Che Tamahori (Leadership New Zealand’s course)
“Can’t you feel the waves of charisma rolling off me?” jokes Che Tamahori. We’re discussing leadership styles and 32-year-old Tamahori, creative director of web design company Shift, has just admitted he’s not the charismatic hero-type.

Tamahori sees himself more as an empowering leader who’s still prepared to get down and dirty doing the same work his staff does.

“I lead a studio [of creatives] but am also a practitioner,” he says. “I would not ask anyone to do something I wouldn’t. I like leaders who have respect for the people below them because they engender respect both up and down the organisation.”

Tamahori (the nephew of famous Kiwi film director Lee Tamahori) was hired by Shift founder Selwyn Feary, fresh out of a computer graphic design course at Wanganui Polytechnic. Since he joined the company full time in 1996 he’s gradually assumed more responsibility. He still does creative work, but much of his job now is leading account management and business development from Shift’s Auckland office. Shift is one of the largest specialist web design companies in New Zealand.

Late last year, Feary suggested Tamahori apply for Leadership NZ’s leadership course for mid-career people. Tamahori liked what he saw when he checked it out. Rather than being a business networking group, it attracts a diverse range of people — from the private and public sector as well as not-for-profits — to debate social, economic and cultural issues facing New Zealand, he says. “It seems to be set up on the premise that there’s some real challenges for New Zealand down the track and people in leadership positions need to be aware of a range of different perspectives.”

The year-long course comprises two to three-day seminars each month, where guest speakers provide context for discussions on a variety of topics which the course participants helped determine. “The second session was on civil society,” he says. “We spent a couple of hours listening to speakers but the rest of it was spent in discussions looking at the broad range of groups that makes up a civil society.”

Along with the seminars, course participants also do outside activities. When Unlimited spoke to Tamahori, he was looking forward to heading out in a police car on a Friday night in Auckland. This activity was designed to expose the participants to a side of New Zealand they may not have seen before.

There’s no real quantifiable benefit for Shift in putting Tamahori through the course, which cost the company $10,000 (participants are required to front up with a $1,000 themselves to demonstrate commitment). However, he reckons there is a payback in helping him grow as a leader. “But there’s definitely an expectation that I’ll hang around [at Shift] for a while.”

The course, which finishes at the end of the year, has already challenged some of his thinking around political and social issues. Tamahori comes from a fairly left-wing background and, like most people, tends to select friends sympathetic to his own views.
But in the civil society discussion there were people with widely-varying backgrounds. “It’s easy to listen to someone’s opinion and disregard if it differs from you own. But if you respect people for what they have achieved, it makes you listen to them — even if you disagree.”

Jonathan Spurway (Excelerator’s Future Leaders programme)
Twenty-three-year-old Jonathan Spurway has big ambitions. He wants to be a senior executive of a multinational company within ten years.

Currently, Spurway is on the graduate training programme at Fonterra, where he goes by the title of development technologist of strategy and infrastructure. It was the company’s industry training manager, Bryce Bartley, who suggested he enrol for Excelerator’s Future Leaders programme for 17 to 25-year-olds.

Being an ambitious young guy, Spurway wasn’t about to turn him down. He was duly accepted into the 18-month, 60-person course, which started in March.

“It wasn’t what I expected,” says Spurway. The course consists of a series of three-day residentials, or seminars, at which participants from all over New Zealand get together in different locations each time. In between residentials, they are also set tasks and can share ideas and experiences through forums on Excelerator’s website.

“I expected it to be much more formatted,” says Spurway. But the first residential was a group discussion to express ideas and explore ourselves, he says. “It’s not about a pass mark, it’s about learning from each other.”

Participants are also encouraged to keep diaries to jot down thoughts and reflections. “One of the focuses is getting to know yourself,” says Spurway. Self-analysis, he says, is a key feature of being a leader.

Networking is an important side benefit of the course. Even though they’re only a few months into it, participants are already starting to see each other informally outside of the course. There’s roughly a 50/50 gender split and participants come from varying ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds. Mixing with a such diverse bunch is a big attraction for Spurway, who went to Kings College and then studied engineering at Auckland University.

Bartley sees value in his staff attending leadership courses because they foster interpersonal skills and build emotional intelligence. “You’ve got to put these young people in situations where they see the importance of these types of things. The course will enable them — another young Fonterra employee, Alice van den Hout, is also on the Excelerator programme — to be exposed to the most up to date ideas about leadership and come to appreciate other people’s points of view.”

Gaining a network and support group to share and challenge ideas is what Spurway expects to reap form the course. “I expect the course will have a catalytic affect on my future as a leader.”

While Spurway is driven and focused for someone of his age, he’s also aware of the danger in being overly ambitious and letting life become too serious. “I want to be successful but I also want to have a loving family,” he says. “If you keep those things in mind I don’t think you can be too ambitious.”

Elisabeth Harding (Institute for Strategic Leadership’s course)
Elisabeth Harding is a new woman. The Counties Manukau District Health Board legal advisor and board secretary says “everything’s the same but everything’s different”, since undertaking one of the Institute for Strategic Leadership courses.

“A few weeks ago, if a journalist had rung up wanting to talk about leadership, I would have said I’m too busy. Now I see it as an opportunity.”

Harding has just-returned from the week-long, intensive course at Queenstown’s Millbrook Resort and is still buzzing from the experience. “It was extremely powerful and will continue to influence the way I think and behave.”

A nurse for 17 years before becoming a lawyer, Harding approached her employer about going on a leadership course. Her employer suggested a health leadership course but Harding wanted to rub shoulders with a more diverse mix of people. She was attracted to the practical focus of the institute’s course along with the high calibre of past participants, who include former Fonterra boss Craig Norgate, Pumpkin Patch executive chairman Greg Muir, and New Zealand Defence Force head Bruce Ferguson. Participants on the $12,000 course were split into four groups. “In my group I had the CEO of Carters, the deputy CEO of the Australian AA and one of the owners of Millbrook Resort,” says Harding. The course began with personality profiling, so participants could learn more about themselves and there were also team-building exercises to develop cooperation and trust within each group.

Next was the practical component, which went beyond being just a classroom exercise. Each group developed a real-life strategy for a company or organisation. The New Zealand head of World Vision presented to Harding’s group which then had 24 hours to create a strategy to move World Vision forward, aligning it better with its goals and improving back office functionality. The final part of the course was spent reflecting and exchanging feedback.

Harding says the course was as much about personal development as leadership. Stressed out prior to the course, Harding went in specifically wanting to learn how to deal with stress better, how to build confidence and improve her prioritisation.

She reckons the course delivered as she now feels more clear and comfortable about her leadership style. “Leadership is much more subtle than just being the CEO,” says Harding. “You don’t actually have to be running the business to be a leader.”

What she’s learnt is that there is not one right answer — different styles are required depending on the situation, says Harding. “I find it really hard to be an authoritative leader, but I’m very happy to be an influential leader. The important thing is that your style of leadership needs to be true to how you are as a person.”

At Counties Manukau DHB, a lot of people tend to work in sections of the organisation disparate from others. But Harding’s job brings her into contact with people across the board. The course has opened her eyes to how she could have more influence at work for the benefit of the organisation.

Ron Pearson, acting chief executive of Counties Manukau DHB, says the course has given Harding a better appreciation of leadership styles and communication and will enable her to be more effective in dealing with the board, the management team and external agencies. Because Harding was the first Counties Manukau DHB staff member sent on this course, Pearson says a full evaluation will be done with her. “Leadership courses have good value, as long as they are targeted both in regard to the content and quality of the information provided and ensuring that they meet the needs of the staff who participate in them. Because of the cost, both the programmes and the attendees must be selected carefully.”

The buzz of the course is bound to dim over time, but Harding is adamant she’s undergone a long-lasting fundamental shift in attitude. “Before I went away I was really busy. Now I’ve got the same workload, but I feel like I’m in control.”

Who’s your hero?
We asked the leaders of the courses we’ve written about and other participants to name their favourite leader and explain why.

Elisabeth Harding: Peter Benenson (founder of Amnesty International) — “He found a way through his enthusiasm and passion to bring attention to prisoners of conscience and, as a consequence has motivated millions of people worldwide to speak out about human rights and make a difference to those prisoners.”

Lester Levy: Nelson Mandela (former President of South Africa, freedom figher and elder statesman) — “He is the exemplar of the courage of leadership, which is about creating a sense of hope, optimism and possibility. And he is selfless.”

Geoff Lorigan: Nelson Mandela — “His extraordinary success as a leader belies a number of important leadership traits: he works at the strategic level empowering others to execute at the operational level; he builds consensus and tells people what he believes, not what they want to hear.”

Leslie Slade: Pat Snedden (founding director of Mai FM, deputy chairman of Housing NZ and on numerous other boards) — “He has approached an issue (race relations) that’s of the utmost importance to New Zealand and has had the foresight, courage and patience to seek an outcome and has come through it with enormous respect from all sides.”

Jonathan Spurway: Bill Clinton (former US president) — “The man has charisma, and that’s one of the things leaders seem to have. When he walks in a room everyone notices. I don’t think he was born with that. I would love to meet him.”

Che Tamahori: Linus Torvalds (creator of the Linux kernel, the heart of a free operating system for PCs) — “The internet has enabled new kinds of communities and correspondingly new kinds of leaders. Linus Torvalds enlists and organises a complex multitude of volunteers to develop the Linux kernel. Online communities tend towards meritocracy — people follow Torvalds because of his humility, generosity and vision.”