Nasmera Buckus, COO at GTP – Founder of the Northern Collective, explains the next chapter of women’s leadership.
Women have spent decades being told to find their seat at the table. I think we need to ask a different question now: once we have that seat, what are we doing with it?
For me, leadership is not only about reaching a position of influence. It is about what we choose to do with that influence, who we bring into the conversation, whose voice we amplify and which doors we open for the women coming behind us.
This has become increasingly important to me through my own experience of working alongside women leaders across business, government, academia and civil society.
I have found extraordinary women in senior positions, often tackling remarkably similar challenges: supporting entrepreneurs, strengthening communities, building organisations and creating opportunities. Yet too often, we were doing this work independently.
I kept asking myself what might be possible if we stopped meeting only when there was a problem to solve and started building trusted relationships before the problem existed.
That question ultimately led to the founding of the Northern Collective. The Collective is rooted in a simple belief: women leaders do not need another space merely to network. We need spaces where relationships can develop into meaningful collaboration, where knowledge is shared, doors are opened and collective influence can be turned into action. This distinction matters.
Women’s leadership is frequently discussed in terms of representation, how many women are in executive positions, on boards or in senior management. Those measures are important. But representation is only part of the equation.
The next question is what happens when women have influence. Do we keep that influence within our own organisations, or do we use it to strengthen the ecosystem around us?
I believe women have a particular opportunity to do the latter. That does not mean women are naturally better leaders, or that there is a single “female” way of leading. Every woman leads differently.
But I have observed that many women place considerable value on relationships, listening and building consensus. In complex environments, those qualities are not peripheral to leadership. They can be decisive.
The challenges facing our organisations and communities rarely fit within one institution. Economic inclusion, entrepreneurship, education, urban development and community resilience require people with different experiences and expertise to work together.
That makes the ability to convene increasingly valuable, someone needs to step forward and to make the introduction and to invite a different voice into the room.
We need to recognise that another woman has expertise that could change the outcome. And we need to be willing to share the credit when it does.
This is where I believe women can make a significant contribution to the future of leadership. We should be intentional about creating access for one another.
If you have information that could help another woman, share it. If you know someone she needs to meet, make the introduction. If an opportunity comes across your desk and you know another woman is better placed for it, recommend her.
These actions can seem small, but they are not and access compounds.
One introduction can lead to a partnership and a partnership can lead to a business opportunity that can create employment, investment or influence that extends far beyond the two people who first connected.
This is why I believe we should stop thinking about women’s networks simply as support structures. The strongest networks are economic and leadership ecosystems.
They connect expertise, influence, opportunity and experience and create crucial relationships that can withstand the pressure of a particular project or organisation because they are built on trust rather than transaction.
That is particularly important for women who are already in leadership, it can become increasingly isolating as responsibility grows. There are fewer spaces where senior women can speak candidly about difficult decisions, uncertainty and the pressures that come with being accountable for others.
A leadership community should create a ripple effect. Every woman leader influences employees, colleagues, entrepreneurs, partners and communities. When she opens a door for another woman, that opportunity does not necessarily stop with the individual who receives it, as it can travel.
This is the kind of collective impact I had in mind when I founded the Northern Collective. I wanted to create a space where women from different sectors could move beyond exchanging contacts and begin asking how they could build better cities together.
That means collaboration must be intentional, as simply putting people in a room is not enough. Trust has to be developed and different perspectives have to be respected. There has to be a willingness to move beyond organisational interests and find areas of shared purpose.
And, importantly, women must be able to disagree without undermining one another. The ability to build those relationships is not a soft addition to leadership. It is a strategic capability.
South Africa needs more women in positions of influence, but we also need women who are prepared to use that influence generously.
The measure of progress cannot only be how many women reach the top. It should also be how many women are able to move forward because those already there chose to open the door.
This Women’s Month, that is the leadership conversation I would like us to have. Not simply: how do we get more women into the room?
But what happens when we get there, do we compete for the same limited space, or do we make the table bigger?
Do we protect our knowledge, or do we share it, do we wait for opportunities to come to us, or do we create access for others?
I believe the future of women’s leadership will be shaped not only by the women who rise, but by the women who reach back.
Because leadership is not diminished when another woman succeeds, it is multiplied.
And perhaps the most meaningful legacy of a woman leader is not the position she held, but the number of other women who found the confidence, connection and opportunity to step into theirs.
