Category Archives: Uncategorized

27/11/2024
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Uncategorized

On Leadership

Many of us have experienced ‘seagull management’. That’s when the boss flies in, squawks aggressively, craps on everything, and flies out. It’s not the best way to get top performance out of people.

But what is real leadership? Is it getting into a position of authority so you can order people about? Or is leadership about lifting up the people around you? I believe that good leadership is about bringing out the best in others. That takes a set of specific skills that can be learnt by anyone, even though some people have more natural talent for it. Just about everyone is a leader in some form, whether as Prime Minister, a business owner, a community volunteer, a family member or just someone trying to better themselves. Leadership is about stepping up to make positive change. More than anything, leadership is about taking responsibility.

There are people who find themselves in a formal position of leadership but who cannot lead, while great leadership can be witnessed in people without official titles. Sometimes in organisations we see a technical expert who has been elevated into a leadership role. Being a qualified expert doesn’t automatically make them a good leader. Some people thrive on the change, but others are unable to make the transition. The key difference is whether they can accept that they have something to learn. What serves us well in one context may not serve us in another.

US President Harry Truman had a sign on his desk that said “the buck stops here”. That should be every aspiring leader’s motto. It means taking responsibility for the difficult choices that have to be made, and accepting responsibility for the outcomes. It means being decisive, once all the relevant information has been gathered. Some people want to jump the gun before they have all the information. Others procrastinate, calling for more and more reports to delay having to decide. That is not leadership. And once a decision is made, it is important to see it through. Of course we must learn from new information and admit if we made a mistake, but vacillating and uncertainty can sometimes have worse consequences than a bad decision.

Taking responsibility means living with the consequences of the decisions you have made – taking it on the chin if need be, rather than looking for someone else to blame. That also goes for group decisions. No group agrees all the time, but if you lead a team and you consistently oppose everyone else, it is time to examine your leadership. If you feel isolated and unable to pursue your goals,examine your leadership. Are you working with the team, for the team purpose? Are you listening to other points of view? Are you communicating your ideas clearly, and do they stand up to scrutiny?

Good leadership is active, and thoughtful. Slogans don’t cut it. It is important to have high expectations, but the real work is in developing a strategy with others on how to collectively achieve them. People need real solutions, not just empty words. It’s easy to identify all the troubles with the world – there are plenty enough of them – but the question is what, specifically, we are doing to do about it.

Leadership is also about looking after your people. It’s about bringing out the best in everyone, supporting and mentoring others to reach their potential. It’s about giving other people the chance to shine rather than hogging the limelight or constantly trying to prove that you’re the smartest one in the room. Good leadership requires emotional maturity and personal development, so we are not taking out our own insecurities on others. We are there to serve the team and the kaupapa, not our own ego needs.

The top down, ‘my way or the highway’ approach just doesn’t work any more, if it ever really did. Good leaders know how to build effective teams, how to get the best out of all the players, and how to unify everyone around a common purpose. It is about their ability to bring everyone along. You cannot be a leader if no one else wants to come with.

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16/09/2014
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Activism, Parliament, Uncategorized

Not voting is an own goal

In 1990 I put an election billboard on my fence that featured a sinister looking silhouette in a business suit saying “vote for No-One, because No-One cares”. People’s responses ranged from amusement to furious anger, with one person even climbing the fence to vandalise it at night.

It was a bit of fun, but with a serious intent. I wanted to express my dissatisfaction at a system that trades a vote every three years for meaningful participation. I wanted to show my disgust at the co-option of governments by corporate lobby interests. I wanted to demonstrate my belief that the parliamentary system is unable to comprehend, much less find a solution to, the real issues facing our world.

All those statements still hold true for me today. Looking back, though, what strikes me is my dismay when New Zealand elected a National Government. I could see on election night that things were going to get much worse for ordinary New Zealanders. Indeed, that Government soon introduced a range of regressive policies that remain in place to this day, including the end of free tertiary education, vicious welfare cuts, attacks on workers’ rights and asset sales that even the previous Labour Government had balked at.

A year or two later I found myself at a huge march in Auckland to oppose the policies of a Government that I had encouraged people not to vote against. That contradiction, and others I experienced at a variety of street demonstrations and occupations during those years, led me to question much of my political ideology and dogma. As a result of this on-going self reflection my ideas about strategy and tactics have become more responsive, while my principles have become clearer.

My views on engagement in parliamentary politics changed with the introduction of MMP. In 1999 I was elected as an MP for the Green Party and just under nine years later I resigned from Parliament. In my final speech I spoke about many of those same themes that had concerned me in 1990. Perhaps more than most, I am well aware of the limitations of parliamentary politics.

There are two main reasons that progressive thinkers give for not voting. The first is that it makes no real difference. The second is that voting legitimises an illegitimate system.

It’s true that you can’t vote for revolution. That doesn’t mean that revolutionaries shouldn’t vote. It just means they should vote for more practical reasons. Voting is a tool, and like all tools there are some things it is good for and some things it is not.

The outcome of this election will make a lot of difference. Not in fundamental ways perhaps, but it will have direct impact on people’s wellbeing. Whether National or Labour leads the next Government – and just as importantly, how much influence the Greens have, or the Conservatives, ACT, the Maori Party, Internet Mana and NZ First – will determine how much the lowest paid workers will get to take home each week. It will determine whether our coastline is opened up for oil drilling and maybe whether we end up having a catastrophic oil spill. It might decide whether the Maui’s Dolphin becomes extinct. It will decide whether housing will be more, or less, affordable. It will make a clear statement about whether as a nation we are concerned about child poverty or whether we really just don’t care as long as we get a tax cut.

My aims in voting this year are modest. I don’t expect radical change from politicians because they couldn’t deliver it even if they wanted to, at least not without massive changes in public opinion first. I don’t expect the big problems to be solved or to see congregations of the wise inhabiting the Beehive. I vote to make some government policies a little better and to stop some others getting worse. I vote so that at least some of my most important issues are amplified. I vote so that there is someone in there to call out the bullshit when they see it. I vote because the National Party’s lies and deceit just went too far this time. I vote because trying to make the world a better place is easier when we have allies in Government. Given the minimal effort involved, it seems like an own goal not to.

Finally, if you are worried that ticking a voting form will somehow legitimise the system, don’t be. Your vote will have absolutely no impact on that. All it will do is make it more or less likely that John Key and the National Party is re-elected.

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