Dame Sharon White delivers lecture on The Female Leader
“The progress I’ve made in my career and doing such different roles is
-Dame Sharon White
largely down to that adaptability that has become a part of who I am.”
The annual Alice Bacon Lecture returned last Thursday, welcoming Dame Sharon White to the Great Hall to deliver a speech.
The lecture, held collaboratively by the University of Leeds Centre for Democratic Politics and Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves, is named after Leeds’ first woman MP, Alice Bacon, and celebrates the achievements of pioneering women.
As the current Chair of the John Lewis Partnership, and with experience working in the civil service, White was the perfect candidate to speak on this years’ theme: The Female Leader.
White focused on themes of social mobility and the power of comprehensive education
throughout her lecture, and emphasised how lucky she felt to have had the opportunities she
did.
She began, however, by reflecting on the opportunities her parents did not – as part of
the Windrush generation, saying their decision to move to the UK was probably
“the decision that had the biggest impact on the opportunities I’ve had in my life.” Stories of
her mother washing clothes in a river in her youth and having to leave school at age eleven
helped cement her gratitude for the education she received.
White’s parents were from Jamaica, and after migrating to the UK in the 50s, she grew up in
East London. She spoke on always having had a strong sense that she didn’t belong – not in
a way that made her feel without the right to be in the room, she says, but an awareness of
having got there by ways of a different road.
White’s speech was confident and compelling, evidencing the resilience that can come from these experiences. This style has helped her manoeuvre in spaces which are typically less inclusive towards Black women, such as in the civil service, where White pioneered as the first Black Permanent Secretary at the Treasury.
White went as far as to assert that “the progress I’ve made in my career and doing such different roles is largely down to that adaptability that has become a part of who I am.”
On being a woman working in the civil service, White said she could only remember
a few moments of “real unconscious bias or discrimination”, both involving her return to work
after having children. Her insistence on the importance of flexibility in the workplace to allow
people to have a family without sacrificing their career ambitions or receiving lower pay, was moving to hear.
These instances of misogyny followed Dame White into the business sector, receiving a harsh backlash for her actions throughout her time at the John Lewis Partnership.
Whilst she didn’t directly address this in the lecture, she acknowledged the greater scrutiny and higher standards often put on women in business. White also mentioned, with a knowing glance, that her time in Ofcom stood her in good stead in her transition to John Lewis, being a company that attracts “quite a lot of public interest”.
Listening to Dame Sharon White, a woman who has utilised her differences as strengths in her work, left me, and I’m sure most students in the audience, feeling emboldened in my aspirations post-university.
White’s reflections on her experiences in the workplace spoke both to the progress made in terms of diversity and inclusion, and the significant work left to do. She ended her lecture by saying that the importance of women supporting women cannot be overstated, reminding the audience that progress is never linear.
The lecture closed on this quote from former First Lady of the United States, Michelle Obama:
“You should never view your challenges as a disadvantage. Instead, it’s important for you to understand that your experience facing and overcoming adversity is actually one of your biggest advantages.”
-Michelle Obama
