Kat and Clinton
GOING FOR GOLD
Kat Macmillan knows leadership. After moving to Aotearoa 16 years ago, Macmillan has turned her not for profit sector background into a career as a facilitator and business coach - working with leading professional training organisation, Dale Carnegie.
Her years of training, qualifications and development give her a keen insight into what makes a good leader - and how to handle the pressure points. “Whether it’s private sector or not for profit, there are common challenges with leadership and management that come up over and over again,” Macmillan says. “It doesn’t really matter what the challenges are, they’ll become apparent and we’ll be able to work through them.”
One of those first challenges can be overcoming a common misconception around management - that leaders don’t need leadership. “It’s a funny thing. To compare it to sport, if you were a top Olympic athlete like Usain Bolt, you’d still have a coach. And yet there is still this stigma - a kind of irony - that people think that once you get into management that you’re the top gun, you don’t need any help.
“But leadership is a lifelong journey, of course we need support and development. If we ever reach a day where we think we’ve reached the top of our game in terms of leadership, well, that’s the day we fail because a leadership strength is to be a lifelong learner.”
That sporting comparison proved apt for her third pairing as a mentor in the Mentoring Foundation of New Zealand programme - linked with mentee Clinton Butler, Tauranga Hockey Association’s General Manager. Butler’s been in the role for five years, his first management position. He admits that when he first started, it was “definitely a learning curve - but I knew that going into it.”
Butler adds “One of the reasons I was keen to do the programme was to have someone to sit down and bounce ideas off - in my career to date, I haven’t really had a mentor outside of work.”
As an avid runner and equestrian, Macmillan’s grasp of both how the sporting and not for profit sectors work proved invaluable insights. “There is a certain difference with sports clubs,” Macmillan states. “They’re membership organisations, you've got that competitive element. You’re having to get the best outcomes from the elite right through to the grassroots - you’ve got to tick all the boxes.
“Whether it’s your 7-year-old playing hockey or you’re an elite player yourself, everyone wants to be made to feel important and be listened to.
“Clinton wanted to focus on his leadership development around confidence and backing himself, to get the best out of his team.” And to do that, he needed a mentor to bring out the best in him. Butler praises the way the programme is set up, taking the time to find out about his background and what his needs were.
“Being matched with Kat was spot on,” Butler enthuses. “She understood the challenges I was working through - as well as the opportunities - we got on really well and I really enjoyed spending time with Kat.”
Macmillan adds “that’s the beauty of mentoring - if you’re on your own, you’re holding yourself accountable - as well as everyone else you’re managing. But if you have a mentor, then there’s someone holding you accountable. It can give you a bit of a drive to make sure you do what you need to do before you check in with your mentor again. “Clinton is a very driven, action focused person. He’s great at being motivated and sets himself goals. He’s a real grafter - he works really hard - has real passion and commitment to be the best he can be. He’s easy to work with.”
Butler describes the programme as a key step in a year of professional development. “I probably didn’t appreciate that when I was younger - they’d talk about it in reviews - but as you get older, you realise you need to keep working on key areas if you want to get better. “I've learnt more about myself, being able to understand my strengths and weaknesses - areas I can improve in."
“We know what we know until we’re told otherwise - the ability to get different viewpoints, to be challenged when you need to be challenged was definitely one of the things I took out of it.
“I really appreciate the opportunity to learn something different and open my networks.”
Macmillan lists the art of listening as the key element in making a good mentor - a role she finds immensely satisfying. “Sometimes a big change needs to happen, sometimes it’s tweaking or having another perspective on things. For me, success is that person feels they’ve had an element of growth or a new perspective on something they were challenged by. "
“Seeing somebody having those lightbulb moments, that’s really rewarding.”