I first saw Lynette Stewart in early March at Auckland
University's brand new Business School, as she addressed a roomful
of people. A mixture of whanau, academics and alumni, they'd all
come to hear her give a lecture to celebrate her award as a
Distinguished Alumna of the University.
She
comes from a large Northland family, her father Maori and her
mother Scottish. Several of her ten siblings share her taste for
public service; one of her brothers is currently New Zealand's
Minister of Foreign Affairs. Kiwis will know that means Lynette
carries the genes for charisma, oratory and political survival!
Those characteristics shone through as she spoke about her years of
work in Maori health initiatives - and as she adroitly handled some
rather loaded questions from the audience.
Lynette is also a mother of five and a grandmother of nine.
Impishly, she described herself as "a five foot two squit." I doubt
anyone in the lecture theatre - with the possible exception of her
brothers - would have dreamt of agreeing!
After all, she has not only held the Chair of the Northland
District Health Board since 2001, but has also been CEO of Te Tai
Tokerau MAPO Trust (a Treaty-based health partnership between the
then Northern Regional Health Authority and the iwi of Te Tai
Tokerau) for twelve years. She recently completed her term of a
seven year membership to the NZ National Health Committee and the
Public Health Advisory Committee and has participated in numerous
National Health and Disability Support Services projects and
reference groups. Lynette's long service and commitment to the
health sector was recognised in 2006 with the Companion of New
Zealand Order of Merit in the Queen's Birthday Honours.
Lynette described the University, where she'd completed her
Master of Management degree in 2005, as the place that gave
academic legitimacy - "the breath of life" - to her passion for
lifting the standards of health enjoyed by Maori. This was
something she clearly deeply appreciated.
It also seems to have given her a taste for the scaling the
heights of academic achievement: she has since embarked upon a PhD.
But as you'll see in what follows, Lynette Stewart is not a woman
to shy away from challenges.
Recognising Potential
One theme that shone through Lynette's speech was her passion
that all children in New Zealand should be able to realise their
full potential. Health and education opportunities were to the fore
in her comments. It's hard to argue with such statements but I
sometimes find it hard to truly feel the need and the urgency.
During our interview the next day, however, Lynette told me a story
about herself. It packed one heck of a punch and when she'd
finished, her passion for potential made total sense to me.
First, she sketched for me her mother's attitudes to women's
role in life: Lynette grew up in a household with a long and
largely unquestioned tradition of women living their lives in
service of their menfolk. At school, Lynette then told me, her
talents for expressive writing went by largely unremarked and
unencouraged. Intensely shy, she drifted into marriage and
motherhood.
It was only when, aged about thirty and signing an affidavit for
custody of her children at the end of her first marriage, that
something wonderful happened.
The lawyer handling her paperwork, a man, asked her the
confronting question of who she really was. She replied that she
was "just a mother."
He told me I was so much more, and listed the many
qualities and strengths he'd seen in me. For the first time in my
life, someone finally reflected my true potential back to me. That
was the real beginning. I never looked back.
That watershed was half a lifetime ago. Lynette can now point to
a career that has led her to numerous senior executive and
governance positions across the country's health and social work
sectors. The contributions she has made in that career to
innovations in grassroots healthcare through MAPO and other
organisations has helped other women realise their potential,
too.
For example, Lynette pointed to a large number of Maori women in
the Northern region who had successfully studied for higher
qualifications in nursing and other disciplines. The resulting
broadening of their outlook and aspirations had been very rewarding
for them, though in some cases their marriages had sadly not
survived the changes. Once the women had tapped into their
potential, it seems they couldn't go back to the way they were
before…
Professional Working Women
I was keen to hear Lynette's views on professional working
women. Her opinions were, to me, surprisingly positive and upbeat,
but this is a lady who has the strength to rise to big challenges
and eventually overcome them. She told me,
Professional women have broken the back of it. We
are getting tougher and we are well able to run the race. Yes, we
can still feel isolated but we can assist each other. I take
responsibility for supporting the development of professional
women. And of men, too!
Nevertheless, Lynette pointed to three areas where she felt
professional women still needed to dig in and push for more
progress:
- Women do not necessarily get the same opportunities to
undertake tough roles, which they need to give them essential
experience and competencies so they don't go into jobs
'half-baked'. "Line managers aren't so open to women. We need
male CEOs with integrity and vision to get women equal
opportunities on their merit, and to get us past the situation of
being the 'little woman' on the staff."
- Men still seem frightened by women and by the prospect of
losing power. "It's an issue of trust. We can all be mates till
it gets to promotion time. Then it changes." Lynette finds
this frustrating: "Women should be seen as a great opportunity to
get the input of a different perspective, rather than a threat. I
accept men and I expect them to accept me, too."
- New Zealand firms are not good at making it work for working
mums yet. Women need to find allies at home and work to help them
make it all balance.
Lynette believes that professional women can have it all and do
it all, but the key is that women have to decide if a career is
something they want to pursue with dogged determination.
The barriers are there, but you smile, you get
over it and you get on with it.
She has had her own frustrating experiences of being underrated
and overlooked because of being a woman. When her application for a
CEO role in an area she knew very well was unsuccessful, she felt
deeply disappointed. A senior man on the periphery of the selection
process told her that her gender had gone against her despite her
better credentials and her evident capability to take on the CEO
mantle. He advised her to get out of that particular part of the
industry and try again elsewhere.
"That was my worst day - and my best day," she commented
ruefully. She took the man's advice and, combined with her
trademark tenacity, she reached her goal.
Work-Life Balance
We didn't have time to explore how Lynette had made work-life
trade offs herself but we did explore how Lynette supported her
team on this issue. In her opinion, helping members of her team
achieve work-life balance makes good business sense.
If you want the best from your staff, you do your
best for them. I want people's best thinking and efforts at work.
How can they give me that if they're worried about a sick family
member or worried their babies aren't safe and happy?
I was nodding like one of those loose-headed toy dogs at this
point. It was so refreshing to hear a compassionate yet commercial
argument. Lynette says she makes it her business to know when her
team members have issues at home and she sees it as part of her
role to work out with them how best to attend to the problem. "It's
about reciprocity that's right and appropriate."
Good employers are those who want to make things work for their
workers, she says, whether it's job sharing or shorter hours or
some other mechanism. In her own team, a direct report has twice
returned successfully from maternity leave. She has taken enough
time off to come back rested, she has been able to breastfeed at
work, and she has also at times prepared reports from home. Also,
with her husband staying home, she has been secure in knowing their
baby has had the best care.
Lynette reckons New Zealand is not good at making it work for
working mums yet -
...but any employer can do it, they just have to
want to.
She referred to the option of developing 'risk management' pools
of labour to back up rosters or teams facing intense client service
demands. "It's in employers' power to change the way they order
things in order to get the best competencies from their
workers."
It's important to note that Lynette applies work-life balance
and support to all her team "without fear or favour", not just to
women. For example, she is currently working to restructure the job
her direct report does to allow this woman's husband to pursue his
dream of studying for a new career.
Lynette and Leadership
Of course I asked Lynette for her views on leadership.
Unsurprisingly, some of her comments echoed the theme of potential.
She takes the time, she says, to find out and assess what people's
strengths are. This allows her to enlist these abilities and
leverage each individual to his or her full potential.
Her specific responsibilities are to set the direction and
handle the risks. While, as a leader, she wants to demonstrate
drive and a concern for quality, she strives to achieve this
through a collective approach. "You work with others and I'm the
leader, but not the boss. Yes, the buck stops with me but it's
absolutely not about the power. It's about brokerage in its best
possible form, negotiating on all fronts to get the range of
resources and the results."
She paused and added with a mischievous gleam in her eye, "I
don't have to be Madam Wonderful!"
Her view is that work should never be about divisiveness and as
far as possible it should be positive. "Beating people up is a
waste of energy. You need a team that wants to achieve because that
generates incredible energy."
Her Best Advice for other Professional Women
This is a question we love to ask at Professionelle. We never
know what we're going to hear but it's always very valuable. Some
people take a while to sift through possibilities but Lynette
didn't miss a beat. Straightaway, she said,
We are women, so let's be women. Don't
apologise for being a woman. Femininity is our greatest antidote to
the arrogant male.
I remembered a story she'd told at her speech the evening before
that illustrated her advice perfectly. The day she'd started as CEO
at the MAPO office, a senior male manager from the largest
organisation in Northland had come to her office. He'd put his feet
up on her desk while he talked to her about her new role and all
the challenges she would face.
Lynette had moved round the desk towards him. She'd been wearing
a skirt with a ruched hem that exposed a little bit of her
petticoat.
"See this petticoat?" she'd asked.
"Lace," he'd answered. "Very nice."
"Not lace," she'd corrected him. "Steel."
A few months later he'd left, whereas Lynette remains in place
to this day…
As we discussed this story, she added,
There's no weakness in good manners and courtesy,
but I'm always prepared to show steel if I'm pushed too far. You
need appropriate self-confidence to deal with any oversupply of
testosterone.
Five foot two she may, but Lynette Stewart could never, ever, be
described as a squit!
© Professionelle Ltd 2007