A Dog Called Diversity
A Dog Called Diversity
Te Ao Māori Leadership.....with Emma Rutherford
What if everything we've been taught about leadership is fundamentally flawed?
Emma Rutherford's research into Te Ao Māori (the Māori world) leadership principles challenges the individualistic Western leadership model that dominates our organisations.
Drawing from her experience as an organisational development leader and research with high-performing teams, Emma reveals how indigenous wisdom can transform our approach to workplace culture.
While western organisations celebrate individual achievement and self-promotion, Māori leadership embodies humility and collective success – captured beautifully in the proverb "a kumara never speaks of its sweetness."
Emma's research isn't just theoretical – it's backed by compelling data showing teams led with these principles demonstrate engagement scores 10-15 points higher than organisational averages. These leaders share decision-making, truly listen to their people, and take a holistic interest in their wellbeing across physical, mental, spiritual and community dimensions.
Whether you're leading a team, building organisational culture, or simply interested in more human-centred workplaces, this conversation provides practical wisdom for creating environments where people can thrive.
The Culture Ministry we specialise in building sustainable businesses through productive and effective work cultures.
We do this through:
🟡 Culture Audits, Surveys, Benchmarking and Data Work
🟡 Crafting Culture Strategy that connects with Organisational Purpose
🟡 Long term leadership programs to advance leadership teams in building sustainable and inclusive cultures. What that leaders say, do, and measure, has a massive impact on your culture and the sustainability of your business.
🟡 Providing structure and tools for Employee Resource Groups to be successful, and drive better business outcomes.
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Welcome to A Dog Called Diversity everyone, and this week I have such a beautiful and interesting guest. Her name is Emma Rutherford. Welcome to the podcast, Emma.
Speaker 2:Kia ora Lisa, Wonderful to be here.
Speaker 1:Do you know? I'm just at the point that I can say Cura, I've been here three years and it's been a greeting that hasn't come naturally to me, but it's taken me this long. But I think I'm there, which?
Speaker 2:is great. It's actually a tricky one for you know novice tongues, because you've got to roll that R.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I can roll an R, but I hadn't connected the two um yeah, but I'm getting there, I'm. I'm following a guy on TikTok, actually who? Who shares the correct pronunciation of Marty words. I'm going in on that. But, emma, I'd love to learn a bit more about you and your background. Would you share a bit about, I guess, who you are, where you grew up, maybe a bit about your work history?
Speaker 2:Wonderful. So I'm going to start off with what I call a Pākehā pipihā. So I'll do that and then I'll translate. Awesome. So tina koutouua hui hui mai nei E mihi ana ki ngā mana whenua Ko Emma. Tōku ingoa Nō koti ana oku tipuna. I tai mai oku tipuna ke ātea roa te tau 1870. I tipu ake au ke Masterton E nohu ana au ki Tamaki Makaurau. So that pepiha.
Speaker 2:I explained what's a pepiha, what's a pepiha. So the pepiha is how you introduce yourself in te ao Māori. So if I was Māori, I would be talking about my mountain, my river, my marae, really where I whakapapa to. But being Pākehā, it needs to be a little bit different, because I don't, I'm not Māori, so I can't claim a mountain or a river. So my pepeha said my name my name is Emma, and that my ancestors came from Scotland and that they came to New Zealand around 1870 and they settled in Masterton, which is near Wellington, and that's where I grew up. And then I went on to say but I now live in Tamaki Makaurau or Auckland, and I acknowledged the local tangata whenua from Auckland, so Ngati Whatua and then greeted everybody. So that's how you would do it on a marae, and just a good kind of skill to have in order to think about where you're from and what your whakapapa is, because that's very important in te ao Māori.
Speaker 1:Okay, Emma. Now I'm going to go in on some of these words, because many of my listeners are from outside of New Zealand. So what is whakapapa? Tell me what that is.
Speaker 2:Whakapapa is really your genealogy, so in Te Ao Māori, that's a really important part of somebody's identity. So which iwi they come from? What's an iwi? They come from and what's an iwi? What's an iwi is? It's like a tribe or, you know, a larger group within New Zealand and in fact, when they're talking about their whakapapa, they will often talk about the waka. Their ancestors came in to New Zealand, so it's going back the waka is the canoe, so so we're going way back.
Speaker 2:So Maori have been in New Zealand 700, 800 years. But their whakapapa, with a lot of indigenous people they will talk about, they can talk many, many generations and will reference the waka that their ancestors came in.
Speaker 1:Okay, and what's a marae?
Speaker 2:ancestors came in. Okay, and what's a marae? So the marae is the meeting place for iwi or hapu. So a marae they're all through New Zealand, everywhere. A marae is where you go back to to be with your people and it has a whare. Nui is the meeting house or big house in the middle of the marae and that's where meetings take place, where tangi or funerals take place or important gatherings of iwi, and then the other parts of the marae are the eating house and other areas.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, thank you so much for sharing that, emma, and it's actually the first time I've been able to stop someone and go okay, stop. What does that mean? What does that mean? Having been here three years, I do know what a lot of those words mean, but I know for people listening outside of New Zealand they won't know those words and it's actually uh, not for all New Zealand people, but for many people. Those Maori words have entered into normal conversation with white people and, um, it's, it's almost part of the language, some of the words. So thank you so much for sharing those, and you have a really good understanding of Maori culture, which I'm looking forward to learning a bit more about. But what has been your work background? Like, what have you, I guess, been part of in your working life?
Speaker 2:Yes, so I grew up in a rural small town in the Wairarapa and my family had been there for many generations a farming background. I went to an only girls' school and it was very undiverse, very undiverse and in fact it was sort of people from small towns will understand this is that some of the girls I went to school with their dads had gone to school with my dad or their grandfather had gone to school with my grandfather. So not only was it very undiverse, but it was kind of narrow. Uh, you know people who, um, had the same values and beliefs and and did the same things in terms of earning a living. So, uh, that was my upbringing.
Speaker 2:And then I went away to university and then my first job was with the public sector in Wellington and what that was is a huge eye-opener about the diversity of New Zealand and this was in the 90s, so it's a lot more diverse now. But also I was put on a Treaty of Waitangi course, which public servants were going through at that time, and this was new information to me, absolutely the historical context and what it meant for society. And I think the thing that is quite shocking, lisa, is that I had done history right through school and that was my best subject and you know I did it right up to scholarship level. At school I could tell you all about Henry VIII and all his wives, and you know I could talk about Shakespeare, and, but I couldn't tell you about the Treaty of Waitangi. So what?
Speaker 1:is the Treaty of.
Speaker 2:Waitangi. So the Treaty of Waitangi is the founding document of New Zealand. So that was signed in 1840 between Tangata, whenua, or Māori, and the British Crown. So it's a document that's really important right to this day, because it's the fundamental document of our country day, because it's a fundamental document of our country.
Speaker 2:Problem with it is that it was prepared in a great hurry because the British knew that the French were knocking on the door and so we needed the British need to get something in place, otherwise, you know, the french may have um, uh, colonized new zealand. So, uh, it was prepared and translated overnight by um missionary at the time in the bay of islands and then, uh, your, uh, chiefs from um all over, uh new zealand came to debate it at Waitangi, which is a place near Paihia in the Bay of Islands absolutely beautiful place and, however, what they were debating slightly different to what the English version said. So certain words had had to be invented and certain words had slightly different nuances and and that's what you know, that was signed. But that is what causes some issues today when we're talking about what. What does the treaty actually mean?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, what does it mean for you? Going on that course, learning about this history? What did it mean for you?
Speaker 2:Well, I think it means, first of all, the Treaty is around. What does it mean to be part of New Zealand? And you know you have tangata whenua, or Māori, and tangata to Tiriti. So the Treaty gives us the right to be here and that we need to work in partnership to create the best Aotearoa that we can. And you know there's a lot of pain and shame between 1840 to 2025. So you know we signed that treaty.
Speaker 2:It was a fantastic document and intent, but then after that, there were land confiscations, there were land wars, there were musket wars. There was a really impact on the Māori population, not only a loss of land, but things like disease, measles, et cetera. And then in the 20th century, it was around okay, we've been called to fight with Britain in the First World War and the Second World War. Māori you come and fight and then when you return home, we ignore you, and so this is a common story in colonised countries, I think. And then in the 70s and 80s, you get that Māori Renaissance, which is more around.
Speaker 2:Okay, we are going to take these grievances around breaches of the treaty and we're going to revitalise our language and things like kohanga reo being introduced, which are language nests that translate to language nests. So little children from toddlers are being taught to reo Māori, so you're getting more and more native speakers. Yeah, so what I mean by pain and shame is sort of like well, what part did my ancestors play? And and that sad history or not? Um, and, and how do we kind of move past that, to work together, to uh, move beyond that painful past?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, thank you, that was a great succinct explanation, I think, and really helpful. And I think the week I moved to New Zealand it was around International Women's Day and I had found a local webinar celebration of International Women's Day and I can remember getting on the webinar and the host doing a welcome in Maori a white woman doing a welcome in Maori uh, I was just trying to think of the right word, but I was uh surprised how well she could speak the Maori language and how integrated it's become into organizations and some other ways work they do, which is a really positive thing. Um, it's challenging for me because I still don't understand the language. I'm getting better but, um, that was a great explanation.
Speaker 2:Um, I know that you decided to do some research into, uh, I get the Maori way of life and Maori leadership and I wondered if you would talk about your journey getting to that point and and how you decided to do that, that research, sure, sure so, uh, I at the time I was the head of organizational development for a crown entity, um, and so part of the public sector, but it was an organisation that had not invested much time or energy into a te ao Māori strategy at that point and, as a Crown entity, it's really important that Māori are considered in any strategy. So I was involved in the project team because it's really important and a really understandable concept that Māori will say okay, you want to work with us on this external strategy, but what are you like as an employer? What are you like for Maori employees? What are you doing in terms of how you operate as a culture? And so that's a really important question. It's almost like get your own house in order first before you come asking to partner with us.
Speaker 2:And so, as the head of OD, I was looking to kind of change the culture around operating in a more bicultural way, and that included really practical things like we would have mehi whakato, which is a welcome for all new staff. So you know you have an induction normally, but we would. We incorporated a mehi whakato where you bring along your family. And you know you have an induction normally, but we incorporated a mihi whakato, where you bring along your family and you know we speak in Māori and welcome you using the tikanga or the protocol of the local iwi. So that makes it a bit more complicated, because when we were doing it in Wellington, we were thinking of Te Atiawa, who are the iwi in Wellington, and how they operate. When we did it in Christchurch, we had to think about Ngāi Tahu and how they operate in terms of their protocol. But that was just one example. Also, we did te reo lessons online for anybody that wanted to learn.
Speaker 2:We also did introduce karakia karakia before every meeting or whenever we ate food. Now karakia in some cases can be a prayer or a poem or an incantation or just acknowledging the people that prepared the food. So it's just a way of coming together and being present. And so those were some of the practical things that we put in place, and at that time I decided to go back to university and do some postgraduate study and did my masters, and I was thinking about the fact that we're doing these practical, visible things in terms of indicating that we want to operate in a bicultural way. But unless there's a deeper kind of way of operating, they can become quite tick-boxy, like, oh yeah, we sing the song and we do this and we do that, but then as soon as we're back at our desks, we go back to the old way of operating. So that was what kind of sparked me to do the research around what does culture and leadership actually look like in terms of a Māori setting?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah. How did you approach that research? I guess there's always an academic side, but there's also the practical side. How did you bring that together?
Speaker 2:So yeah, academic side, so literature review, oh yeah, because. I hadn't done any academic study since my bachelor's degree, which was well last century.
Speaker 1:Literally yeah.
Speaker 2:So a lot, a lot of reading yeah, so a lot of reading to come up with a definition of what leadership looks like from an academic point of view. But then I wanted to test it. So what I did was I interviewed Māori staff and I asked them about who have been the great leaders in your life and how have they influenced you. And that might be at work, it might be in the marae with your iwi, it might be in the community. Some people talked about their experience in the military, some people talked about family members and what did it look like and what did those leaders practically do?
Speaker 2:And then I had some lovely anecdotes about what that looked like. I also asked them about when did you feel that Te Ao Māori was not honoured in the workplace, and I got some really good feedback on that. And then I was able to marry the two, which was was okay, here's my academic definition and here's my practical definition and how does it slot in and came up with a really thorough definition that I was happy with. That was sort of based in practical reality as well as all that reading.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, would you share? I I guess what that definition was and, um, I'd be really interested to understand the tension, if there was one, between how we lead in, I guess, western society, what that looks like in organizations, and how maori would lead, you know was. Is there a tension between that?
Speaker 2:Absolutely, absolutely so. I think the other point, too, is that this understanding of good leadership, the more I researched, it is not exclusive to Māori, so there's that universal wisdom around. You know what does a good community look like and how will it thrive? So the author that I recommend is Owen Eastwood, and he wrote a book called Belonging which really highlights this. And it makes sense when we think about pre-industrial revolution, when we were living in smaller communities, it was important to look after the planet, look after resources, look after the environment. It was important to think about future generations, it was important to work together as a team and as a community, and so these concepts are sort of common across ancient cultures, whether that's Maori, polynesian, celts, you know those are common attributes.
Speaker 2:And then when we think, okay, this is how Maori are operating in their community outside of work, and then they go to work in a nutritional organisation, it's about individuals. It's about you've got individual KPIs and then you sit down for a performance appraisal and your individual performance is measured. If you've done well, you get an individual bonus or some other kind of recognition bonus or some other kind of recognition, and that is counter to the cultural values of Māori and indigenous people in particular in New Zealand. So when I was the head of organizational development, I put in place a recognition program which included, you know, nominating people on a monthly basis and they would get acknowledged and, you know, get a, you know a Prezi card right through to the end of the year where it was a much bigger award and they'd get, you know, a framed thing from the CEO and it was a big deal. A couple of times Maori staff would come to me and say I'm just not comfortable. I'm not comfortable. You've already thanked me personally. You know we have a relationship, a connection. I don't want to be called out as an individual, so that that's just one example.
Speaker 2:And you mentioned the definition of good leadership in Te Ao Māori and one of the aspects is humi aritanga and that translates as humbleness, and there's a really great whakatauki that describes humbleness. Now, whakatauki is the word for proverb in Māori and the proverb around humbleness is a kumara never speaks of its sweetness. So when you think about a kumara or a sweet potato, it never speaks of its own sweetness. So the way that you kind of translate that is leaders don't blow their own trumpet, that's for other people to do. And so, when we think of a Western organization, if you are applying for a job, you need to talk yourself up, sell yourself and all your accomplishments and et cetera. If you are being promoted, you need to do the same. And traditional leaders in Western organisations, sometimes the ones with the loudest voice or who take up the most space in the room or do the most talking. That does not fit with Māori culture.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that is not. Um, does not fit with Maori culture. Yeah, I, um, since I've been in New Zealand, I haven't worked inside organizations, but I have worked inside organizations in Asia and that experience is so similar to being able to understand that that we're a collective of people. We don't want to be singled out, um, and there's been many times when my us based company was telling me to do things and bonuses was a good example of you've got to have individual targets and individual bonuses and like it just doesn't fit.
Speaker 2:No, no, it just doesn't fit, so the team approach is much, much better.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I would watch my team. They would all go out for lunch together. Like eight people would go out together and I, as an Aussie, I'd be like I just want a sandwich and eat it at my desk. I don't want to go and have a big lunch, but that was so important in the workplace, so absolutely like we.
Speaker 2:we in New Zealand have just um celebrated Matariki, which is, you know, the Maori new year, where the uh, the stars appear in the sky um in midwinter, and, and part of how Māoridom would celebrate is everybody coming together to share kai or share food, and so many workplaces now, when they're celebrating Matariki, will have a shared lunch, or, you know, that is just a way that humans sharing food together build those bonds. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and certainly saw that in Asia. Wherever there was a celebration, we would bring people together with food and there would be a lot of thought put into making sure that we have vegetarians or we have Muslims who need halal food, or so much thought and care went into those celebrations, which was beautiful. Yeah, yeah, I know that you had some challenges during your research and your study. I'd love for you to share those and how that's, I guess, contributed to the end result of your research.
Speaker 2:Sure, so when I started this study, I was head of organizational development at a crown entity. I began the work and I had, about a year into it, sort of that imposter syndrome, feeling like what right have I got, as you know, possibly one of the whitest people you've ever met to be thinking about these things and operating this way? And I talked to my Māori advisor and my Māori network and sort of had a shift in focus that this isn't me being the great white saviour, it's. I'm producing this work for people like me because I think there can often be it's sometimes called Pākehā paralysis where people like you and me we don't want to offend, we're a bit embarrassed about our lack of knowledge and we don't want to do the wrong thing, so sometimes it's easier to do nothing. But with somebody like me, you might be much more open to asking me questions, because I've had to go on my own learning journey as well and I'm also able to point out practical things that you know, somebody from the dominant paradigm like you and I and we don't see our privilege because it's invisible to us. What are practical things that we can do to create an inclusive leadership environment where Maori or other indigenous people can feel really safe to be themselves. Yeah, so that was kind of a crisis of confidence for me, but I got over that through talking with my advisors and sort of refocusing the work I was coming up with. That was recommendations for mainstream organizations.
Speaker 2:And then, about two years into my study, I was diagnosed with bowel cancer. So this nasty, nasty cancer. So if you're Australian, you get tested in Australia at 45. In New Zealand we don't get tested to 58. So this is no, no symptoms, it's a nasty one. Luckily, my one, mine was picked up quickly, but it did mean a year of chemotherapy and having to really give up work. So this was the perfect time to get this master's finished, because I had time on my hands and I'm also, as academics will know, I was time on my hands and I'm also, as academics will know, I was aware that my data was getting older and older and so I needed to crunch the numbers and come up with what those insights were. So, yeah, no, I was really proud to get it finished in December last year. Oh, yay, yeah, and I graduated in April and that was a really special ceremony because I had my parents there and I had my children there, so they had the three generations.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's amazing, would you? I'd love to know what were insights for you personally being diagnosed with cancer, having to go through chemotherapy, and then, I guess, what were the insights you've gleaned for organizations and leadership? You've talked about some really practical things around supporting Maori people as a start, um, but leaders really drive the culture in organizations, so I'd love to hear some of your insights for the from the research. But first, yeah, what did you learn, I guess, about yourself, about your diagnosis, your, um, I guess your healing along?
Speaker 2:the way. Um, I think it's really taught me how resilient I could be. So I think the first thing was, you know, being told that I had cancer. So it was literally oh, the doctor wants to see you in the office. Bring your partner, you know, and here's the news in the office, bring your partner, you know, and here's the news. And you know, medical professionals have a range of EQ. Some people will tell you. So, anyway, that was a shock. Then I think there was the okay, we're going to cure it by surgery.
Speaker 2:And then, once I was waking up from surgery, I discovered that it had been worse than they had thought. So I had an ileostomy bag, which is requires a whole lot of changes to your lifestyle and how you operate in terms of managing that. And because they discovered surgery, that it had spread, I needed chemotherapy. So it was kind of like shock after shock after shock, and it kind of teaches you that how resilient you can be when you need to be.
Speaker 2:And I think the main thing was being strong for my children and knowing that I needed to beat this for them. And then it also gives you a wake-up call about what's important in life and what and where you want to spend your time on. Particularly with chemotherapy, you kind of have a bad week and a good week. So the bad week is when you're getting the infusion and you feel really sick and awful, and then your body kind of adjusts and you have a good week where you can get some stuff done and then, and then you go in for another session and and so, um, I was like okay, you know, I want to go, go spend time with my children, spend time with my friends, go go out and do the things that give me joy. And and you know, don't sweat the small stuff.
Speaker 2:Really, yeah, yeah, and write a research paper, just that little thing so, in terms of leadership around um and mainstream kind of organizations, what I did was I had a cohort of 75 leaders and I looked at our engagement survey data and I picked out 20 questions that demonstrated these components of te ao Māori leadership and I pulled out the leaders that had scored the highest. So I then had high performing leaders 20 of them. Now it was a matter of looking at those leaders and what were their styles and what did they actually do to demonstrate great leadership? Yeah, so the first thing was all of those 20 leaders, in terms of engagement for their teams, they were like 10, 15 points higher than the rest of the organization. So you know, if you understand engagement, that's huge in terms of people's discretionary effort and you know what are they saying about the organization? Do they intend on staying, you know? So that's really significant. And then it was around. Well, what do you actually do as a leader? And it it was things like. I don't pretend to have all the answers. We decide together. I make an effort to really listen and dedicate time.
Speaker 2:I understand each employee's specifics in terms of their well-being. So Māori have a model around well-being called Te Whare Tapu Whā, which breaks well-being down into four areas. So physical well-being, mental well-being, spiritual well-being and community so much broader than most Western organisations in terms of how they think about well-being and community, so much broader than most Western organisations in terms of how they think about well-being. Normally it's like, right, we'll go and do round the bays. If you've got some mental health issues, you might go to EAP for a few sessions, but in terms of thinking about spirituality or community and whakapapa, that's missing.
Speaker 2:So but these high performing leaders, they were also thinking about each of their employees in terms of what's happening with your family, you know, what are your talents, what are your dreams that kind of really holistic view. That kind of really holistic view. The other thing was in terms of mapping, in terms of what high-performing leaders were demonstrating. It was again this humbleness, and I saw it come out in surprising places. So are you a rugby fan at all? No, not really, I say that very quietly Don't tell anyone else in New Zealand?
Speaker 2:New Zealand, yeah, graham Henry, who was a very, very successful all-back coach for a number of years. He used to talk about leading the team from the back of the bus. So, in other words, my job as a leader is to make everybody else successful and everybody else shine. And when you're talking about Maori leadership, they often talk about the leader being in the kitchen at the marae. So I'm in the kitchen making sure that everything works well and everything's going well behind the scenes and letting other people give the wonderful speeches or greet the dignitaries. So it's all there. As a high-performing leader or a servant leader, my job is to make my people successful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, I love that. And while you were talking about the Maori model of wellbeing, that aligns really closely with Martin Seligman's model around positive psychology and flourishing and the things you were talking around health, mental health, spiritual health, community. That is certainly reflected in Martin Seligman's work and it's so interesting as well when I talk about this model. In leadership programs we always, when we're doing activities, we always say you're not allowed to talk about physical health, you have to.
Speaker 2:You have to think about some of the other parts of your health for the activities, so that people understand it's more holistic than just yeah, going to the gym or yeah sometimes it can feel a bit uncomfortable for some people to talk about this, because I think that's the other part of my thinking and my research was that leaders in mainstream organisations who are in their 40s or 50s they have got there by being successful through the current culture. So that is about individuals. It's about being assertive, about promoting yourself. That's how they've got to where they are, so that's what they know. So when we suddenly say, okay, we want you to lead in a more inclusive servant leadership way, this is asking them to change and we need to be really practical about what that looks like sometimes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah and it and it's. It's really uncomfortable and when you've looked at leaders get to be the ceo or get to be in the executive team, it's usually because they've known everything they're the technical expert. Um, not that. They're good at bringing people with them, asking good questions, listening, all those things that you discovered. Yeah, our model of leadership has been upside down for so long.
Speaker 2:It has. It has, and I think you know, when we're talking about sharing something about your mental health or your spirituality, that's making you vulnerable and that's not actually something that we're used to talking about. No, yeah, no.
Speaker 1:I sometimes find myself talking about and this is crazy right that vulnerability can be on a spectrum and and as leaders, we might've been acting at one end where we haven't shared anything of ourselves. And then I'm working with leaders and it's almost like we're asking them to share everything about them, which is not what we're doing, but we want to bring them down the spectrum a little bit, to be a little bit vulnerable, to share a little bit of their challenges, so that it's okay for other people to do that as well. It's a lot of change and it absolutely builds trust.
Speaker 2:Yes, and I think if you make it safe, people really respond. So one of the leadership programs that I ran in my last job, I said right, the first session, we're going to look at whānau ngā ngā tanga, which is another Māori concept, which is around family and getting to know each other as family. So you know we're a cohort, we're going to be spending time together. I want to know more about you and so bring along something that says something about you or your family. And you know, somebody bought a huge family Bible, like a couple of hundred years old, where they'd written down everybody, and that was amazing. And then somebody else brought the items that their grandfather had had in a Japanese prison camp in Singapore. So just wonderful, deep stories that bring people and where they come from to life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's so beautiful. Yeah, I was curious only because I have done some work with women in organisations and women around leadership. I wondered, and I had noticed with the women that they were taking on some of the leadership characteristics of Marty, as you've been talking, and wondered when you you had a smaller sample, but had you seen any difference between women and men and what strengths they bring to leadership, or was it yeah there was no difference no, um, they, the majority of the high performing cohort were women.
Speaker 2:um, yeah, uh, and none of them and this often happens in organizations in New Zealand at the moment is that Māori and Pasifika will intuitive or instinctive, or just part of how they were as a person and the community coming first before the individual seemed to be more prevalent in the women leaders. So of the cohort, the high-performing cohort, 70% of them would have been women.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, I'm so excited about your research and I I was wondering what are you going to do with it next, because it's, I mean, it's important stuff, right? So how, how are you going to, I guess, elevate it? Uh yeah, have more people know about it, apart from talking on a podcast, of course?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, well, um, if anybody is interested in hearing more or working with me, please find me on LinkedIn. I have talked to a couple of executive teams recently around it and they have found that discussion is being really useful in terms of opening some conversations up in their team about their own whakapapa, or what makes them who they are, and then what that means in terms of their leadership. The other thing I'm thinking about, leasra, is turning this academic, very long piece of writing into a book which is much easier to digest.
Speaker 1:And, yeah, with more, more case studies and more tips and ideas yeah, I love that idea so much because I could see you know CEOs or you know heads of people, heads of organizational development, diversity and inclusion people using a book like that in their organizations and that really amplifies the work you've done, so I'm very excited about that well, thank you, I think I think, um, there's been other great books, but I think what I bring to it is I have been, um, you know uh, od manager for 15 or so years, and so I'm really about the practical.
Speaker 2:What do we actually do?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, um, and it's also good you've got that research, yes, basis. But yeah, the, the practical stuff is the important bit, I think, because everyone wants to know yeah, what do we do, how do we actually opera, operationalize it, which is a terrible word but, yeah, how do we make it come to life? I guess, yeah hmm well, I will put all your contact details in the show notes so that people can find you. Um is there. Is there anything that we haven't talked about that you'd like to leave the listeners with?
Speaker 2:um, I just think it's around thinking am I what? What am I spending my time on as a leader? Uh, and when you think about what is my role as a leader and the primary objective is to make other people successful or grow my own mana by growing mana and others then how are you spending your time? And sometimes a really simple test is to look at your diary. A really simple test is to look at your diary and just think how much time am I spending with my people versus my boss or other things, and how can I kind of shift that balance so that they they feel respected and valued?
Speaker 1:That is perfect. When I think back to some of the leaders I've worked for who would cancel their one-on-one meetings all the time because they had something more important. Yeah, I had no respect for those leaders. Yeah, thank you so much, emma. It's been an absolute delight speaking with you and I can't wait to see your book.
Speaker 2:Oh, thank you, Lisa. I've really enjoyed it and, yes, me too.