Courage, connection and authenticity: Leadership lessons from the front line

Storytelling is one of the most powerful tools a leader can wield. It connects us, teaches us and reveals truths that data alone can’t convey. At the Sustainable Brands Value of Purpose conference, Dr Ellen Joan Ford used war stories – literally – to illuminate what it means to lead with authenticity.

Drawing on her time as an engineer officer in the New Zealand Army, her academic research into leadership, and her extraordinary work helping to resettle hundreds of Afghan allies, Ford didn’t offer abstract models or leadership jargon. Instead, she shared lived experience, reminding us that authentic leadership begins with seeing, valuing and understanding people.

Ford began with a simple truth: “Leadership is about creating an environment where your people can thrive and then directing that thriving energy at the task that needs to be achieved.”

Her message, shaped by both personal conviction and professional experience, challenged the notion of leadership as a fixed persona. “There is not one approach to leadership,” she reminded the audience. “The better you lean into what’s authentic for you is the key.”

Lessons from the front line

Ford spent a decade in the military, a highly structured and male-dominated environment. As a woman, she couldn’t simply emulate the leadership styles around her. Instead, she had to learn to lead in a way that was congruent with who she was; a lesson that would later become foundational to her leadership philosophy.

While deployed in Afghanistan, Ford led a team of engineers responsible for construction and maintenance at both military and community facilities. From repairing schools and hospitals to maintaining living quarters at satellite bases, the work was purposeful and hands-on. “We felt like we were making a difference,” she recalled.

Likewise, while stationed in Antarctica, Ford and her team worked on construction tasks to support the endeavours of international scientists. But it wasn’t just about delivering outcomes, it was also about making the most of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

“We worked hard, but we also made time to play. We built an igloo, went snowboarding and had adventures together. It’s a reminder that even in serious work, joy matters.”

Her leadership style blended mission-focus with a deep care for people. Ford believes leaders should consider two types of purpose: the organisational purpose and the personal one.

“What are people getting out of this project? Are they learning? Growing? Reconnecting with whānau?” By asking these questions, leaders create space for meaning beyond metrics.

Feeling our way forward

One of Ford’s most thought-provoking insights was from neuroscientist António Damásio. “We used to think we were thinking-based creatures who sometimes feel. In fact, we are feeling-based creatures who think.”

Our emotional state profoundly influences our decision-making, behaviour and performance. “When people feel great, they do their best work,” she said. Thriving at work, she argued, happens at the intersection of belonging, purpose and autonomy.

Her doctoral research explored the leadership experiences of women in the military. While many women shared stories of camaraderie and professional development, they also spoke about exclusion, frustration and unmet potential.

Ford used her research to engage with senior army leaders and present not just problems, but tangible solutions. “Culture change takes a long time,” she acknowledged, “but when we make things better for women, we lift up everyone.”

This commitment to practical, inclusive leadership extended into her post-military work. She began exploring the challenges faced by working parents, particularly the invisible trade-offs, emotional costs and structural barriers.

“I kept hearing the same story,” she said. “Parents dropping out of the workforce not by choice, or working part-time hours while still carrying a full-time workload.”

Shifting the paradigm

Ford called for a shift in how organisations think about flexibility. “We need to stop focusing on fixed hours and start focusing on outcomes,” she said. Her rallying cry, #WorkSchoolHours, isn’t about rigid scheduling but about embracing principles-based flexibility. It’s about acknowledging that people have lives, responsibilities and values outside of work.

“Value the fact that people have things they care about,” she urged. When people have autonomy over their time and clarity about their purpose, extraordinary things become possible. “When people get behind purpose,” she said, “it’s amazing what they can do.”

She proved this during one of the most demanding and emotionally charged periods of her life: the grassroots effort to evacuate and resettle Afghan allies after the fall of Kabul in 2021.

Drawing on the relationships and trust she had built years earlier, Ford became a linchpin in coordinating one of the most complex private-public collaborations in recent New Zealand history. Over the course of nearly a year, alongside officials and a small network of volunteers including Chris Parsons and Martin Dransfield, they helped bring 563 people to safety.

It was messy, exhausting work, done without formal titles or structured hours. “It was only ever: these are our outputs, this is what we’ve agreed to deliver. We just did it, in and around our lives,” she said. “You can only bring the best of you if you feel you belong.”

A call to courage

Ford’s message is deceptively simple: care more, trust more and lead more humanly. Her stories – whether of building snow shelters with soldiers, submitting tedious immigration paperwork at midnight, or crying during media interviews while breastfeeding – reflect a truth many leaders know but often struggle to practice: authenticity takes courage.

True leadership, she suggests, isn’t about having all the answers, it’s about creating the kind of environment where others feel safe enough to bring their full selves to the table – tears, laughter and all.

In a world grappling with uncertainty, burnout and growing expectations of business to lead with values, Ford’s message couldn’t be timelier. Authentic leadership isn’t soft – it’s strategic. And it might just be what the future of work demands.