ANZSOG’s Towards Strategic Leadership: Building leadership and strategic thinking skills for turbulent times

“One of the moments that resonated for me was about the importance of authentic leadership: that use of self and being an authentic leader, still delivering on government purpose but doing it in a way that I am confident and comfortable with.” – Julie Etchells

As public services across Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand deal with the ongoing economic, budgetary, and political challenges of dealing with an uncertain world, high-quality strategic leadership will be more important than ever.

ANZSOG’s  Towards Strategic Leadership (TSL) program – presented by experienced facilitator Robbie Macpherson –  offers emerging and established leaders in organisations the chance to develop stronger strategic thinking skills, as well as the self-knowledge and ability to reflect the need to be more effective leaders in an uncertain environment.

The 2025 TSL program will be delivered in five online sessions (including orientation on 22 September) plus a four-day intensive in Melbourne from 7-10 October. Participants will leave the program with a better ability to identify the strategically important tasks among the noise of day-to-day work, and a boost in confidence and self-knowledge. 

Mr. Macpherson said that TSL program is based on the idea that leaders need to build time for reflection into their daily work. 

“We need to challenge this idea that sometimes it’s a bit indulgent to reflect. I think it’s critical in the leadership work. And almost paradoxically, the busier we are and the higher the demand, the more necessary it is,” he said. 

“Reflection is critical for two primary reasons: the risks and the opportunities. If we don’t do it, there’s an enormous risk that we get consumed by the operational urgency of day-to-day organisational life. That means we lose perspective, we start making flawed decisions, we don’t challenge the assumptions we are making, we risk burnout, fatigue, and cognitive overload.  

Guest presenters in TSL 2025 will include:

• Dr Jill Charker – Deputy Coordinator General for Resilience and Recovery, National Emergency Management Agency
• Thea Snow – Associate Director, Centre for Public Impact ANZ
• Paul ‘t Hart – Professor, Utrecht University
• Dr Chris Sarra – Former Director-General for Department of Seniors, Disability Services and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Partnerships, Queensland Government

Julie Etchells is a Senior Executive with the Queensland Department of Children, Youth Justice and Multicultural Affairs, who completed the TSL program in 2020. She said the experience gave her a broader view of leadership and helped to develop her influence as a leader.

“I chose to do the TSL program because I was feeling a little stuck as a leader. I wanted to think about what I could do to increase my impact and influence. TSL helped me to find how the parts of me fit together with the organisational parts, and the politics of delivering in the public sector.”

“One of the readings they gave us was Heifetz, on the importance of leaders getting off the dancefloor and ‘up onto the balcony’, and getting that longer and broader view of what they are trying to achieve. That was a very useful metaphor for me,” she said.

“One of the moments that resonated for me was about the importance of authentic leadership: that use of self and being an authentic leader, still delivering on government purpose but doing it in a way that I am confident and comfortable with.”

David Simmonds is the Director, Transport Accessibility & Inclusion for the Department of Transport in Victoria, and his role is to enable the Department to provide public transport options that can be used by everyone – from those with mild to severe physical disabilities to the elderly and parents with prams.

A recent recruit to the public service from the private sector, he completed the online TSL program in 2021.

“Having worked outside of government, I have to say I hadn’t heard of ANZSOG until my Executive Director nominated me for the TSL course. But I looked into the program and was very interested because I have a growth mindset. I’m one of those people who doesn’t want to get to my twilight years and think I could have done so much more. I don’t want to leave anything in the tank,” he says.

David says the TSL program provided good insights from facilitators who were ‘wise individuals.’

“One of the key sources of learning was through the discussions held with other participants and the leadership challenges. We broke into groups and one group member threw up a leadership challenge that they were facing and we were able to listen to their issue, work through it with them and come up with some suggestions,” he said.

“Because the participants came from diverse areas and careers within government and from different geographic locations and cultures, there was a lot to learn from each other.”

Each TSL program is different because it is a two-way program that is not just shaped by the facilitators but by the participants, who are able to bring real problems from their work to be discussed by the cohort.

Participants walk away with a renewed strategic outlook, political astuteness, personal resilience and the capacity to reflect, collaborate, lead and learn continuously. These new understandings begin to shape how they lead from the first day they return to the office.

Ms Etchells says that after TSL, she recognised the importance of ‘pausing and listening’ and creating a space for others to join in and to challenge her ideas and provide their own alternatives.

“After returning from the course to work, I found myself focusing more on asking: ‘who are the people I need to bring with me? Who are the connections I need and the relationships I need to build in order to expand the reach I have in delivering public services?”

“In sharing with them what the strategy and intent were, asking for their input, and by enabling people and getting out of the way, I found that the initiatives were more successfully delivered, and were delivered in a way that people felt they ‘owned’ because they were involved in it.”

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