Redifining Strength with Anne Firth Murray

Program Description

Anne Firth Murray had a vision and a direction. She wanted to create a way to help women around the world. She needed to find someone, who could lead an organization willing to put how they worked on an equal plane with its results. Ultimately she became the leader she was looking for. In becoming that person, she discovered much about leading and managing positive change. Beginning as a dinnertime conversation, Murray became the Founding President of The Global Fund for Women in 1987. Within 7 years the fund was providing three million dollars in grants, and was administering $33 million per year by the time she stepped down as president. The keys she says are not new. “We are in a dire situation in the world. We really need to listen and learn from other people and we need to step back and be kind, compassionate, and generous. There is nothing new in the world about this, but we aren’t practicing it enough. We might feel that if we do practice this, we are going to be called weak or miserable; but we aren’t, we are going to be called strong.” (Hosted by Justine Willis Toms)

Anne Firth Murray is the founding president of The Global Fund for Women. She is a consulting professor at Stanford University and the author of Paradigm Found: Leading and Managing for Positive Change (New World Library 2006). To learn more about the world of Anne Firth Murray go to www.annefirthmurray.org

Topics Explored in this Dialogue:

• How does leadership empower people
• What does openness have to do with leadership
• Why we don’t practice compassion and generosity.
• What can individuals do in response to global crises
• What just recognizing differences just doesn’t go far enough

Program Number: 3191            Host: Justine Willis Toms            Interview Date: 1/25/2007