Reception for Rotary Youth Leadership Award

Ladies and Gentlemen, Rylarians and Rotarians, I greet you in the languages of the realm of New Zealand - English, Maori, CookIsland, Niue and Tokelau.

Kia Ora, Kia Orana, Fakalofa Lahi Atu, Taloha Ni

Welcome to Government House Wellington - a welcome which is underlined by a pleasant and personal connection I have had with Rotary for many of the last ten years.

I have enjoyed a number of opportunities to continue to meet in my new role with other Rotarians - young and old - from around New Zealand and their activities such as the RYLA programme.

At the Rotary Youth Leadership Award seminar you will be learning much about leadership. I see from the programme that you will be exposed to a number of exceptional people who have achieved considerable things in their own lives.

I hope this experience - and their stories - inspires and awakens the leadership potential within all of you.

You have been selected to attend this seminar because you have already displayed leadership qualities within your community or workplace.

Congratulations  are due for your efforts to have done this

Our country continues to need good leaders. Because of this, your development as leaders - whether in the community or in the environment, in business or in government - is important for the community.

Some of you may be destined for high office. Some of you may be leaders in other spheres of life. Some of you will have that mantle within your own families or workplaces.

The issues that you as tomorrow's leaders will need to address are many and varied. They range from global warming to nurturing strong families here at home.

Leadership takes many forms and it can be displayed at any age.

You may be thinking that this is all very well.  What are some for instances.  May I suggest two words to carry away from your RYLA about leadership.  The words are trust and respect.

Let me then offer three examples all from New Zealand.  Sir Edmund Hillary - a natural leader  who displays those two things trust and respect.  He gets it because he has given it.  Secondly Tana Umaga whom I had the privilege of giving a Queens Birthday honour in the room next door.  To his team members and sport followers he also diplays trust and respect because he gets it because he has given it.  Thirdly many of you will have read recently about the brave eleven-year-old girl from Paekakariki who paddled her grandfather back to the beach after he had a heart-attack while sea-kayaking.

Although her grandfather eventually died, this little girl showed extraordinary leadership and courage in both rescuing him and in removing her younger sisters and cousins from the upsetting scene. 

Leadership can thus be expressed in many ways. The young girls leadership showed itself in quick thinking, in bravery and in a great sense of compassion. 

The important thing about leadership is the  provision of a positive example to others, that you promote positive change, that you take care of others and that you have a vision for doing things in a better way.

Leaders need to have numerous qualities including the ability to listen, along with integrity and  decisiveness.  All of this is easier if there is the capacity for respect and trust

Leadership is not about ego. It is not about being loud and it is not about being opinionated, although it requires belief in one's convictions.

It is important to keep your feet firmly on the ground and remember that the most important purpose of a leader is to serve. Leadership is most beautifully expressed in a Maori proverb which goes:

Ma mua ka kite a muri, ma muri ka Ora a mua
Those who lead, give sight to those who follow; those behind, give life to those ahead

It is trust and respect is it not expressed in another way.

I should end with something about Rotary itself as an organisation.  It started in 1905 just over 100 years ago and is built on the idea of fellowship and on service to the community, which is one of the reasons for  supporting you in reaching your own leadership potential.

Rotary's work on the PolioPlus programme is one of many examples of its commitment, as leaders, to serving the community. Polio is a highly infectious disease causing paralysis in children.  350,000 were affected by this when Rotarians worldwide united in the 1980s in the campaign to immunise children around the world against polio. By 2005, the scourge is almost eradicated still being what is called endemic in four places India Pakistan Afghanistan and Nigeria.  This programme illustrates how addressing world issues can take root at a localised level.  

RYLA is a good example of something starting locally and being taken up internationally. RYLA as an idea began in Queensland Australia in 1959 and became popular in other parts of the Rotary world in Australia and New Zealand.  It became internationally recognised by Rotary International in the 1970s and it is good to see it operational thirty years beyond that. 

I guess you will know that Rotary is led in the present year by a New Zealander from Pakuranga in Auckland called Bill Boyd which is good going for an antipodean  country with only 4 million people

I congratulate you for being selected and participating in this programme. And I wish you well in your leadership endeavours.

No reira, tena koutou, tena koutou, kia ora koutou katoa