Sixteen selected, high caliber Bhutanese civil servants, 11 women and five men, attended a three-day workshop on women in executive leadership. The workshop, which ended yesterday in Thimphu, was the final component of the Australia Awards Short Course, ‘Women in Executive Leadership Development Program’.
This is the first time the Australian government’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) delivered the course for Bhutanese civil service executives.
The course was aimed at strengthening and promoting leadership capabilities of executives to enable them to initiate changes to working environments, which would in turn support women to undertake executive leadership roles at local and central government levels.
It was delivered by Australia’s University of Queensland. Polly Parker, an Associate Dean of Academic with the university, says it’s important to have women in executive positions to ensure decision making bodies are representative of the general population.
“From the consumer perspective, women bring a different understanding to the problems,” she said. And this why, she says, women voices matter in decision making at all levels.
Kesang Deki, a Commissioner with the Royal Civil Service Commission (RCSC), was one of the course participants. She said it’s hard for women to rise in their career ladder when they have to take care of 95 per cent of household chores.
“The women take care of the family and so they are so busy, and suddenly you also expect them to come to work and do well.”
The Director of the National Commission for Women and Children, Kunzang Lhamu,who took part in yesterday’s workshop thinks parental leave would help change the status quo.
“Parental leave will have many benefits for women because then it would mean the mothers will not necessarily have to take extended periods of leave from work to raise a child. Instead, fathers can take on this role and the women can focus on their careers,” the NCWC Director added.
Associate Dean of Academic Polly Parker thinks such short courses will help bring about positive changes. “The participants come from different sectors including education, agriculture, and so developing their capability means increasing the sphere of influence,” she said.
The earlier two components of the short course saw the participants take part in an online course and an in-Australia program, both of which took place in November and December last year.
A unique feature of the short course was participants having to develop individual Return-to-Work Plans. These are structured activity plans that describe how recipients will apply their newly acquired skills and knowledge to a specific project or set of activities.
During the in-Australia course delivery, participants had the opportunity to strengthen their plans by integrating new knowledge and insights obtained from the course with the help of course leaders, industry experts and mentors. Participants then implemented their plans at their own workplaces in Bhutan, and shared the outcomes and lessons with their peers at yesterday’s in-country workshop.
The short course also focused on several other leadership themes, such as women leading in adaptive environments, developing personal leadership capabilities, peer coaching and mentoring, development of team and organizational leadership capabilities, promoting inclusion and diversity, and strategic leadership and innovation.
The Australia Award Short Courses offer the next generation of global leaders an opportunity to undertake short-term study, research and professional development opportunities in support of key development and foreign affairs priorities.
Short Course opportunities also build valuable people-to-people links both within Australia and within the Indo-Pacific region, enabling mid-career professionals and emerging leaders to tap into Australian expertise, gaining valuable skills and knowledge.
According to a report by the National Statistics Bureau (NSB), only 8.8 per cent of the Bhutanese women hold executive positions in the civil service. Courses like the Women in Executive Leadership Development Program are expected to help improve and enhance women representation in the higher echelons of the civil service.
