ANZEA Conference 2022

He taonga rongonui, te aroha ki te tāngata | Kindness towards others is a precious treasure.

Receiving the call to action from Evaluation with Aroha, Louise seeks to share her journey to re-member and re-claim our ability to lead through evaluation, by actioning the capacity of aroha. Responding to wero this conference is making explicit, in particular, do evaluators still have a role as agents of social change or is this a blurring disciplinary rigour and was always going to be a challenge?

Louise will bring forward insight from her Masters journey, that is beginning to bring this provocation into focus. Fundamentally values drive approaches to leadership, just as much as our values underpin our evaluation practice and positioning. At the intersection between the theories and practice of leadership and evaluation lie the potential mobilisers or instruments for change – evaluators. Where evaluation is frequently required to “be a rhythmic alternation between attacking the causes and healing the effects” of colonialism and inequity, exploring evaluators as instruments of change is critical. However, leadership in evaluation is unspoken, implicit; so, we must lean into this ‘silence’ by resonating with the hearts and minds of those who have expressed their commitment to those they serve, and their global evaluation community.

There are opportunities to “awaken the potential of ourselves, others and situations and to then consciously manifest that potential” through evaluative leadership - a state of being that leads to action through evaluation - by actioning the capacity of aroha to contribute to positive change.  This is an invitation to wayfind; hear insight into actioning the capacity of aroha, and the continuum of evaluative leadership, and space for reflective practice.