One of the influential factors in the recent historic election results seems to have been Joseph Muscat’s ability to convince many that his slogan Malta Tagħna Lkoll was a trustworthy one. I would like to highlight the various ways in which he bolstered his social inclusive approach as it is a good illustration of how social inclusion can be adopted as a successful leadership strategy in other domains of society.

First of all, he opened the boundaries of the Labour Party by launching a wider ‘movement’ that has enabled some people previously alien to the party to embrace the movement’s values and goals much more easily. Secondly, he reduced the distance from the opposing party by apologising for possible hurts caused by the PL in earlier periods, complementing this with the acknowledgement of achievements by previous and the outgoing Nationalist governments as well as those of Labour governments.

He further brought down party boundaries by challenging the use of colours as a symbol of division between the two major parties, reducing the redness of Labour emblems and wearing bluish ties. Similarly, he shot down suggestions about the existence of different stereotypic physionomies of members of one party or the other.

Thirdly, he reached out to the several different groups with disadvantaged or minority interests by emphasising civil rights, particularly in the case of equality of opportunity for women, persons with disability, LGBT orientation, and Muslims.

He also reached out to the self-employed and to employers as well as to workers, hunters and others. While he listened empathically to these and also to other civil society groups, he also listened empathically to individuals through regular home visits.

Fourthly, he called upon everyone to contribute towards the movement, most prominent being the appeal to young people to be protagonists as well as to previous opponents of the PL to take centre stage in the movement.

Finally, he persisted in focusing on what he called “positiveness” in his interactions, avoiding putting people down, even his opponents: “you may disagree with us but you can work with us.”

The above approaches had a significant effect on the social experience of both his followers and the rest of the population.

This election campaign has offered a lot of food for thought for those aspiring to be managers and frontrunners on the socially inclusive approach to leadership.