Leadership by positive example
THE tables were turned on departing Central Otago District Council (CODC) chief executive Leanne Mash when she attended her final council staff awards ceremony last week.
Having initiated the awards herself when she joined the council almost three years ago, Ms Mash found herself the recipient of a new award, established by council staff.
She was given a special leadership award, with a citation that was read out again by Central Otago Mayor Tim Cadogan at Ms Mash’s last council meeting last week.
The citation said the award recognised a leader who was ‘‘truly an inspiration to us all, not only for what they have achieved, but for who they are, and the qualities they have brought to their leadership. This leader is astute, creative and innovative. They are smart, curious, gutsy, outrageous and fun. They’re so down to earth, approachable, supportive and easy to talk to. They are empowering, empathetic and get straight to the point. They’re warm, inclusive, thoughtful and respectful. They have an admirable sense of humour, and with all these qualities they will always be forever young in heart and spirit’’.
Ms Mash said she was honoured by the award, and was leaving ‘‘a great bunch of people, both officers and elected representatives’’.
Ms Mash, who is leaving the council to spend more time with her family and do project work, said the council executive team had worked on establishing and maintaining ‘‘a collaborative and cohesive link between councillors and those officers who deliver’’.
‘‘This is not the case in every council and should be valued and celebrated.’’
She said some of the high lights during her time at council had been the articulation of ‘‘Our Way’’, a set of statements and actions ‘‘that define the culture we want to see in our organisation and that talk about how we engage with each other and deliver to our community’’. The employee recognition awards were part of this.
Another good thing was a Wellness Month put together by the council’s workplace health and safety committee and focusing on holistic wellness, Ms Mash said.
She said technical highlights were completing the Bannockburn wastewater transfer project and starting the Cromwell wastewater upgrade.
She said she had no ‘‘lows’’. ‘‘I have problems yet to be solved and challenges yet to tame. But if I was to have one, then it would be the memorial hall project at Cromwell. If not for the timing of an election we would by now have had a renovated, freshly presented hall. It was a first for me to have a tender come in under budget and to be not accepted. I have learnt something from that about timing as a strategy.’’ Ms Mash said the Roxburgh flood ‘‘havoc’’ had changed her final weeks.
‘‘It has thrown out my planned activities by about 10 lost working days. As such I am not as prepared to leave as I would have liked to have been. On the plus side, I go out on a high. Given that community’s need, our ‘firies’, police, ‘ambos’, nurses, Fulton Hogan guys, contractors, community board members, councillor, mayor and my own team, including our emergency management Otago officer, volunteers and more, well — we all did a sterling job of getting Roxburgh up and functioning again. I was humbled and proud of the efforts made by so many.’’
Mr Cadogan said Ms Mash had transformed the council into the ‘‘welloiled, customerfocused machine that it is today. She did this by leading from the front, identifying what needed to be done and doing it. It was not all easy, but anything worth doing rarely is’’.
Ms Mash said she was looking forward to spending more time with her husband and two sons, doing more personal and creative projects, and beginning other project work. Her first such project will be a threemonth contract as the Dunedin City Council’s acting general manager of infrastructure and networks, next year.
❛ . . . truly an inspiration to us all, not only for what
they have achieved, but for who they are, and the qualities they have brought to their leadership. This leader is astute, creative and innovative. They are smart, curious, gutsy, outrageous and fun. They’re so down to earth, approachable, supportive and easy to talk to. They are empowering, empathetic and get straight to the
point. They’re warm, inclusive, thoughtful and respectful. They have an admirable sense of humour, and with all these qualities they will always be forever
young in heart and spirit