ONE of the core challenges facing women is to change the way they handled leadership, the President, Mrs Robinson, told an international women's conference in Stockholm yesterday.
They owed it to the "courageous" women who had overcome many barriers in the struggle for equality and who believed that women exercising leadership would make a difference.
Women, she said, did not see leadership as hierarchical but as empowering. "It is not so much about exercising power as about influencing others, [their] approach is to listen, discuss and seek to reach consensus or compromise. The emphasis is on practical problem solving."
Traditionally, whether in the political or economic sphere, leadership had tended to be "hierarchical and exercised by an individual or group on the basis of recognised authority which has an inherent interest in perpetuating itself".
The President, who arrived in the Swedish capital on Sunday afternoon to take part in the three day conference, was addressing the opening session of the International Women's Leader ship Forum which is sponsored by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in the US.
The President of Iceland, Ms Vigdis Finbogodottir, is the chairwoman of the forum which is also being attended by former women prime ministers from Poland and Lithuania. Ms Edith Cresson, a former prime minister of France, is expected today.
Other politicians are among some 60 delegates who all hold top positions in areas such as banking, industry and the media.
The forum is also acting as a "think tank" for speakers and delegates to swap experiences, ideas and to raise issues which confront them in their relatively isolated senior positions. Several sessions are closed to the press. This afternoon the political leaders will hold a short press conference at the conclusion of the forum.
Last evening the President and the other leaders met King Carl and Queen Silvia at the Royal Palace in Stockholm. She will also meet a group of Irish residents in Sweden during her stay.