Day Two - There’s Something About Jacinda
DAIS & PETER
ANALYSIS - Dais
There’s Something About Jacinda
This analysis follows a quiet moment on my own, sitting in the sunshine, reflecting on the world’s current global pandemic. This quiet reflection, some weeks ago, is something which I do quite regularly now, and have grown to use as a technique to calm the confused muddle and piece together my own judgement on the action taken to combat this virus in the past, present and future.
In doing this, I have found myself looking into the coronavirus response of those countries that are in a somewhat better situation than our own. I admit this is not a hard feat, but I did want to bring to your attention one leader who has caught my eye from the get-go and has held the Kiwis’ hands throughout the fear-stricken period of lockdown and beyond.*
New Zealand’s Labour party leader Jacinda Ardern has become the country’s most popular Prime Minister in a century. With news of her rise in popularity, she replies that it was a “privileged opportunity to be leading at this time”, with one thing a priority. To protect her country with the same love and consideration that she would her own family.
I could go through and look more closely at Jacinda’s actions which have granted her national and global applause, but I think there is something fascinating yet unexplored here.
When looking at the way in which Boris Johnson has responded to the invisible threat imposed by this virus, the numbers speak for themselves. His actual policy was to strategically allow this virus to kill. To count deaths before the deaths had occurred. His Churchillian rhetoric was out-of-date and he has applied himself like a ‘warrior’ or ‘aggressor’ (until he got the virus himself).
This threat is, was and will be real and lives have been lost due to strategically planning against a threat that he himself had no factual information on.
Jacinda Adern had the same amount of information about the virus as Boris. Little. Yet her approach was one of saving lives and reducing the loss of loved ones at all costs, immediately. Her kindness first approach resonated with people on an emotional level and led to a feeling of collective unity, at a time where people were tempted to fend for themselves. Her messages are clear, strong and somewhat soothing all at the same time. She doesn’t linger in misinformation; she manages expectation and has a practical approach to tackling scary situations.
I am going to pose a strong question now.
Has her empathetic communication and behaviour, something she has been applauded for, got anything to do with her being a woman and a mother? There are clear distinctions in the way she speaks to her country, with a maternalistic clarity, honesty and compassion, in contrast with that of Boris Johnson, whose rhetoric tries to copy the valiant and evocative rhetoric of Churchill, yet falls far too short and throws itself into an abyss of confusion.
If we were to use the model of the differences in men and women’s sense of boundaries between human beings that American sociologist Nancy Chodorow conceptualised, and apply them to historic gender differences in attitudes towards war, then one could say that through their maternal instincts, women’s greater sense of connections, or empathy, would make them less likely to endorse killing in a situation of war.
Now I understand that this is a very strong concept to relate to present times, and off the mark in its dogmatism and sexism alone. A lot of male leaders have also done incredibly well at combatting the virus, whilst reducing death toll and communicating their approach in an empathetic fashion.
But I think it gives us something to think about in regard to maternal empathy, especially in contrast to Boris stuck in an unhelpful wartime mentality; applying British war dynamics through Churchillian rhetoric in order to ‘fight’ a contagious global coronavirus.
If this has completely lost you and you can’t see any reason for me to mention controversial sociologist Chodorow, then fine. But what can’t be disputed is this.
Boris Johnson has a severe lack of empathy towards his fellow countrymen, not giving proper thought to the families who were going to, and now have, lost loved ones. As the LRB so clearly wrote about last week, his immunity technique was tantamount to surrendering before one bullet has been fired. And that is the reason why we have had at least 38,161 deaths, in contrast to 22 deaths in New Zealand.
Jacinda Ardern acted with her instincts, calmly and with a protectionist mentality for the lives of her people. Her ability to not preach at her people, but stand with them exposed and united, is quite astounding and something which she needs to be globally applauded for.
And finally. If you can stay this cool, calm and collected in a press conference whilst you are suddenly hit with an earthquake, then that alone is reason to be given a considerable amount of respect.
*Please note, not actually holding their hands. Anyone with a brain would know the stupidity in touching hands with someone who has a contagious killer virus (ahem)
OPINION - Peter
Female leaders
‘Following two further questions about the role of equalities experts in the government’s decision-making, Ms Nokes asked Mr Johnson: “You made the distinction between there being ‘a lot’ of women and ‘enough’ women – how many is enough?”
The prime minister, appearing to realise he had been snookered, is heard to say “Oh boy” and laugh nervously, before recovering and adding: “That’s a question on which I’m not competent to pronounce.” One of the other MPs in the virtual hearing was also heard to laugh briefly in reaction to the pointed questioning.
Ms Nokes followed up by asking, “Is it not 50 per cent?” before Sir Bernard Jenkin, the committee chair, told the prime minister gender equality was “not a joking matter”.’
In the course of this uncomfortable questioning Boris managed to allow a phrase to fall out of his mouth that I do agree with. It was when he stated that collective decisions that include women are better. Ignoring the inherent sexism of the idea that decisions happen, whilst women can be opted in or not, I have found it to be largely the case that mixed gender groups produce better decisions. In fact, I have found that the more diverse the group across all categories then the better the decisions. Most of a decade sitting in work meetings experiencing a range of very weak to very strong decisions informs this view.
When looking at the role of decision-making there is a default assumption that there is a trade-off between speed and quality. The reasoning usually is that you can choose between lean and small committees which deliver action or you can have a discursive and diverse group, capable of debating the nuances but necessarily losing the capacity for speed.
Experience tells me that two is probably the best number of people if speed is your priority. It is enough to have dialogue, to show support for one another but to minimise the number of angles under review. I find that a single person, unless extremely gifted, confident or experienced, can suffer from inertia or fear. The complexity increases and the speed reduces as the number of participants increases.
Taking my ideal two-person proposition for speed, you want those two people to be as different as they possibly can be. If one assumes that fundamentals like language and knowledge of the task at hand reach competent levels, then their ability to intuitively bring different ideas and answers to the problem gives them the greatest capacity to explore the maximum number of solutions at the greatest speed. The decision speed will continue to improve with only small trade-offs if these two then build up trust and the skills for collaboration.
The best outcomes are produced by diverse teams with basic communication skills and knowledge, as long as they are willing to collaborate. Over to you BJ, Hancock and Cummings.
