Light the Flame
By Christine Rankin

Publisher: Random House
Format: Paper Back
Total Pages: 238

Forget the earrings and short skirts, Light the Flame is a fascinating and unapologetic story of achievement through hard work, determination and passion, as well as providing a fascinating insight into the workings of the Public Service during an era of great political and social change.

Adding value for the reader, Christine Rankin intersperses her story with detailed and informative leadership tips garnered both from her own experience managing and motivating teams and from the mentors in business that served her and their various organisations so well.

For a woman renowned as being passionate and outspoken her recounting of the hardship of her early family life is moving and insightful without being sensational or maudlin and reminds the reader that if one is handed lemons, then go and make lots of lemonade!

While one could be forgiven for thinking that the author may still harbor strong feelings against the powers that be for her treatment at WINZ, her even-handed telling of the detail of events as she saw and experienced them in no way made this reader feel I was being asked to collude in any political bias.

The key message that I took away from reading this book is that leaders are made not born and as a nation New Zealand still has a long way to go in promoting leadership and team spirit in our workforce, not to mention with our youth and those in the community that are disaffected. The author challenging one to take up the cause of creating greatness, nurturing talent, encouraging individual, business and national pride and not settling for mediocrity in any area of our lives.

Reviewed by Jean Cauldwell