When the clock strikes 12 noon today every grandmother, mother, and daughter in Scotland should stop to celebrate First Minister's Questions.

Nicola Sturgeon, the First Minister, will face Kezia Dugdale, the newly elected deputy leader of the Scottish Labour party, and Ruth Davidson will lead the charge for the Scottish Conservatives.

Willie Rennie, the leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats, will be there too reinforcing the point that, for once, the boot is on the other foot; men are in the minority and women in the overwhelming majority.

What great role models these political leaders could be for women in the UK and around the world. No matter their politics, they have proved they can rise to the top, take on all comers and, it is to be hoped, make a difference.

Margaret Thatcher, the UK's first woman prime minister, did break the glass ceiling but she was always a woman operating in a man's world. Nicola Sturgeon, Kezia Dugdale and Ruth Davidson, and the able colleagues, are operating in a different world in and out of the Scottish Parliament.

Jackie Baillie's elevation to Labour's finance brief was another breakthrough. Neither in the House of Commons nor at Holyrood has a woman handled the main economic brief. Ms Baillie will know better than most that, while most women, just like men, might not spend time discussing the finer points of the Budget or the Autumn Statement,they do know how the health of the economy impacts on them and their families.

Although women make up one half of the country, Scottish and UK boardrooms are dominated by men. Day in, day out they make decisions of national importance, affecting us all, without hearing representation from half the population.

Already evidence shows a direct link between a better bottom line and more women's involvement so, as well as the unfairness of excluding women from the top tables, it is a huge waste of talent and potential. It should not be too much to hope the boardrooms in this country will be influenced by the example of their political masters.

Community leaders and leading social academics increasingly call for a different way of approaching society's mounting problems. The narrative has to change. More of the same is not good enough in a country with a changing demographic, diminishing resources and increasingly isolated individuals and communities.

At national and local authority levels, resources are concentrating on areas of the greatest need, often at the expense of early-stage interventions. This might look good when balancing the books but it comes at great cost in the short term to those left languishing without support and, eventually, to the taxpayer who will pick up the bill for later support and care.

Weak communities and social isolation are considered widely to be the one of today's greatest challenges. David Robinson, a leading community adviser, has a vision for government that structures its narrative around the shared values which give our lives meaning, identity and purpose.

He has called for a return of the old normal, rebuilding communities in which "neighbourliness, common humanity, mutual trust and a willing kindness" were the order of the day. Hundreds of thousands of pensioners have less than 30 minutes of social contact in any one week and one in five people do not know their neighbours. If we are to create a healthier, supportive society, that has to change.

In Scotland last year 139,138 people made life-preserving and sometimes life-saving gestures by donating blood. Not a penny changed hands, the donors rightly believed they made an important contribution and the patient benefited from an act of kindness. According to Mr Robinson, a better government would understand that harnessing the giving impulse is not just cheap. Sometimes it is the only way.

The leading political women in Scotland have a chance to speak with a new voice, to embrace Mr Robinson's vision. They have different priorities but, if they are seen to unite in common cause and convince the electorate they are working genuinely to find solutions, they have a chance of being heard by the Scottish electorate. They have an opportunity to reach out, to relate to peoples' lives. They should take it.