Powerful Lady: Margaret Thatcher (October 13, 1925 – April 8, 2013)

Given today’s economy, my favorite Margaret Thatcher story is something our current leaders could learn from. After the 1979 election, the refurbishing of 10 Downing Street was underway. Upon receiving the expenditure list, Thatcher’s handwritten notes made her feelings quite clear. “I find these figures impossible to believe.” She even wrote that she’d pay for her own ironing board. Thatcher also sent back cookware and linens proclaiming she and her husband only slept in one bed and she’d use her own cookware! She was very mindful of how the public’s money was spent (and wasted). It showed a level of respect that is so clearly lacking in today’s political leaders.

It’s been said that women like Hillary Clinton, Yahoo head Marissa Mayer, and even Oprah broke the glass ceiling. Anyone that believes that forgot a grocer’s daughter from a small town in Great Britain broke it decades ago. And Margaret Thatcher did it with a combination of class, intelligence and wit we’ll likely never see again.

She once said, “Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren’t.”

And she was, without question.

Links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_elected_or_appointed_female_heads_of_government

http://www.nationalreview.com/campaign-spot/344942/margaret-thatcher-and-feminism

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/04/08/britain-margaret-thatcher-at-age-87-dies-after-suffering-stroke/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/margaret-thatcher/8081313/Margaret-Thatcher-dies-time-and-achievements-as-Britains-first-female-PM.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2080069/How-Margaret-Thatcher-paid-19-cash-ironing-board-No-10.html

Image: Margaret Thatcher, 1990; source: Thatcher reviews troops.jpg; author: White House Photo Office; public domain