The Making of a Transformational Leader

Dear Readers,

During this important election year with so many countries electing leaders, including us in the US,?I am paying close attention to the leadership journeys of those stepping forward to lead.

These initial steps a leader takes on their personal leadership journey can offer insights into how they will lead. For example, a few months ago, I interviewed former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. We talked about her rise to power there and she told a story that many people may not know.

At 37, Ardern was the deputy leader of the Labour Party and second in line to the party leader. She says that in New Zealand, the party leader traditionally chooses the most non-threatening person for that role, and "it was me.” About seven weeks before the election, they got a horrendous poll result — the worst one the party had received since 1922. The leader of the party called her into his office and said, “I don't think I can do it. I think you need to do it.” The next week he quit and nominated her.

She said that because she was thrust into the role, she had no time to change who she was: “That meant that I could be a human first and a leader second, and I stuck with that all the way through — and what a blessing that was for me.” Ardern approached her leadership as she had lived her life before becoming a leader: “relentlessly positive” and focused on issues. Her record clearly documents the many decisions she made, her approach to power and influence, the priorities that were evident in every choice, and that she became a transformational leader for her country.

Interesting to observe, then, that Vice President Kamala Harris was also thrust into her current path to become the Democratic Party's presidential nominee when President Biden decided to step aside. She had chosen to campaign for president before, it must be noted, but this time, it was an unexpected opportunity to step up to an altogether different level of leadership and power.

Harris’s chosen leader to campaign with her as her Vice Presidential choice is also someone whose leadership journey has been somewhat different than the usual path for political leaders.

Before entering politics, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz was a high school teacher and football coach. He decided to run for office after observing one of the biggest challenges in our country – deep partisan divides.

As a teacher, he had brought two students to see President George Bush speak in Minnesota in 2004. One of the students had a sticker for Democratic candidate John Kerry, and they were told they would not be allowed in. After explaining it might be bad PR to bar an Army veteran from seeing his president, they made it in, but Walz said that he “was struck by how deeply divided our country was becoming that a veteran & a group of high schoolers would be turned away at the door.”

He’s not wrong, politics in America has divided our country in ways I’ve not seen in my lifetime. When he took the stage in Philadelphia Tuesday night, he thanked Harris for putting her trust in him, but also, he added , “maybe more so, thank you for bringing back the joy.”

Watching Harris step into her power with her relentless positivity and good humor (I love her laugh!) has created not only optimism about the outcomes, but also (I agree with her running mate!) some much needed joy to a process that had become so negative that many, especially young people, were disengaging. It feels like they are back, along with the rest of us who are encouraged by the priorities that Harris is putting forward — to work to build bridges, to strengthen programs for greater economic inclusion, to restore ?reproductive rights for all women, and to protect democratic values and freedoms for everyone.

I'm expecting Kamala Harris to be a transformational leader, not because she’s a woman or because she, too, was thrust into her role by a resignation, but because her leadership journey offers evidence of her commitment to the principles of transformational leadership: empathy, compassion, and prioritizing inclusiveness and collective problem solving in order to build consensus.

I would also add three qualities that might not fall under the traditional definition of transformational leadership but are, for me, important for leaders to possess:?Relentless positivity, the capacity to laugh, and kindness. My role model on this is, once again, Jacinda Ardern who, when asked what she wanted her legacy of leadership to be, answered “kindness!”

Imagine! Leading from the perspective of what is kind, compassionate, collaborative, inclusive and true to one’s values, that serves the people you are elected to lead best! Yes, imagine what it will be like to have such a leader — and imagine what it can be like to BE such a leader. ?

It was contemplating that very question that led me, along with my partner, Ronda Carnegie, with support from The Rockefeller Foundation, to initiative a series of forums with women leaders to put into practice the qualities of transformational leadership to collectively problem solve for some of the biggest global challenges: Food insecurity, access to global health, the climate and nature crisis, and women’s representation at all levels of leadership.

We’ve been convening Connected Women Leaders gatherings at the Bellagio Conference Center since 2017. Our community has grown from that first group of 40 to include more than 200 women leaders across generations and geographies, expertise and experience. We have learned together, and advocated for solutions and for each other. Earlier this summer, a member of our first cohort, Halla Tómasdóttir, was elected president of Iceland, and there is no question that she will be a transformative leader as she has been at every step of her leadership journey.

The experiences for me of getting to know leaders like Halla and working closely with so many other women leaders led me to think more about my own leadership journey. That may sound odd to those of you who know that I resigned my last leadership position nearly 10 years ago and that at 81, I am leading as a volunteer activist leader of a global climate campaign for climate justice, Project Dandelion .

But I’m still on my leadership journey, wanting to learn more and be more prepared to step into leadership wherever and whenever the opportunity calls for it… in my family, my community, and my country.

I’m feeling that call from my country now, and determined to do whatever I can to ensure that we get the leaders we need and that our democracy deserves. For me, that’s clearly Kamala Harris and Tim Walz!

When I step up to cast my vote as a US citizen, I will be voting for transformative leadership — to repair the climate and end the nature crisis; to implement inclusive, compassionate policies; to recommit to our democratic values that ensure freedom and rights for everyone; to seek peaceful resolutions of conflicts and greater shared prosperity; and yes, to activate more kindness and joy!

Onward!

- Pat

P.S. I’ll be sharing more from my own leadership journey at the IMAGINE leaders forum at Oxford later this month!