Leaders must accept they’ve got a lot to learn

Posted on 13 Mar 2025

By Adele Stowe-Lindner

As adults, we vote for representatives at election time and appoint people to positions. We’ll be doing just that at a federal election in the next few months. But whether someone is actually a leader? That’s up to them.

As a vegetarian, I have complex feelings about democracy sausages, but I nonetheless love to inhale the smell of onions cooking on election day, knowing it is signalling to my children that their voices will not just be heard in the election result, once they clock over the age of 18, but will be required.

While “leadership” is a noun, it operates as a verb. Leadership is about opting in to leading, and taking action that has an impact. It takes effort, energy, time, care and emotions. Often courage. Usually risk.

I’ve been thinking about this lately in the context of student leadership at the school my kids go to.

School is about learning and preparation for life, and in the real world, most kids don’t get jobs by popular vote. Yet most schools persist in electing or appointing students to leadership roles. Is that really the best way to teach leadership?

The British wartime prime minister Winston Churchill told the House of Commons, "…it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time”. I would suggest that democracy is a concept or ethos more than a form or system – each democratic country does its democracy differently. And it doesn’t promise to offer us leaders, it promises to offer us representatives. Whether those representatives exhibit leadership behaviours, such as accountability, authenticity, credibility, integrity, adaptability or vision, is up to them. And it’s up to us to decide whether we follow them or resist them, are inspired or demoralised.

When I came across an unusual approach to student leadership at my kids’ school, I was inspired. Instead of treating leadership as a title, this model treats it as an action.

Democracy is a transaction: elected leaders promise that they will represent the majority’s wishes and do what they said they would do, unelected candidates step back to make way for those elected, and voters promise to respect the process. Leaders are held accountable through an opposition and to Parliament, and citizens have freedom of speech (whatever that means in any given country and culture).

The health of a country’s democracy rests on many things. Most important is the trust we have in government that they will fulfil their end of the bargain. Also important is the right of opposition and civilian voices to voice their disagreement. When our right to disagree is no longer held sacred, our democracy is in peril.

An interesting aspect of democracy is that those who are elected represent both those who voted for them and those who did not, in equal measure. A key job for elected representatives is to balance the rights of the majority and those of the minority, navigating the treacherous waters that are stirred up when the rights of one cause pain to the other.

2024 was famously a year that boasted more democratic elections around the world than any other. Even so, a few months into 2025, the concept of democracy seems more fragile than ever. Joni Mitchell’s 1970 song “Big Yellow Taxi” comes to mind: “Don’t it always seem to go / That you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone.” Perhaps many people who do not readily raise their voices are unaware that democracy had to be fought for and protected. Many take it for granted.

"When we assume we’ve got the best system in place, it’s worth stopping to ask: is this the only possibility?"

"What does it mean to fight for, to advocate for, democracy?"

Adele Stowe-Lindner, executive director, Institute of Community Directors Australia.

Students demonstrate leadership by what they do, inside and outside the school community. They apply for the role of leader, articulate why they want it, and go through an interview where they’re asked tough questions.

They’re not called captains or prefects. They’re the secretariat. Their job is to serve the community from in front, from behind, and from the middle. The value isn’t in the title. It’s in what gets done.

When we are those representatives, on boards, we can make the choice to put the community at the centre of our decisions, to act ethically, to make the right choices which are not always the popular ones.

What do students learn from this model of leadership? That’s up to them – it’s their schooling, after all.

What have I learnt? That when we assume we’ve got the best system in place, it’s worth stopping to ask: is this the only possibility, have we asked all the questions that need to be asked, and can we do better?

For now, I’m just grateful that even as an adult, I can still learn from school.

What does it mean to fight for, to advocate for, democracy? Among other things, it means improving legislation to safeguard democracy. It means reducing misinformation and disinformation in the public domain, and, related to this, insisting on media accountability. It means responding to the reality that deepfakes, digital surveillance and AI-generated content are on the rise, which generates social disharmony. AI-driven fear of speaking out is another phenomenon that leads to the breakdown of social cohesion.

Of course AI does have many positive uses. For example, AI-driven transcription can be extremely helpful in educational and meeting settings, particularly for neurodiverse people and people with disability. Used unthinkingly, though, AI may also be eroding the private spaces where free thought and debate have historically flourished. When online meetings are recorded by default and AI tools are used to summarise our conversations – often without genuine consent – we risk normalising self-censorship.

People may feel they cannot speak candidly, which limits the diversity of perspectives that are essential both to a functioning democracy and to good governance (which is the primary concern of my organisation, the Institute of Community Directors Australia). If individuals, particularly young people, do not realise they have the right to refuse being recorded, then we are allowing a quiet but significant shift away from the expectation of personal privacy that comes in a democratic culture.

Democracy depends on open dialogue and dissent, but when surveillance becomes the norm – and that is what the recording of meetings could be seen to be – we may be encouraging conformity rather than debate. If people fear that their words, voice and image could be misinterpreted, stored indefinitely, or used against them in the future, they may hesitate to challenge prevailing ideas or critique those in power. This chilling effect weakens democratic engagement, reducing the plurality of voices that make democracy robust. The commodification of privacy is not just a personal concern: it is a societal risk.

Those who do not readily raise their voices to compete with misinformation and disinformation – but want to – are contending with many obstacles. One obstacle is the polarisation of language online and a culture of fear of “cancellation”. A partner obstacle is the concern that if they are recorded, their message could be used against them in the future. Is this honestly the democracy we thought we were living in? It sounds more like a dystopian Orwell or Huxley book than our aspiration for society. This endangers good decision making by governments and organisations at every level – community, local, state and national.

While Australia can boast a strong electoral system that is robust with checks and balances, we also have rising housing costs, wage stagnation, and cost-of-living pressures that are widening the gap between different socioeconomic groups. Economic instability can make people disengage from democratic processes, and that, in turn, worsens institutional trust. Furthermore, while multiculturalism is a strength or aspiration in much of Australia, we also have ongoing issues with racism.

Democracy isn’t static; it thrives when people push for transparency, fairness and inclusion. The work isn’t just for governments or institutions – it’s for all of us in our daily lives. The question is: how will we each contribute to strengthening democracy in 2025 and beyond?

More information

Board confidentiality policy: Considers whether board meetings should be recorded, and how boards can ensure staff and volunteers feel safe speaking up.

Great advocacy starts here: This article addresses how boards can engage in advocacy for democratic protections.

Ten tips for leading in a polarised world: This help sheet addresses several actions leaders can take.