I have Olivia Zhang as my interviewee for this assignment. She is the Director of Education of Trinity Language Centre on TWU Richmond campus. The reason for choosing her is simple: she was my teacher and is my role model.
She graduated from Hebei Normal University in China and became the youngest associate professor in the same university at that time. She told me that her job in China was basically the most enviable one. Therefore, when she decided to resign and brought her husband and three-year-old son to Canada to pursue higher education in 2008, no one showed support and understanding. Happily, She got her PHD from Simon Fraser University last year and has been Director in Trinity Language Centre since 2015.
I am not so familiar with the western culture and how women are viewed exactly within the society in terms of social identity or defined character. But in the Eastern World, however, after working for several years and having my own child, I can completely understand how much pressure she had taken in making the decision of giving up the life here and moving to another country to start over. Striving for a life in teaching english in Canada, she needed to not only face the biased gender stereotype but also the racial discrimination. And, the more and deeper I understand her, the more I admire her for taking over all these issues and being herself.
I believe she is a visionary leader which is defined by Warren Bennis (1994) that “The first basic ingredient of leadership is a guiding vision. The leader has a clear idea of what he wants to do – professionally and personally – and the strength to persist in the face of setbacks, even failures” (Cameron & Green, 2012, p. 137-138). Olivia possesses the power of becoming tough when needed (Cameron & Green, 2012), she is also a great speaker given her performance in teaching and giving enthusiastic presentations. More important, she has the strengths to “be able to stand alone” (p. 138) which could be extremely hard for individuals raised up in Chinese culture, especially women. It is the Mediocre Culture China has been honoured for thousands of years. Individuals can suffering fierce, unfriendly criticism for being different from other people. For Olivia, I cannot even imagine how many hostile judgements she gained in the 1990s. But she never mentioned how she stood through all the difficulties and survived from the darkness. I think those days are just the rememberable and exclusive experience for herself, the smiling face and optimistic attitude you can perceive from her every day are the most important things she values.
As a director, Olivia evidently demonstrates servant leadership. She always considers the long-term goal for the students when designing the content of the courses. At the same time, she can focus on helping students to overcome the current problems and direct them to the long perspective. She is also a good listener and shows empathy during listening. Once, I went to her to talk about the personal issue that bothered me a lot. She listened to me very carefully and never interrupted me during talking. After I finishing my “complaining speech”, she did not judge me, instead, she shared her experience with me as she had ran into the same problem before. Finally, I felt understood and figured out my own solution to tackle the issue. Olivia said that she could only help me to find the answer to the problem rather than offering a solution for me, and the finding-solution process by myself was also an effective way to learn from the past and grew up to be a better man. I think her words and conduct echo the servant leader behaviour “helping followers grow and succeed” (Northouse, 2012). Further, she offered a lot of chances to our teaching assistance Yolanda, empowered her to engage in the activities in the class and to teach us once a week. At last, she always put the needs of the students’ first, especially above her own needs, which is typically the unique trait and behaviour of a servant leader (Greenleaf, 1970). For example, when I contacted her and mentioned this interview for my assignment, she showed great support without hesitation, even if I am just one of her previous students.
As for the interview, I have organized Olivia’s answers and will present them one by one in the following part.
Question 1: What is the greatest challenge you have faced or are facing as a woman in leadership?
When the Trinity Language Centre was started, Olivia was working with a white, male instructor with teaching background in higher education. She sensed that the male instructor was kind of arrogant and disrespect her education background and professional ability sometimes. She found it challenging because she always had to prove to him that she was able to the work well although she was a woman and a Chinese. Also, the sense of being distrust and lack of respect came from other instructors who were also white made her feel uncomfortable and angry, and it took her a long time to handle this feeling and the situation.
Question 2: What is something that you do that helps you to meet or deal with this challenge?
This most important part for Olivia was to stop for a second to think of “who you are”. She said: “I am a woman, and I am from somewhere else. But I have the knowledge and the expertise for the position.” Olivia believed this greatly helped her raise the confidence when facing the doubts. She knew her job duties very well and she should be confident to show other people that she was doing the right thing.
Question 3: Do you have any other advice or encouragement for women in leadership?
Olivia first suggested that not only for the women in leadership but also for males, all of them needed to know who they were, what their jobs were, and where their expertise lied. As for the female leaders, Olivia found it very vital to believe in themselves of having the power of competence and not just focus on they were a different gender. Women should not be weaker, they should believe in themselves that they were not inferior to other people. Olivia stated many times that female leaders should be confident and strong in making themselves heard by all the people, not just men.
Please find Olivia Zhang from https://www.linkedin.com/in/olivia-zhihua-zhang-ph-d-43323b25/
I think Olivia is trying to emphasize the strengths of employing self-awareness in the leadership role for women. Moreover, every woman, no matter a leader or a follower, should give relative respect to herself. I believe giving respect means recognition or admission to some extent. Regardless of other people, the women have to value themselves from within. It is the respect from where the root of strength and confidence springs.
References
Cameron, E., & Green, M. (2012). Making Sense of Change Management (3rd edition ed.). New Delhi, India: Kogan Page Limited.
Greenleaf, R. K. (1970). The servant as leader. Westfield, IN: Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership.
Northouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and practice. Sage publications.
What an inspiring interview with a women in leadership in higher education.
Many leaders find their initial leadership roles challenging, as they are well-aware of both the strengths they bring to the position, and the areas in which they are less prepared.
You have quoted a powerful affirmation by Ms. Zhang:
“I have the knowledge and the expertise for the position.”
As leaders, the ability to be self-aware of our knowledge, expertise, and preparation for the position, and to stand in that confidence, is an important aspect of leadership.
Inspiring!