Beckles: Balance leadership with humility

OPPOSITION Leader Pennelope Beckles says balancing leadership with humility is important to achieving success in politics.

Beckles offered this advice to participants at the Caribbean Women in Leadership (CIWiL) Capacity-Building Workshop for Women in Politics at the Kapok Hotel, Port of Spain on June 5.

In expressing this view in her address to the forum, Beckles said, "In politics, one must be able to walk with kings and queens while maintaining a common touch.”

She added, “If you want to enter the political arena, you will held to different standards regarding how you carry yourself. You must do so with dignity and grace."

Beckles told participants, " Above all, you must be resilient to criticism and confident in your own brand.”

She reflected on her personal journey and acknowledged her roots in community service.

Beckles told her audience about her mother’s role as village council president and her own early involvement in community activities in Borde Narve Village in south Trinidad.

She also spoke about her original aspirations to be a teacher but then her career path shifted to the field of law.

Beckles recalled being called to the bar in 1988 and her early days practicing criminal law as an attorney in the law chambers of Theodore Guerra, SC.

She acknowledged her role as a member of CIWiL since 1998 and her pride in seeing young women eager to serve Trinidad and Tobago.

Beckles is currently the mentorship and training officer for the Women Parliamentarians of TT (WPTT).

The workshop is part of a broader regional capacity-building program organized by CIWiL, aimed at empowering women electoral aspirants and candidates across the Caribbean.

The series continues throughout the coming months, delivered both in person and virtually, to cultivate a new generation of women leaders committed to democratic development.

CIWiL president Nana Oye Hesse-Bayne acknowledged Beckles role with the group.

“This is a journey of one of our founding members, who has been with us from the very beginning.”

Beckles was appointed Opposition Leader on May 6.

She was nominated unopposed as PNM political leader on June 2.