About Louise Aubin
Ms. Louise Aubin. Photo: United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
Louise Aubin is UNHCR’s country representative in Malaysia. A human rights lawyer by training, she is an expert in refugee law as well as humanitarian law and internal displacement and brings more than 25 years of experience in law, policy and humanitarian affairs. Most recently, she worked as the UN Resident Coordinator and Humanitarian Coordinator in Niger. Before that, she was the Regional Representative of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Australia after leading large-scale emergency responses around the world in diverse settings such as Bangladesh, Kenya, and Guinea. As UNHCR’s Deputy Director for International Protection, she led the UN Global Protection Cluster and developed global policies on internal displacement, children, gender, education and community-based programming. She holds a degree in political science and a Juris Doctor from the University of Ottawa in Canada as well as a master’s degree in law from the University of Poitiers in France.
Louise Aubin is a contributor to the article ‘Conducting “business as unusual” in an era of urgency and polycrisis – the role of the RC’ in The Art of Leadership in the United Nations: Our duty to find new forms. A year after the release of the report, the Foundation asked for an interview about her thoughts on leadership in the UN today.
‘Whereas leaders are usually known for what they have concretely achieved, too little is said or known about how they have achieved it and what they achieved as shared goals. When looking into leadership styles and strategies, you see there’s no single formula, no one-size-fits-all and there’s a lot to be said about how the tools of leadership were used to bring about change and a lasting result. Looking more closely, experimentation plays a large part as each experience yields new lessons, potentially applicable when thoughtfully considered in a new context. In this sense, leadership involves science – strategies, metrics, systems – but the art is how those tools are applied to inspire, engage, move people toward a shared goal’, Louise Aubin said.
‘Something I’ve come to learn and appreciate over time is the difference between someone in charge and a leader, which rests on a deep understanding of human emotions and relationships.’
For Louise Aubin real reform or change in the United Nations needs to be thoughtful and intentional. ‘When the system is under serious stress, changing for change’s sake can be tempting when neither time nor resources are available. But with its deep reach and presence across the globe, the United Nations can ensure to guide its reform through broad consultation.’ She said that if the United Nations can cut through the current chaos, it has this opportunity to drive change now. ‘After all, the UN’s vision is in constant evolution as it is in response to evolving need and aspirations.’
Louise Aubin reminds us that much of the UN’s successes were borne of its presence, of having eyes and ears on the ground. ‘The UN’s legitimacy is drawn from its capacity to intercede on behalf of people we know, on behalf of people we have learned to understand. The presence of the UN worldwide is a key to a credible reform.’
‘It is equally important to appreciate that analytical capacity and ideas of reform require both expertise and experience. The massive staffing and budgetary cuts in the UN now may result in our shortlisting what is so essential in terms of the UN’s ability to respond to tomorrow’s complex problems.’
‘We probably also need to look more deeply at our adaptation strategies and capacity. The ability for us as people and organisation to rethink how we work, who we need to work with, and how best we can shore up technology and innovative ways of addressing issues. In short, we would need to better calibrate the UN’s catalytic and execution roles.’
She emphasises that this catalytic role needs very close attention. ‘We need to be quite mindful about bringing solutions that take account of peoples’ and states’ concerns.’
‘In short, the United Nations of tomorrow will be catalytic, responsive, and propositional, able to shore up its vast network and expertise. Getting this calibration right, between normative work and execution, is critical to navigating these very troubled times.’
As Louise Aubin has more than 25 years of experience in the United Nations, we were curious about her personal guide to showing principled leadership in a challenging context.
The first personal principle she listed was ‘the humility to learn through meaningful consultation’ where consultation is at the core of the protection work she has been doing for many years in the UNHCR.
‘Confronted with what appear to be complex problems or dilemmas, I’ve usually found myself finding the solution by actively listening to the refugees themselves.
The second principle is ‘to allow for decisiveness coupled with creativity – a short form for the confidence to take risks. I don’t mean taking risky decisions, rather decisions that are unchartered. The coming about solutions that have not necessarily been tested, but that seem appropriate to a problem at hand, oftentimes in an emergency. In the UN, and particularly in crisis settings, this has required thinking about what needs to happen and alerting to the need for the tools or the actors to bring this about.’
Louise Aubin shared the following concrete example.
‘Extracting people from harm’s way is not something that comes naturally to a humanitarian [worker]. Humanitarians bring support, reach people where they are – that is, when humanitarians are not impeded from doing so. But extracting people from imminent danger, for example in the Central African Republic or in Syria, when populations have been besieged and unable to flee, requires much more than humanitarian actors, such as military support and state cooperation. Bringing about a solution requires brokering the concerted action of many who don’t normally work side by side with you. Decisiveness, creativity and taking risk where it’s required, are things that I’ve grown to appreciate with the confidence that comes from leadership experience.’
Louise Aubin moved from leadership principles to storytelling as a tool that facilitates everything from consultation and humility through to decisiveness and risk-taking. ‘Storytelling often adds authenticity and a mixture of evidence and empathy to move people toward a common goal’.
‘Storytelling is a way of pedagogically illustrating with the evidence that underpins an action. It generates empathy because in this storytelling I am principally talking about people impacted by the actions that we took.’
We were interested in how Louise Aubin’s views on what the contemporary leadership in a UN under increasing pressure can learn from Dag Hammarskjöld and his legacy.
For her, Dag Hammarskjöld’s legacy as well as the work with the Foundation on the Art of Leadership in the UN report inspired several ideas, but she lifted one in particular; ‘Of late, we’ve been narrowing the notion of leadership in terms of leadership styles. For instance, we privilege a style of leadership that is perceived as more scientific based, more rational, neglecting the human emotions needed to engage and to drive consensus around common values. When in reality, the effectiveness of leadership is both science and art.
‘Emotional intelligence becomes essential to drive facts and evidence toward consensus – the essential ingredient to engaging people around a common vision, to engage their actions to bring about needed change.’
‘In today’s world there’s nothing more evident than the need to combine both the emotional intelligence and the intelligence drawn from science. Dag Hammarskjöld was able to demonstrate that this calibration between the two intelligences, both sides of the brain and the heart, is actually the way to bring about solutions that speak to people’s concerns, that speak to states’ priorities, and that continues to be extremely valid in terms of a way of working for the UN’, she concluded.
