Speech to Aspiring Leaders Forum 27 July 2006.

There’s an old anarchist saying that we need everyone to be leaders and nobody to be led. Without going to extremes, I think it is an approach to leadership that is important, perhaps vital, in the world today because it is about the need for everyone to take responsibility.

My exploration of leadership started at the other end, with the view that ‘we don’t need no leaders’. As a young man leadership represented authoritarianism, rigidity, egoism and self-serving power. Like most people I had no experience of any organisation except the hierarchical, and I found it to be stifling. It was a game I had no interest in playing.

But I was politically active. What I found, in rejecting the hierarchical forms of organisation that dominated both left and right politics, was a space where a different kind of organisation, and a different kind of leadership, could be practised. It was within the anarchist movement that my ideas about leadership were primarily formed.

Because what is leadership? It is not, in my view, primarily a characteristic of any person. It is a series of functions. It unites people under a common purpose, by making explicit a collective view. It excites people. It brings out the best in all members of a group. It involves developing strategy and tactics for implementing that strategy. Leadership inspires people with a vision and helps them be part of making that vision a reality.

It can be exercised by a person – the leader, or by a group of people. The more explicit the shared vision, goals, values of a group, the less need for a strong leader to embody them. You don’t need a rigid hierarchy to enforce compliance when people understand and agree with the goal and the plan.

In that sense leadership is not necessarily a function of any office. People can exercise leadership from any position in an organisation, and how formal office holders respond to that grass roots leadership is the true test of their authenticity as a leader. I recently contested the position of co-leader of the Green Party, and lost. Nevertheless I continue to exercise leadership within the party through my ability to articulate ideas and strategies, and facilitate discussion and consensus, and that is welcome within the party.

If leadership includes the ability to strategise, and to hold a firm course in the face of a storm, then a shared and explicit understanding of strategy throughout an organisation is vital. This is the reality of leadership in the modern world, compared with the rigid and authoritarian models of leadership of the past.

I was reminded in preparing for this forum of ex National Party leader Jim Bolger. He was criticised by the media for his ‘weak’ leadership because, they reported, he allowed all meeting participants to have their say before giving his view. To me that is the epitome of good leadership – to take full counsel and then decide, synthesising all views if possible but at least being informed by an unconstrained expression of opinion.

Decision does not need to be made by a single ‘leader’. In the 1990’s I was part of the National Organisation for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. We had many thousands of members, branches from Kaitaia to Invercargill, a quarterly colour magazine with a print run of 20 000, a paralegal advise service and an effective direct action network all run along anarchist lines through consensus decision making. We had formal officers, as required by the law governing incorporated societies, but they did not have decision-making powers. Many people who came through that organisation were able to develop leadership skills in organisational development and campaigning, directly because of the anti-hierarchical structures that we developed. I only say that to highlight how opting for the hierarchical status quo may not be the best way to develop organisational participation or the personal potential of members.

And that must be one of the key functions of good leadership – to develop leadership skills in others. Egotistical leadership will hoard power. Withhold information so they appear indispensible. Open leadership will help others to find where they can exercise leadership functions, where they can take responsibility. Open leadership is not threatened by the leadership potential of others or afraid of being challenged.

How do we develop leadership in others? Asking people directly to take on responsibilities – not in a meeting, but person to person, shoulder tapping people with potential for a specific task. I wouldn’t even be an MP if Rod Donald hadn’t seen me speak at a conference and personally asked me to help develop the ‘Wild Greens’.

We develop leadership by supporting people, by acknowledging when they do well and encouraging then when they are struggling. Most people need reassurance that they are doing well and a small effort can have a huge impact.

Leadership development must be like a stepping stone. That means encouraging people to take on small responsibilities to start and then working up to a more significant role. This also means having an analysis of power and oppression and not buying into racist or sexist assumptions about who is suitable for what kinds of roles.

Finally, I guess what underlies my attitude to leadership is my faith. Humbleness is an essential component of Rastafarian philosophy. We bow down to no one, and expect none to bow down to us. The equality of humanity is at the centre of our orientation to the world. We know that all of us have made mistakes and are capable of doing great wrong. We are also all capable of great feats, of mighty deeds and with an enormous capacity for love and self sacrifice. That is the paradox of humanity.

All of my successes are a gift from the Most High. Leadership requires hard work, there is no doubt, but that is not the whole story. All of us here have been blessed with talents and with opportunities. Others who work harder still, never quite make it, for a variety of reasons, and yet others, the self indulgent and nasty, seem to get everything handed to them on a platter.

So success and failure are not entirely of our own making. The question is what do we do with it – both our successes and our failures? Do we learn from them? Do we manage to retain our humility, our love, our reverence? Do we look for the opportunity to develop our character, and to build up those around us, or do we only see our own ego reflected?

Success can be a more difficult challenge than failure in some ways. In the eyes of the world we are uplifted, but it is in the recesses of our own hearts that our true measure is taken. To not succumb to ego, to not think “I did it all myself” but to always remember those who supported and helped us on our way and in particular to always give thanks for the blessing we receive.

Labels: leadership