Intersectionality means pulling together, working from the different strands of who we are. And for Tyla Harrison-Hunt working like this is a strength, not a burden. He offers the example of high performing teams where amazing collective leadership is a powerful element in their success. In the best collective leaderships each one knows their role and does it well.

The lessons seem clear: bring in everyone, take in their perspectives and every strength in those ideas in order to come to a desired outcome. Yet our political systems operate with short cycles, often just three-year periods. The changes tend to be see-saw like. So we see a continual cycle in which money and time are wasted, and a distrust in the political system develops. Intersectionality must be for the benefit of others.

Before becoming a Christchurch City Councillor, Tyla worked as a sports coach across 127 schools. About 12 of those were of very high and complex needs. He’s seen great gaps in wealth and what’s on offer in different places, yet the beauty of working with young people as they grow up; with those who are having it hard. At a basketball practice on a frosty morning in one Christchurch school a young boy stood before him barefoot. He and his brother share one pair of shoes and today it’s his brother’s turn. How do you work to change these things? Working across the city he could employ a “Robin Hood model,” finding that wealthier parents  in private schools were “extremely charitable” in sharing what they had. It was, he said, “eye opening to see how beautiful the city could be.” The challenge is in making the change a lasting one.

In Tyla’s case the intersectionality he works from includes the Māori frameworks he grew up with: to always welcome somebody else and to go above and beyond for them. “A pathway to enable me to provide assistance to those who needed it most.” He learned service leadership and that “leaders eat last.” And, too, the complementary value systems he learned as a Muslim – of consensus and discussion.  Together, they offer “the cultural and spiritual frameworks that are so important when systems fail.”