That same theme, recognising and nurturing potential, has been front of mind in other parts of our work and learning this month. Earlier in October, Rachael & I attended Meihana Durie’s Māori Leadership Potential seminar. Meihana began with the story of Māui, but a version far more nuanced than the one I learned as a kid. He spoke of great potential and talent; but how at first this was unseen, before it was identified, nurtured, challenged, and applied toward great tasks.
“The Māori perspective is that all tamariki are gifted and talented,
and that it is the role and responsibility of the wider community
to identify, nourish and promote pūmanawa.”
Ultimately, the seminar was a powerful reminder that one of the most important jobs for any leader is to first find the talent that exists in others. Meihana challenged us to reflect on how we can ensure the potential that everyone holds somewhere,
is identified and nourished; a question that resonates just as strongly in business as it does in working with tamariki and youth. Directly or indirectly, many off-the-shelf personality reports centre around a similarly short-sighted question: “Can you lead?” When the focus is leadership development, this sort of binary view is really unproductive, and at worst masks or even suppresses the potential that may exist! These reports can often also describe leadership potential in terms of single scale constructs such as Ambition or Drive, where ‘high scorers’ are labelled as “leader-like.” Even when not explicitly stated, individuals who score ‘lower‘ on these scales will often infer they are somehow less leader-like; a conclusion that can undermine confidence and miss real leadership potential. This has never sat well with me, particularly when working with highly capable, respected leaders who don’t conform to such one-dimensional descriptions.
While there is always more to do, I feel that some of our work with NZDF, to better support leadership development, is a step in the right direction. Together with NZDF’s Institute for Leader Development (ILD), we worked to create bespoke personality reports for each of their leadership levels; from Leading Self to Leading the Organisation. As well as integrating the NZDF Leadership Framework and Kia Eke principles, we made a fundamental shift in focus; we moved away from the traditional “Can you lead?”, to reports that centre on “How do you lead?” The NZDF report series explores and describes potential through integrated personality and values narratives, in the context of NZDF’s unique Value Adds. This shift in focus is all about uncovering everyone's potential; which should be the foundation of all leadership development.
And, speaking of potential realised, this month we’re celebrating Ruth, who recently spoke at the NZDF Women, Peace and Security Senior Leader Symposium.
Ruth was the first woman in New Zealand to become an infantry Officer. It’s hard to capture what an achievement that is - it’s demanding, physical, gritty work in an intensely masculine environment. Imagine all the hard stuff you see in films about the Army, minus the Hollywood gloss and over-dramatisation!
I’m looking forward to your engagement and feedback from the November webinar!
