Fran O'Sullivan: One more mountain for Clark to climb

Helen Clark likes to climb mountains. Sometimes she conquers them; sometimes she "chickens out" when the weather turns adverse. You would hardly expect her to play daredevil given the responsibilities that go with being New Zealand's "most popular and competent PM".

I've no inside knowledge on whether Clark is using her traditional Christmas break to climb mountains, or to simply plough across distant snow-fields with husband Peter behind her on their snowmobile. But the choice could be telling.

One of the books I've been reading is Wharton management professor Michael Useem's Upward Bound: Nine original accounts of how business leaders reached their summits.

Useem, who takes business people to the Himalayas on "leadership treks", reckons his charges get a great insight into themselves and the qualities it takes to oversee expeditions or companies.

"One of the over-riding themes is you need enormous self-confidence to be in a leadership position; it's stressful, risky and often unpleasant but on the other hand if you give in to too much hubris, you're going to step off a cliff."

When she was first PM, Clark continued to seek out distant mountains in Latin America or Africa - she was not so worried about stepping off a cliff.

But last year it took 40 hours after the Boxing Day tsunami struck for Clark's staff to contact her. (She was outside cellphone coverage, skiing in Norway.)

Her absence is not at issue. (Although I am sure she has not travelled outside cellphone range since without taking a satellite phone). The point is whether Clark has become so comfortable that she no longer feels it personally necessary to conquer mountains (the whole point about climbing) and herself.

The other more telling point about risk aversion is whether she is so enraptured with her position that she fears to make a fool of herself if she does not meet her challenges.

As the Wharton book points out, "falling" - as in knowing when to slide a bit and start up again - is an important quality of leadership.

If Clark has indeed become risk averse - and applies this quality to her political persona - we should worry.

The changes that will be required to stop 2008 becoming both a political and economic washout will require her to deeply plumb hidden reserves to provide the sort of leadership she has not had to demonstrate to date.

It might seem futile for me to position Clark as the person to lead New Zealand forward. Arguably politicians are at the mercy of trends in the world economy far beyond the control or influence of the prime minister of a small nation of 4.3 million.

And Clark could justifiably throw the 1990s business mantra - that the Government should get out of business' way - back in the face of those who want now for her to lead.

But globalisation is fast remaking the world in ways that surpass the ability of our existing political structures to cope.

Just look at the headlines from 2005: China outclassing the United States in technological growth; 10 Southeast Asian nations (some of them tinpots) strategising to form a new Asian bloc to rival Europe; Brazil taking on the giants of world trade; the decline of the US as the world's only superpower; the demographic changes that make the young (which India has in abundance) portenders of where wealth will be generated.

Many of our neighbours, such as Australia and Singapore, think strongly about the implications of this geographical redistribution of power and act accordingly.

One of Clark's strengths is her international outlook. She has steered her officials towards forming linkages with the world's new powerhouses and trading blocs.

But there is a gap between international performance (as in hers) and leading the domestic changes necessary for our small nation to thrive.

It is time for Clark to reach beyond her Government and forge an alliance with the private sector - and her political enemies - to bring about a new consensus on the transformative policies necessary to ride out these major geopolitical shifts.

She turned her back on the 2001 Catching the Knowledge Wave proponents which failed because it was too much a University of Auckland marketing exercise and hence exclusionary.

The reality is that all Clark had to do to succeed in her first term was ride that glorious economic weather when New Zealand and Australian economies were deliciously out-of-sync with Northern Hemisphere economies.

Very shortly, Reserve Bank Governor Alan Bollard will - in all likelihood - add a dampener to the holiday cheer by raising interest rates (again) to lower the boom on the debt-fuelled economy.

It will be a futile move - not sufficient of itself to persuade New Zealanders to make the individual shifts required for this country to become a savers' paradise. The central bank's linear approach has clearly been under-mined by the market which long ago got the measure of the referee.

Japanese bondholders and the Australian banks which dominate our banking sector will continue to "profit ship" funds offshore as fast as Bollard hikes rates.

This conundrum is not all of the Government's making. But the solution is.

Clark should come back refreshed with sufficient sense of purpose to make a difference with her prime ministership - to climb that mountain rather than snowplough her way through her third term, no matter how comfortable.