Why women will shape the next generation of leadership

In her role as hotelier of Joali Maldives and luxury wellness resort Joali Being, Argat told Arabian Business she believes women are as capable as men and just need the right support to reach leadership roles.

Argat also explained why she believes the next generation of female leaders should be encouraged to pursue education and careers in technology.

Joali Being was inspired by Argat’s belief in the impact of well-being on people’s daily lives, herself enjoying a healthy style of hiking, skiing, swimming and yoga. Meanwhile, Joali Maldives includes a private art studio and workshop which supports local artists.

What does women empowerment mean to you?

For me, women’s empowerment means for them to use their possibilities of equal opportunities to write their own story with their fee will. In order to write their own stories they must have the conditions to be able to make their own choices, being educated and able to get the chance of a journey to be an individual creating value.

One of the factors behind the development of the economy in recent years is that the role of women in social and business life is more effective than in the past.

For women to balance their work and private life, there is work which needs to be done to support them. No women should be kept away from work due to her family duties. As such, institutional mechanisms such as nurseries and nursing homes have to be widespread.

Based on my own life, I believe that it is very important to have women in senior management positions at companies and the senior female executive is definitely driving up other women.

I don’t see any difference between men and women in their way of doing business and their performance and if they do exist, they are due to character, education and personal interests.

I believe women should be encouraged a little bit more and here female managers as role models can have an encouraging role.

In the light of the increasing number of female entrepreneurs, do you think that women will shape the future?

I believe that if men and women don’t walk side by side in all aspects of life, there won’t be any modern, democratic, livable place in the world. More than ever, if we want to achieve our goals on a national and global scale, we have to include women as equals in all fields in life.

When it comes to the new generation, it is of utmost important to encourage women towards the adoption of new technologies and digitalisation. In more technical jobs, the ratio of women to men is quite low and nearly non-existent.

But, women have the ability to think in detail, perform multitask simultaneously and to be goal oriented and persistent, giving them an advantage in technology which they should be encouraged to embrace.

More flexible working conditions and comfortable workplaces should be provided and the perception, and often reality, that there is no balance between work and private life in the technology sector needs to be changed.

Working conditions for women that are flexible, remote and comfortable should be supported by actions rather than just talk.

Within this context, the pandemic period was an important experience for the entire business world where it has been clearly noticed that remote working systems are functioning very well.

Have you encountered any challenges being a female hotelier in the Maldives?

Coming with over thirty years of experience in management, I didn’t encounter any difficulty.

I don’t have a gender-discriminating approach for problems, rather I solve problems with my business person identity.

Of course, I put all the necessary effort to resolve the issues I face and if I can’t resolve them, I put them aside and move on but I’m definitely not impeding myself.

Gender equality is not just a matter of a certain geographical location as it concerns the whole world. I’ve seen gender inequalities in my experiences all over the world where a woman is failing until she succeeds while a man succeeds until he fails.

Among women those who can be competent and best and those who can make progress rank at the top.

The system during this process is eliminating those stumbling or those who can’t achieve. We women shouldn’t view this as an impediment and must continue by setting our goals and focusing on success.