International Women's Day or International Women's Day is a day celebrated to recognize the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women. Every year on March 8, International Women's Day is celebrated to fight for the rights that women have not fully obtained.
This year, the theme raised to commemorate International Women's Day is Embrace Equity, or Embrace Equality. This theme was raised with the aim of reminding everyone to challenge gender stereotypes, discrimination, and strive for inclusion.
With this theme, it is hoped that everyone deserves equal opportunities regardless of gender or gender, even in occupying strategic positions as leaders. Now, judging someone based on their gender is no longer relevant. Everyone must be assessed fairly based on their respective abilities and capabilities.
Women's Leadership
Even though it is already in the era that is considered modern, there are still many stereotypes about women that are not basic. This makes it difficult for women to do anything, including being a leader. Some people doubt the capability of a woman as a leader just because of her gender.
According to the 2020 Women in Business data, Indonesia ranks 4th with the highest percentage of female leadership, namely 37%. Even though it ranks 4th in the world, this percentage is still not balanced with the share of male leadership, which is 63%.
Even though it's still not balanced, statistics show that the percentage of female leadership is increasing every day. Not only that, surveys prove that the proportion of women in strategic corporate positions continues to grow.
Now, gender should no longer be the main thing to determine one's success. Women with qualified abilities and capabilities should be able to get the same opportunities as men in terms of work, even in achieving strategic positions to make policies.
Women's Leadership in eFishery
eFishery is a company that assesses a person's ability to lead based on their capabilities and abilities, not based on their gender. One example of women in strategic positions in eFishery is Cita Rezkiani, Vice President of Operations and Supply Chain Upstream.
Prior to becoming Vice President at eFishery, Cita has been in the Supply Chain world for 18 years. One of the things that allowed him to survive in this male-dominated world was purpose. In working, he sticks to his goal of always moving upwards to improve himself.
Not without challenges, sometimes Cita still gets negative stereotypes about female leaders, especially in fields that are dominated by men. According to Cita, the stereotype of female leaders that she usually gets is sensitivity which is the nature of women.
Cita did not dispute this. He acknowledged that women and men are created differently, with different physiology and hormones. However, these things are used as negative stereotypes that are used to hinder women from leadership positions. However, Cita managed to prove her point that women can be successful leaders, even in a male-dominated world like the Supply Chain.
Like any other leader, Cita also has her own leadership style. As a leader, Cita believes that transparency is the key to the success of a team. With transparency, Cita always encourages her team members to express ideas and feelings to one another. This is because openness and good communication can fix or solve problems that exist within the team.
“The leadership style that I always apply to all team members is transparency. By being transparent, I hope that all team members can always express their own ideas, feelings, and what they want to do. This is because transparency, openness, and good communication can improve or resolve various things," he said.
Being a leader is not easy, including for Cita. At first, Cita was worried because previously she had no experience in the aquaculture industry. Moreover, he had to lead 60 people with different characteristics and temperaments. Not everyone on his team can follow his leadership style which promotes transparency. This sometimes becomes a barrier to the work process in the team.
However, of course, Cita has a solution, which is to hold a session 1-on-1 once every 2 weeks with his team members. With sessions 1-on-1, Cita believes comfort and trust will arise by itself so as to create openness.
In addition, Cita is always holding value during work and career, namely doing work that has a direct impact on many people. Therefore, he feels very grateful to be able to work at eFishery, a company that gave him the opportunity to utilize his abilities to make life easier for many people.
For Cita, being a leader is not just about managing work. Being a leader is about how much impact you have made to make others happy without sacrificing integrity. Integrity is a fundamental benchmark for leadership. In conclusion, a leader must lead with integrity, honesty, and adhere to the values of his organization.
Cita is not the only person who has the opportunity to lead a team in eFishery. Here, there are many great women who carry out women's leadership in Manager positions, Team Leaders, even Division Heads. They continue to contribute to society as a whole and work to advance the Indonesian Aquaculture sector.
Come on, cool Indonesian women, grab whatever you want and lose it biased gender with your great abilities!
Happy International Women's Day, the nation's best women!