she survived a campaign in which 7 of the other candidates were assassinated. As she described the dangers she faced taking a leadership role in her country, she radiated power…the kind of power that can and will change her country even though it is clear that her power has made her a target for those who fear that her kind of power threatens the status quo. And it does.

Let me share some observations from the other conference I attended last week, Fortune magazine’s Most Powerful Women in business, and once again, the most intense and interesting discussions were around the  topic of women and power.

To my astonishment, many of the women on the Fortune top 50 list didn’t like being on a list called Powerful women. These are women with the ultimate power title…CEO…and they are leading global companies, successfully, and yet, some still have issues being described as powerful.

A few of them from the high tech companies like Google and Yahoo  even admitted to leaving off the word, Power, when writing the name of the event on their corporate calendars. They just wrote, “Fortune conference”. When pressed about why, they admitted to worrying that their male colleagues who had access to the corporate calendars, would think they were being uppity or pushy or self promotional.   I was shocked. Can you imagine any man attending a most powerful in business conference leaving out the P word?

We have a problem. Because if we can’t write or say the word, chances are we are also not getting the power we need to accomplish the goals we have established for ourselves and our families…and without accepting the power we have, whatever the source of it, makes it much more difficult for other women to get it and use it.    

I am reminded of the first women and Power conference I attended in 1990, put together by Arab and Israeli women determined to do what their leaders were failing to do: find a way to resolve the age old conflicts in the Region known as the Middle East.

On opening night of the conference, Bella Abzug, then a NY congresswoman, stood and said “if we are going to see peace in our lifetime anywhere in the world, women have got to change the nature of power rather than power changing the nature of women”. Notice she didn’t say, ‘change who is in power but she said, change the nature of power when we have it.”

That’s still our challenge: change the nature of power…what it looks like, feels like, acts like…and in doing this, we also redefine how power can be used by a new set of values…a woman’s unique set of values if you will.

The first change I would suggest is that reconnect power with responsibility. As women, we have no issue with accepting responsibilities. Just look at our lives and consider the numbers of responsibilities that each of us is juggling right now.

So let’s put responsible back into power rather than trying to have responsibilities without power. It’s a lot easier to effectively meet our responsibilities, to successfully accomplish the many tasks we so willingly take on if we also have the personal and collective power to impact the outcomes.

Let’s also put the value of motherhood forward as a tremendous source of power. I don’t mean the super mom who tries to be all things to all people all at one time, but I do mean the skills that come with parenting that would change the nature of power if fully incorporated.  I mean respecting and using what we know how to do as mothers…to nurture, to listen, to comfort, to support…using all that and more as part of the way we change and use power in every aspect of our lives and work.  

If you look carefully at the companies that have the best family policies and the best child care provisions, more often than now, there is a mother that led the effort for it.  Being effective as a mother or daughter or sister and certainly as a wife gives us a perspective on power that is different and that is incredibly useful…if we don’t deny it or push it aside but instead put those values and experiences right and center when tapping into our personal power.

I believe passionately that power can be redefined if women do this…and I see examples everywhere of what can happen when a women with power  fully engages her life experiences as a woman and brings those experiences to bear as she leads from her own set of values, her own values of power.  This will make her a different kind of leader in my opinion.

And yes, there are some good examples of men using power very positively, too. But I’m not trying to convince men to be more comfortable with their power.  They don’t seem to have a problem.

Recently, a man I admire greatly as a media visionary and a committed philanthropist, Ted Turner, said, “men should be banned from running for any public office for the next 100 years”. He went on to say that it would take that long to rid the world of testosterone poisoning.”

I wouldn’t go that far…in fact, few people every go as far as Ted goes…but I do think it’s time to recognize that women with the power of elected office…be it mayor, city council, school board, senator or President…bring a different perspective to power and that new kind of power can be produce very positive results.

When women use their power in alignment with their own lives and experiences, focusing on innate inclinations to build consensus rather than conflict; to share rather than dominate; to put family values closer to the top of the priority list, and this results in using power …not for ourselves alone,

That was what the suffragists said about their long fight to win for us the most important power of all…the power of the vote. When the 19^th amendment was signed, less than 100 years ago, they knew they would never get to use that power, but they said all along,
”this is not for ourselves alone.” Power in our hands can be used …not for ourselves alone. That, too, is a defining difference that can make all the difference.

So is the use of power to empower others. n this issue of Fortune about this year’s most powerful women, the focus is on how many of this year’s  top CEO’s are using their power to mentor and to prepare other women to take the top positions when they leave. So wherever we are on the ladder of business success, we can change the nature of power by dropping the ladder down for those who are coming behind…at every step up, reaching back to offer a hand or counsel.

That’s real power.

There are examples around the world of women with elected power also changing the nature of power and therefore changing the lives of their people. The first African woman ever elected to be President of her country, Ellen Sirleaf Johnson, was elected President of Liberia by the women of that country. They went door to door…the market women, many of whom are illiterate and had never voted…saying “vote for President Ellen”. They did that because they believed she would make their lives better and she did.

In Chile, the first female President, Dr. Michelle Bachelet, a pediatrician and researcher, promised to improve the situation for the hundreds of thousands of poor women who rather than face bringing another child into the world that they could not feed or care for, were going through horrible processes to terminate unwanted pregnancies. She put the morning after pill on the market, made it available to all women and in doing so, probably sealed her political fate to being a one term President. But she said she would rather make life better for the women of her country while she was President than worry about reelection. Now that’s a new approach to political power: do good while you have the power and not worry about keeping it.

Benazir Bhutto, the first woman to be prime minister of a Muslim country is considering returning to her country from exile to run again. At a recent Council on Foreign Relations meeting, she was asked what she considered her biggest mistake when she was prime minister before. She answered without hesitation: I did not lead my country as a woman. I should have relied more on my natural inclinations as a mother and a wife. I should not have spent so much time trying to prove that I could be as tough as a male Prime Minister. As a woman, I could have changed the lives of Pakistani women and children and families if I had used my power more as a women leader.”

This was a stunning statement to make…especially at the Council and to an audience primarily of men and given that she still intends to try to run again in Pakistan.   I couldn’t resist going up to her afterwards to both remind her of the first interview she did with me when she was running the first time and to thank her for this profound admission.

The first time I had asked her about why she accepted an arranged marriage and she had said “I can run the country or be in love but not both at same time”. She laughed when I reminded her and said “yes, but I feel in love and many say that was my biggest problem but I am still in love, she went on to say.”

Let’s hope she can be in love, and get elected to be a woman with power who says she will use power as a woman…to be a leader for women as well as a leader who is a woman.

And let’s not forget the power we all have as consumers either. American women are the world’s largest single economy, controlling 3 trillion dollars in buying power. That’s a lot of power so let’s use that, too, for positive change. Demand that companies whose products you buy are producing those products fairly and equitably and that their workplace policies and their corporate board reflect a commitment to diversity and inclusiveness.

Someone once said that no one in power ever gives it up voluntarily. That’s true for companies as well as countries, CEO’s as well as Presidents, but we can, as women leaders…and each of us is a leader or we wouldn’t be here this morning…we can accept our personal power, our ability to impact change, and join together with purpose and passion to create measurable results and positive changes in every aspect of our lives and our communities.

Power is good when it is inclusive and even better when it is shared.

Shared but not given away. As women, we have done that enough already.

The problems in our communities and in our country and world are so huge that we will need power to shape the long term solutions to poverty, to lack of access of education and economic prosperity, to end injustice and violence.

United Way is committed to doing that, but they can’t do it without the power that is in this room.  The power to share time and resources to make this community a better place to live for everyone.

We have already accepted the responsibilities. Now let’s accept the power and lead in the way that redefines power and transforms lives, communities and indeed, the world.