Leading for the Future

The conventional ‘business as usual’ approach to business and developing leaders is often insufficient for building the kinds of organisations we need today.
From a Māori perspective, the conventional leadership development offerings – be they through tertiary institutions or via consultants and trainers – are often missing much of what Māori hold near and dear, and know to be true wisdom. By adopting a distinctively Māori approach, this gap can be addressed and in doing so Māori can also help transform leadership and management development for others.
Those who believe that ‘the only business of business is business’ are thinking worryingly narrowly.  The world faces crises such as the destruction of the environment by pollution, and poverty killing 22,000 children every day.  It is imperative that current and future leaders endorse a relational stance in which they consider, and take action upon, the interests of communities and address social and environmental challenges as part of their business activity.
Add to that the fact that a staggering 80% of chief investment officers from top asset management firms indicate that their investment horizon is less than one year it’s natural to be concerned that the enormous scale of the problems facing the world which need massive investment by business won’t happen.
Investment is not happening at anywhere near the required level because business leaders face relentless pressure from conventional investors who are increasingly making demands for shorter and shorter profit maximisation. We need investors and companies to take a longer-term view and take greater account of future generations in today’s decision making.  
To help bring about these changes, leadership development needs to include solid ‘inner-work’ in which leaders take a deep dive into looking at themselves and their relationships. This can be seen in those rare organisations that are committed to developing their people by weaving personal growth into daily work and who recognise that organisational results and the personal growth of all employees are inter-dependent.
Māori businesses grounded in a Māori worldview consider what I call the ‘Five Wellbeings’ which encompasses spiritual, cultural, social, environmental and economic dimensions.  This distinctively Māori approach is in contrast to much of the ‘business as usual’ approach that focuses on generating short term profit – often at the cost of a lot of wellbeing.
Many, but certainly not all, Māori organisations – including businesses, trusts, not for profits and service organisations – are illuminating a transformational pathway that is wise, sustainable and delivers across the Five Wellbeings. However there is a dark arm of unhealthy ‘corporatisation’ often reaching into Māori enterprise with a consequent watering down of other than economic wellbeing’s and traditional Māori values being compromised.  The extremes of corporatisation also often also end up reducing economic wellbeing.
For example, an over-reliance on rational planning through numbers can stifle the creative and intuitive dimensions required for cultivating a masterful mode of strategic thinking. When strategy gives rise to policies and procedures that prescribe meticulously what to do in particular circumstances organisations can become weighed down by control and stagnation.
Many leaders believe if they manage more tightly, administrate more closely, contract more thoroughly, and systematise more comprehensively, then the organisation will function better.  However taking these dimensions to extremes, as so many organisations do, means that that we instead simply become slaves to the policy and the processes. We journey with blind obedience to strategy maps, plans and policies and get caught up in a ‘control’ approach to change.
If we want to be transformational and create true wealth and wellbeing, as well as respond to a very fast changing environment, we need a dynamic strategic approach grounded in Te Ao Māori.
This openness allows as many forms of knowledge as possible to guide decision-making. Wayfinding, a mode of leadership that draws on Polynesian traditional navigation approach, offers valuable lessons. Wayfinding embraces multiple ways of knowing that include the entire body of senses, perception, imagination, emotion, symbols, and spirit as well as concepts, logic, and rationality. Orienting to core values is essential for the wayfinding leader and includes Hūmārietanga—humility; kaitiakitanga—to be a steward and guardian of the environment; whanaungatanga—to grow and nurture communities; wairuatanga––to acknowledge and nourish the spiritual dimensions of life, and manaakitanga––to uplift and care for others.
When the people in an organisation are sufficiently aligned to reading signals from all of its communities, and have a clear vision of where they are heading, an organisation will truly live its purpose and consciously create multidimensional wellbeing.
Dr Chellie Spiller, Senior Lecturer, Associate Dean Māori and Pacific, University of Auckland Business School