Cultivating tall poppies

New Zealand has a wealth of talent, but it must be encouraged, says GAVIN ELLIS.

The cover of this special report features tall poppies. They form a genus with which New Zealanders reputedly have a problem or which, more precisely, produces a compulsive desire to reach for the garden shears.

Tall poppies risk becoming an endangered species through a perverse extension of egalitarianism. It is a process through which the principles of equality become perverted to the point where no one is allowed to be better than the next, where strenuous efforts are made to ensure everyone is equal.

How often do we see an individual rising to prominence, only to have his or her elevation become the subject of criticism and envy? How often are we prepared to condone that criticism as somehow being justified by the "tall poppy syndrome"?

This particular disorder cannot be justified and it is high time that the tall poppy syndrome became socially unacceptable. We should be celebrating the rise to prominence, not finding fault in it.

We encounter not the slightest difficulty in celebrating the success of our sporting heroes. It is unthinkable that a rugby player would be criticised for being selected for the All Blacks or a netball player vilified for becoming a Silver Fern. We rightly honour the likes of Sir Peter Blake and Dame Susan Devoy, Danyon Loader and Sarah Ulmer. It is as natural a sentiment as cheering for the home team.

So it should be no hardship for New Zealanders to recognise and celebrate achievement in all its forms. From the ranks of those achievers rise the leaders in our community.

The Knowledge Wave Trust has identified leadership as a key factor in achieving the sort of sustainable economic and social development to which the country can aspire. Its forum, which begins tomorrow, will focus attention on the ways in which leadership can be a catalyst to growth across the socio-economic spectrum.

The trust's desire to organise the forum is symptomatic of a growing realisation that the community cannot simply look to the Government for leadership. Governments may be able to create environments conducive to growth but they cannot wave magic wands.

Perhaps it has taken the country a little too long to reach that conclusion but, having done so, it already shows signs of producing the people who can make things happen. The challenge will be to determine the roles that they might play and to demonstrate how their qualities of leadership might be employed.

Their endeavours will not be limited to commerce and they will not all have university degrees as an entry qualification. The transformational development that New Zealand needs to guarantee a permanent place in the upper ranks of OECD membership must stretch from boardroom to factory floor, from faculty to whanau. It will need leaders in all facets of society to promote and maintain change.

Leadership, of course, is a term with many shades of meaning and we should not limit our thinking to the traditional "leader of men (and women)" definition as the person at the head of a team. Leadership is equally important in any endeavour.

Richard Florida, one of the keynote speakers in the leadership forum, has spoken of the entrepreneurial society.

"What we are seeing in society today is a broad social, cultural, organisational shift in the way people think about their lives," he says. "The entrepreneurship impulse permeates all of this society. It is something that goes far beyond just the economy or business. It's become a social ethos."

Professor Florida sees leadership in a broad sense and New Zealand must embrace a similar outlook.

In his country - the United States - entrepreneurs are lauded. We tend to look sideways at them until they are successful enough to be "respectable". It is a type of thinking we need to change. We must begin to applaud when our entrepreneurs raise their heads above the parapet, not wait until they ride out the castle gate after the battle is won.

There is no doubt that New Zealand possesses a multitude of talent able to turn this country into an entrepreneurial society if only it receives sufficient encouragement.

Many of those leaders will reach their full potential only if their leadership is acknowledged and their achievement above the norm is recognised. That will happen if we, as a country, are prepared to let the tall poppies grow.

* Gavin Ellis is editor-in-chief of the New Zealand Herald and a member of the Knowledge Wave Trust.

Herald Special Report - February 18, 2003:
Knowledge Wave 2003 - the leadership forum

Herald feature: