Newsletter item – Tasmanian Leaders, 20 October 2023
Polarisation and Leadership
Our purpose is to shape the future of Tasmania’s social, economic, and environmental well-being by amplifying purposeful and inclusive leadership.
Achieving this goal necessitates embracing diverse perspectives and empowering leaders at all levels.
To support this, we are delighted to present the findings of a scan of members of the Tasmanian Leaders Network, capturing their experiences, observations and ideas about polarisation and how leadership can mitigate its negative aspects.
We believe this is a unique – and possibly Australia’s only – exploration of polarisation from within a leadership network to produce location-specific knowledge and insights.
We hope you enjoy reading the full findings in our leadership scan, accessible by the following link, and enjoy a further summary below.
A recent survey of community and business leaders in Tasmania has provided some helpful insights into how to tackle the rise of toxic polarisation.
Polarisation – the fact of people holding stark differences between ideas – has always been with us.
But Covid, the Voice to Parliament and even Hobart’s proposed AFL stadium have demonstrated just how quickly differing views can intensify to such an extent that they dismantle social structures and stifle discourse.
It is no longer enough to agree to disagree. On so many topics now we are seeing people denigrated, demonised and belittled for their opinions or beliefs.
We are seeing businesses boycotted, people on social media trolled and rifts developing within families and friendship groups.
Hence the term toxic polarisation has arisen.
Tasmanian Leaders, a not-for-profit association dedicated to leadership development, has surveyed and interviewed diverse leaders across the state on this topic.
By tapping into the knowledge of our leadership program graduates and others within the community, our aim was to motivate and inspire our future leaders to seize opportunities to benefit our island home.
This project is likely the first of its kind in Australia, providing location-specific insights, first-hand experiences and findings on polarisation from a leadership perspective.
Nearly 65% of participants believed that polarisation was becoming ‘somewhat more’ or ‘more’ intense across Tasmania.
Similarly, 65% believed that there were many more types of polarising issues emerging, with 158 such issues identified.
Respondents gave 120 examples of having experienced or witnessed polarisation and their first-hand accounts were both refreshingly honest and incredibly instructive for others grappling with these issues.
On the question of Tasmanian distinctiveness, the majority of respondents considered that while there were some Tasmanian specific issues (for example the so-called north/south divide), the intensity and other characteristics of polarisation were not dissimilar to elsewhere.
However, one example of difference identified was the relatively sharper divide in Tasmania between the privileged and underprivileged as a source of tension.
Several respondents noted that in Tasmania the history of polarisation (especially over forestry) has led to many Tasmanians being less inclined to engage in public discourse because of the perceived personal and social risks.
Strategies that our respondents felt could support greater leadership included building skills around having hard conversations, understanding differences with empathy, and facilitating and engaging with stakeholders to promote “middle ground” views rather than just those at the extreme ends of a debate.
Our hope is that this report will encourage leaders and community members to talk about difficult topics and to consider solutions that will work at a local level.
In having a conversation about polarisation, it is important not to expect definitive answers – we need to be comfortable with ambiguity rather than certainty.
As our survey confirmed, the pursuit of certainty and comfort are the two greatest drivers of polarisation.
The antidote to this begins with curiosity and kindness, which can be developed through deliberate practice and active listening.
Our thought leadership work brings together diverse perspectives to generate new thinking and connect this to key decision-makers and influencers.
Tapping into the knowledge of our Network, our aim is to motivate and inspire solutions for Tasmania’s most intractable issues and seize the plentiful opportunities available to our island home.
To read more about our current and past thought leadership work please visit our website.
