Launching Leaders Conference

E nga mana, e nga reo, rau rangatahi ma e huihui nei, tēnei aku mihi māhana ki a koutou.  Kia ora tātou katoa.  Distinguished guests, young women and men, warm greetings to you all.

I specifically acknowledge: Graeme Yule, Headmaster of Scots College and your staff.

We don’t have much time, so let me get to the point.  Today, I have been asked to talk about my personal perspectives on leadership.  Before I do that I want to say that I am delighted to be here and to give this opening address.  I have looked at the programme for today and it looks stimulating.  The collection of speakers is impressive.  I encourage you all to make the most of what is on offer because I can assure you that opportunities like these are rare. 

My first point, when you’re the leader lead.  Each of the students attending this conference is here because of the status that you hold at your school and presumably your standing within your peer group.  The view might be that you are a leader in your school because in the assessment of your school – read Principal, Headmistress, Headmaster, Rector, senior staff and so on – you have the capacity to lead.  I would suggest, however, that over your time at school and in other circumstances your being appointed as a leader is because you have demonstrated you can lead effectively.  This “Launching Leaders Conference” then seeks to inspire and challenge you to think about your leadership, what it means to you personally, what it might mean to others and how you can apply the wisdoms gained during the course of today in your everyday life. 

The notion of what makes a “good leader” conjures up many different thoughts.  Is it the qualities that a person exhibits, the values held or is it their actions, intentions and or example?  If you ask the person sitting on your left what qualities they think make a great leader and then ask the person on your right the same question you would probably get a different response, and your own views might also be different.  And that is as it should be. 
As with many things in our lives we base our preferences and assessments on personal experiences or the experience of those we affiliate with.  During my life and career, I have observed a wide range of leaders and each has led and contributed in their own unique ways.  However, my style of leadership is my style. 

My second point is that you need to know yourself well, know what you stand for and don’t try to be something that you’re not.  Doing something that’s “false” is not only hard to sustain and eventually people see through the façade, but it’s also dishonest.  Leadership is premised on a single fundamental, it’s a group dynamic.  And it relies on the trust between a leader and the followers.

A thought provoking quote from an unknown source goes like this:
“Watch your thoughts, they become words.
Watch your words, they become actions.
Watch your actions, they become habits.
Watch your habits, they become your character.
Watch your character, it becomes your destiny.”

Much of what people will talk about today is common-sense.  Common-sense in the sense that sooner or later the wisdom offered will become abundantly clear!  Life and leadership is about the choices you make along the way.  Your thoughts, your words, your actions, and your habits all shape your character, and your character shapes the choices you make, and the direction you go. Wherever life takes you, and whatever challenges confront you, doing your best, taking opportunities when they come along, keeping your options open and enjoying life are fundamental to your success. 

My third point is that no two leadership journeys are the same.  Each is peppered with achievements and mistakes, challenges and successes. When I look back at my life-journey, there is no recipe or rule book that prescribed my path to the leadership positions I’ve had or being where I am today.  Sometimes I was appointed to a position and then expected to show “it” at other times I saw a requirement and practiced “it”.

It’s now been more than 40 years since I left school in Whanganui.  My first job on leaving school was as an accounting cadet.  Being an accountant didn’t seem to be for me after I sat behind a desk for three months processing paper!  So when I drove past an Army recruiting office with a friend who was interested in finding a job we “popped-in”.  When we left, I had the enlistment papers – the rest as they say is history!

When I enlisted as a soldier, I had no idea that I would end up as the Governor-General, let alone Chief of the Army or Chief of the Defence Force.  Indeed, my school Principal’s comments in my leaving testimonial indicated that too!  He wrote that my life would be shaped by the goals and friends I chose – good common-sense advice.

What I did know was that whatever I did, to coin a phrase from the rock group Queen, “I wanted it all and I wanted it now”!  I also knew that I wanted to be doing things with the best at doing them.  I liked the competitiveness I found in the Army.  Everything we did involved a competition, either with someone else or bettering my own result.  Joining the New Zealand Special Air Service was something that I chose to do because they are the best at what they do, and I wanted to serve with the best. 

You shouldn’t be nervous if your career or life is not firmly mapped out when you’re 18 —life just doesn’t work like that.  It’s unfair to expect that someone knows what they’ll be doing at 30, let alone at 40 or 50, when you’re 18.

Knowing yourself well means that if you’re going to push boundaries, if you’re going to do those things that someone says you can’t, then you have to know your limits.  In my view, when you see something you really want to do and it’s not illegal, it’s not outrageously dangerous (read stupid) or it’s not immoral, then give it a go.  I’d go further to say that the bigger the challenge, the more it takes you out of your comfort zone, the better the deal!  That activity could be anything at all.  (Recount the story of being selected to be a free-fall parachutist).  For example, look at the workshop opportunities and select at least one that you think you have the least affinity for, and do it.  But do it as best you can, show real interest and see how it goes.

I’ve been blessed with opportunities to command and lead New Zealanders in places such as Bougainville, southern Lebanon, Timor Leste and Afghanistan.  From these opportunities have come options around courses in the UK, Singapore and Australia and military postings overseas.  Some may characterise my career options as luck – well you take your chances and make your own luck, it doesn’t just happen.  Striving for excellence is a choice that has served, and continues to serve, me well.

If you ask me what do I think makes a great leader?  My view is that leadership is less about mystery and more about common-sense.  In part, leadership is about the way people perform their roles within the group.  In any group dynamic there are followers and there are leaders.

However, it seems to me that there are two things that are critical in determining whether a leader is constructive.  The first is how you, the leader interacts with others.  This to a large extent determines how successful your group is in meeting its goals.  Yelling out orders and being “bossy” doesn’t make you a leader.  Likewise, success comes from leaders and their teams working together with a common purpose.  The point is well made in the Māori proverb: “Mau tēnā kiwa o te kete maku tenei” — which translated says “each of us at a handle of the basket.”  Good leaders facilitate that kind of teamwork: co-operation, a sense of purpose and of a load shared being a load halved.

The second thing is that leadership, just like all relationships between people, does not occur within a vacuum.  Leadership needs to be built on fundamental values – knowing what you stand for.  Both professionally and personally, I’ve found the New Zealand Defence Force values—courage, comradeship, compassion and integrity—have acted as an anchor for me because they reflect a set of behaviours required in the most challenging of circumstances. 
Values are personal, situation specific and need to suit the organisation or group you’re with.  For example, being Governor-General and for the staff at Government House public-spiritedness, being accessible, being courageous and being compassionate in our dealings reflect the character of my role as I see it, and our organisation.  The point is that without values, leadership becomes inherently weak, where a single-minded pursuit of ends plays little heed to the methods being used.

As you might surmise, I think that courage is a universal value for a leader.  It is courage—whether that’s the courage of your convictions or the courage demonstrated by your deeds—upon which everything else rests.  Someone who professes to be compassionate yet lacks courage also lacks integrity, and is usually insincere and false.

To that end, leaders need to do more than just speak of their values.  They need to show their commitment to them in their dealings with others.  Leaders are not judged by what they say, but what they do.  So when you err, you need to be accountable.  Own it, fix it, learn from it and move on.  It should always be “I was wrong” and “we were right” and when doing things, it’s “we can” and “I do” and in sharing responsibility, it’s “I lost” and “we won.”
Making a difference is the reason that leaders are leaders. Leaders see the potential, not the problem.  They see the goal, and figure out how to get past any hurdles.

A shining example of a great New Zealand leader is the late Sir Paul Callaghan who contributed substantially to our country during his lifetime, through his passion for science, and particularly his studies and findings on magnetic resonance.

The quality of Sir Paul’s leadership is demonstrated in many ways and one such example is the calibre of the students that emerged from his tuition.  When asked about what he was most proud of during his lifetime of achievements, his response was the young people that came out of his “lab”.

Sir Paul knew that stretching his students beyond their boundaries, would allow them to achieve things they never dreamed of.  Through his support, encouragement, and sense for adventure, many young people were inspired and motivated to do their absolute best, to take the hard road, and to reach for their dreams.

And Sir Paul could have gone anywhere in the world to work, where the prospect of higher financial reward and exciting opportunities awaited. However, he was committed to our country, to New Zealand and saw it as the best place in the world where he could make real difference.

In his last interview before he passed away, Sir Paul commented on why he chose to work in New Zealand. He said:
 “What greater sense of fulfilment can there be but to make a difference to the community in which you live? … It’s hard to make a difference in New York.  Here everything you contribute makes a difference.”

My last observation, speaking as a father, and witnessing the challenges that my own children have faced, is that young people are growing up in a world that is vastly different to the one in which I grew up in.  The impact of technological change on societal norms has been extreme.  When I was growing up it was reasonable for an older person to see themselves as a “role model” and to expect me to follow their example, asserting “do as I do because you are too young to understand”. 

The paradigm has shifted.  The speed of technological change is such that in some cases it is reasonable for a younger person to claim that older people are “too old to know”!  That technological change with an unprecedented level of access to information, matched with the prevalence of social media and group sites, is changing social norms. 

For you young people, imagine the impact that is having on my generation!  Growing up and being told you’re too young to understand, and then when you’re hardly over the middle-age hump and you start being told we’re already too old to know, it is a strange feeling.  Incidentally, it’s not going to get any better for you young people.  I’ve read that it’s likely that the first person to live to 1000 may already be alive.

However, older people like me and the other presenters today have experiences and wisdoms to share.  Through the uncertainty and challenges that you will face going forward, your best tool will be the strength of your character.  That is yours to own, and yours to mould. Nobody else can do that for you.  All of you young leaders here today have the potential to do great things in your communities, in this country, and throughout the world.

If there is a single message that you take away from my address, it is live your dreams, and make sure your dreams are big.  New Zealand needs young people who are not afraid to break the mould, to stand out and to be the best in their fields.  As the old saying goes: - “Shoot for the stars.  Should you fail and miss you will more than likely land on the moon.” Kia ora huihui tātou katoa.