What am I enabling?

She was describing an awful moment for New Zealand in March 2019, when 51 people were killed in two mass shootings at a mosque and Islamic centre by a far-right terrorist. Arden, like practically the whole country, was devastated and deeply moved. But empathy alone isn’t enough. 

“Empathetic leadership isn’t leadership unless it leads to an outcome,” she said. “It’s the change that matters. Not changing is basically being complicit.”

Arden led the government to change gun laws within 10 days of the attack with 128 of 129 politicians backing the reforms.

Whilst most of us are not leading countries and are unlikely to face a situation such as this, each of us will encounter scenarios where we are presented with a choice to act or not. I think the question, ‘what am I enabling?’ is an important one. Enabling what’s good and challenging the bad is at the heart of what it means to lead with excellence.

The good that we can enable includes:

• the personal growth of our people. Investing in them, treating them with respect, encouraging, mentoring, and guiding them.  

• the development of better products and services. Goods that are ‘good’ and services that serve others; that make a positive contribution to people’s lives and the world in which we live. 

• advocating for people who have no power, challenging conventions that are unfair.

It would be great if life and work were this easy, but they’re not. There are challenges, difficulties, mistakes, and sometimes hostility. We can, if we’re not thoughtful, find ourselves enabling unhealthy attitudes, malevolent characters and harmful business practices. Here are some examples I’ve encountered in recent weeks:

• not tackling the ‘difficult’ person in the team. The person who actively undermines others, or acts inappropriately at social events, or says things that are offensive, or does their own thing regardless of team objectives. 

• pressuring people to hit financial targets without regard for their health. 

• designing or selling ‘junk’; products that are known to be harmful but that people buy. 

• ignoring the wider implications of business practices.

We can create what we think are fair reasons for not addressing these sorts of problems, such as:  

• “That’s just Dave being Dave.” 

• “We can’t deal with her, the HR process is too painful.” 

• “I’m retiring in a couple of years; they will be someone else’s problem.” 

• “They’re brilliant with clients so we don’t worry too much about their drinking at parties.” 

• “We’ve got to hit our deadlines at any cost, otherwise the shareholder will fire us.” 

• “The margins we earn on that product are huge.” 

• “It’s not up to us to police what people buy from us.” 

• “It’s not illegal so it’s not my problem.”

As an example, the rapid adoption of AI has added urgency to the question about enablement. Individual businesses and organisations can undoubtedly gain efficiencies from the adoption of AI, but at what total cost? Are the costs hidden elsewhere, e.g. via the impact of energy emissions, a reduction in our ability to think critically, a loss of human-touch? With such rapid technological advancements, good judgement requires us to consider the wider system, not just our individual place in it. Enabling cost savings is potentially a good thing. Asking what else we are enabling by doing this is a crucial question for the excellent leader. 

Moral courage is at the root of whether we use our authority and power for good or not, whether we are change makers or complicit in the problems for which we are responsible. Do we have the necessary courage to overcome the fear of personal consequences, whether that’s getting fired, being criticised, suffering reprisals for the challenge? Doing the right thing means actually doing it. There’s a point at which thinking about it and talking about it isn’t enough; it’s only in acting with moral courage and integrity that we lead. Jacinda Arden could have discussed gun law reform for years; she chose instead to first discuss and then act quickly.

Optimism is entwined with moral courage. Without a belief that the future can and must be better, we will struggle to muster the courage to act with integrity. Why bother if we don’t believe that it (whatever it is) will get any better? Leaders must possess hope for the future. No hope, no courage. No courage, no change.

What do you hope for the future? What will you enable to help us get there?