Leadership in the Time of COVID

Jacinda Ardern campaigned in the 2017 election as a ‘transformational leader’. And she is. Just not in a way that is helping New Zealand. Never before have we seen the protests, the petitions, the parades of placards that are gaining ever-increasing momentum. We are indeed marching now, Jacinda. Thousands of us are not, by nature, wavers of banners or wearers of MAGA hats, that the MSM continues to describe as Trumpism. Make Ardern Go Away. We do not wish to live under an apartheid system ruled by an autocrat.

We have no trust in a leader who, along with the compliant MSM, almost completely disregarded the Groundswell protest this weekend in seventy towns and cities nationwide. Thousands of unhappy people all affected by unworkable regulations. Mostly ignored – apart from the violent woman protesting against the peaceful protesters by throwing pots of yoghurt at them from a height, which made for a much better story.

Jacinda’s claim to transformational leadership can be evaluated against this definition of transformational leadership, which defines an effective leader as one who does the following:

1. Creates an inspiring vision of the future
2. Motivates and inspires people to engage with that vision
3. Manages delivery of the vision
4. Coaches and builds a team, so that it is more effective at achieving the vision.

Were we inspired and motivated to engage with the vision? We didn’t know about it. We are certainly not inspired or motivated by Ardern’s Government’s lies and deceptions; by their half-truths and obfuscation.

Managing the delivery of the vision? Well, you’d have to say that, yes, she is managing the delivery of her vision. Of her two visions; the terrible twins. First, her overwhelming desire to beat the rest of the world vaccination rates; to be the best and the biggest and to control us with vaccinations and lockdowns and to be photo-op’ed for the world stage. 

And then the ‘partnership’ vision: the one she deliberately kept hidden from us, the one that is being managed in tandem with Nanaia Mahuta and the Maori elite. Three Waters, He Puapua and Pae Ora, UN Agenda 2030 were all underhand and are detrimental to the vision of New Zealand we grew up with and that we hold, or once held, dear. 

Did she coach and build a team, so that it would be more effective at achieving the vision? Her “cabinet of incompetents” are indeed incompetent. They are dangerous drivers veering from one side of the road to the other, with milestones, malfunctioning traffic lights, stop-go men, roundabouts, changes in speed, road cones, give way signs; and stop signs only effective against those they classify as ‘anti-vaxxers,’ right–wing extremists,’ conspiracy theorists,’ or ‘racists’ (in other words anyone who dares to question them).

The ‘Sheriff of Northland’, John Hatfield, or Hone Harawira as he identifies as, is now given legal powers to be the stop-go man of the north. Iwi and others now have the power to determine where we can travel.

And the rest of the ‘team’, as the PM condescendingly refers to us?  There are currently 208 petitions before Parliament open for signatures.

On the government website on 19 November, keyword searches against those 208 petitions open show*

• x 25 concerning Covid
• x 3 vaccination
• x 9 Maori vaccination rates
• x 26 jab or no job
• x 6 Three Waters
• x 9 Electoral Reform
• x 4 Borders
• x 6 Mandates
• x 86 Labour Government
• x 3 MIQ

*accepting that some of these may not be uniquely identified and may apply to more than one category.

Those happy with the government’s performance do not mount petitions against them, that exercise in democracy outside the three-year vote. People do not believe that New Zealand is being governed in good faith by a democratic leader.

Jacinda Ardern’s leadership style is better described as autocratic and dictatorial. According to Lewin’s Leadership Theory, an autocratic style of leadership “tends to create dysfunctional and even hostile environments, often pitting followers against the domineering leader…and is strongly focused on both command by the leader and control of the followers. Abuse of this method is usually viewed as controlling, bossy, and dictatorial.”

“Yip, yip, that is what it is.”

Jacinda Ardern

Dennis Tourish finds that leadership itself is under crisis and suggests that several different leadership models apply: incompetent, denialist, panic, othering, and authoritarian. Of the last he says, “A strong leader needs ever greater powers to deal with the crisis, to eliminate those restraints on authority that are allegedly preventing effective action and that “greater leader power also implies a need for more surveillance, to ensure that the leader’s edicts are being obeyed and that enemies of the people can be speedily unmasked. We were becoming ‘a surveillance society’ even before this crisis.”

The unvaccinated have been cast as the enemies of the people. We are under surveillance with passports and patrols. 

Transformational authoritarian leadership at its best. We used to live in a democracy. We demand it back.