Posted 15 May 2020
There have been a number of stories lately praising the way countries with female leaders have better managed the coronavirus pandemic.
The women heading the efforts of New Zealand, Taiwan, Sri Lanka, Germany and Iceland (and others) are being praised for their decisive actions, their compassion, their ability to listen and assimilate information in the rapidly changing climate of COVID19.
What I find interesting here is if you look at the histories of these female leaders they have something in common: They have mostly come to politics after successful careers elsewhere.
Angela Merkel (Germany) was a published research chemist; KK Shailaja (Sri Lanka) was a high school teacher; Tsai Ing-wen (Taiwan) was a law lecturer; Katrín Jakobsdóttir (Iceland) had various careers including lecturer and magazine editor; Jacinda Ardern (New Zealand) although involved in politics from school age is now mother to a young daughter.
Compare this to the mostly male and almost entirely career politician leaders of most other countries: Manufactured and groomed from the political blueprint.
David Epstein has written an engaging and thought proving book called Range in which he challenges the paradigm that success in any area of human endeavour is the preserve of those who specialise. Whilst it might be the held belief that to succeed you must plunge into the knowledge silo of your chosen area, he argues persuasively that range rather than depth is what sets the most successful apart from their peers. Especially in times of turbulence.
Sampling widely, gaining a breadth of experiences, taking detours, experimenting relentlessly, juggling many interests are, he argues, the keys to success. He questions the wisdom “jack of all trades, master of none”. Breadth is the ally of depth, not the enemy.
Career politicians only have the tools of a politician at their disposal. A politician who has a breadth of life and work experience brings other perspectives and skills to the fore. Epstein claims that this difference becomes most apparent when the environment is “wicked”, that is when the rule book gets ripped-up, when uncertainty prevails, when the foundations of so called ‘expertise’ become undermined. The best politicians in a world in flux are not necessarily therefore those from the political elite.
He describes a study that looked at the performance of financial institutions following the recession at the end of the ’naughties’. The study found something interesting – the companies whose management boards were all highly trained and experienced financiers performed less well than companies whose boards had broader backgrounds. In times of normal economic performance, institutions led by financial experts may perform marginally better; but when the rules change and the markets are full of uncertainty, breadth of experience rather than depth of specialism seems to prevail. Generalists out perform specialists when the going gets tough.
Maybe woman are naturally stronger when the world gets tough. Or maybe because politics has historically been so much a man’s world, prominent women leaders need to have started and succeeded from somewhere else and so bring with them the breadth of experience to succeed when something like coronavirus shakes the ‘expertise’ of the political elite.