I want to wish every Mother a very happy Mother's Day! Did you know that...women's peace groups marked the first efforts at creating a day to honor mothers in the United States? This occurred around the time of the Civil War when women who had lost sons in the war came together. Ann Jarvis was the first to found a committee which would create a day called, "Mother's Friendship Day" in 1868. Unfortunately, Ann passed away before she could see her dream of an annual holiday for mothers come to pass. In 1872, Julia Ward Howe spearheaded a Mother's Day observance along with a "Mother's Day Proclamation". This movement lost momentum and dissipated. In 1877, a Mother's Day observance was held on May 13th in Albion, Michigan. Finally, in 1904 the first public request was made by Frank E. Hering for a "national day to honor our mothers."

To all my GWLN Sisters, have a wonderful day!

The National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) lacks diversity among its employees. In an article by Credit Union Times journalist Heather Anderson, NCUA’s Office of Minority and Women Inclusion points out that minorities only represent a small percentage of credit union employees; a percentage that is even smaller when it comes to high-er  level positions. Although women make up 46% of their employees, only one fourth of NCUA’s senior pay level positions are held by women.  Within the U.S. credit union industry, women comprise almost half of senior positions but minorities make up only 11%. To face this challenge, NCUA recommends (among other suggestions) that credit unions include diversity goals in their strategic plans.

What strategies do you suggest to promote the inclusion of minorities and women?

To read full article please click here
To read the report released by the NCUA’s Office of Minorities and Women Inclusion please click here

Don’t forget to take a look at our new Spring Newsletter!

We hope you had the chance to have a look at some tips for better leadership that can be found at the resource library..

Recently, Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman, CEO and President of Zenger/Folkman, a leadership development consultancy, wrote an interesting article that analyzes men and women leadership. They surveyed more than 7,000 leaders and results showed that even though women leaders are outnumbered by men, their performance are more valued by their peers. The authors hypothesize that one of the explanation for this finding is that women leaders need to work harder than men to be recognized.

To read this article, please click on:

http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/03/a_study_in_leadership_women_do.html

And don’t forget to give your opinion/experience as a credit union women leader!