This article was published on March 8, 2020, on the OLI Adriano Olivetti Leadership Institute page in the past. It explored these themes, helping to spread reflection on how to tackle adaptive challenges in the context of female leadership.
On International Women’s Day, we want to pay tribute to the work of Simone Weil (1909-1943), a lucid and incisive philosopher whose reflections transcend time and still speak to us today. To do so, we will start with a fairy tale that tells us something about women: The Six Swans, which the young Weil analyzed with remarkable depth, and conclude with a reflection on female leadership.
Fairy tales and stories transmit powerful archetypes about the feminine. This is the guiding thread of Clarissa Pinkola Estés’ work in Women Who Run with the Wolves, which has resonated with millions of women through the recovery of the Wild Woman figure. But Simone Weil, with her reading of The Six Swans, also helps us understand how the magical can manifest a truth of the soul on the body and how the drama of the story is conveyed through the heroine.
Elisa has six brothers (in some versions, eleven or twelve), who are transformed into swans by their stepmother’s curse. To save them, she decides to spend six years weaving shirts made of anemones (or nettles, depending on the version) without being able to speak. When she is accused of witchcraft and sentenced to be burned at the stake, the very shirts she had continued to weave in prison allow her to break the spell and prove her innocence.
Simone Weil’s analysis highlights the underlying narrative of the fairy tale: Elisa’s trials are not based on a magical potion or a salvific object but on long and arduous labor. Elisa and her brothers received their suffering from an external source, but Elisa’s virtue lies within her. No matter how much the witch or the king make her suffer, the act of continually weaving the anemone tunics prevents her from acting in any other way. Her work deprives her of every other form of action and expression, yet in the end, it unleashes its full power.
What other reflections can we draw from this fairy tale about the feminine?
I would love to ask Clarissa Pinkola Estés if she also sees a reflection of the Wild Woman in Elisa. Weil, for her part, shows us how the magical can represent a truth of the soul, and in this story, we see how the heroine’s journey passes through sacrifice and silence before she can affirm her own truth.
We can, if we wish, align this analysis with the framework of Adaptive Leadership.
One detail of the fairy tale has always struck me: when Elisa is accused by the archbishop and thrown into prison, the nettle shirts she had painstakingly woven are tossed back at her with contempt: “Here, take your devilry to the stake with you.” But she is overjoyed—(this was the detail that amazed me most as a child). I believe it is because this very gesture of humiliation allows her to complete her task and save her brothers.
This dynamic reveals something profound about female leadership. Anyone who claims that change can happen easily or with mere gender quotas tells only half the story. Progress requires hard work, but first and foremost, it requires recognizing adaptive challenges. Leadership, as we understand it, is an exercise that demands diagnosis, interpretation, and then action.
Until the very last moment, the people watch Elisa’s condemnation without questioning it. Only when the swans transform back into men and she finally speaks does perception change. Until then, prejudice outweighed her intentions. We must not give up in fighting stereotypes and biases, nor in seeking allies. And perhaps we must also acknowledge that some manifestations of the female condition that do not entirely convince us—the tip of the iceberg—are nonetheless signs of deeper challenges.
A concrete example? The gender pay gap, or the recent news that in December, out of 110,000 job losses in Italy, 99,000 affected women.
An interesting reversal offered by Adaptive Leadership is the realization that the system is not broken: on the contrary, it functions exactly as it was designed to. These figures are not anomalies but rather the perfectly consistent outcomes of a societal structure that has evolved this way. The issue, then, lies in the premises. And it is on these premises that we must focus our attention—with the same faith that Elisa had—that dismantling biases will take us somewhere.
Elisa’s hard work is accompanied by silence and renunciation, but it is guided by a clear purpose that others do not understand. She has a purpose, that sacred fire that drives leadership action. And precisely for this reason, despite her silence, she does not give up her voice at the crucial moment.
Leadership takes time, but if guided by a purpose, it can shift the system from the status quo toward a shared evolution. And even those who opposed us may ultimately reveal themselves to be allies. Leadership challenges touch on the fear of loss for all factions involved. And discussing adaptive challenges means choosing the right moment and engaging stakeholders who have a purpose in their resolution.
Is our society ready—men and women together—to take on these challenges? First, we must bring them to light.
Sources:
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In Italy, Giancarlo Gaeta is among the leading scholars of Simone Weil’s thought and has significantly contributed to its dissemination. His edited volume, Pagine Scelte, offers a brilliant analysis of her ideas and is an essential read for anyone interested in delving deeper into her intellectual and human journey.
A valuable reference is the work conducted by Robert Chenavier within the Association pour l’Étude de la Pensée de Simone Weil, from which I receive the beautiful Revue trimestrielle, publishing articles from the Association’s annual conferences.
Equally noteworthy is the work of Farina Editore and Mauro Trentadue, a true gem: everything this publishing house offers, along with its carefully curated translations, is of outstanding quality.
