ANZSOG’s TSL is a unique program tailored to prepare leaders for the exceptional challenges facing the public sector today. Public sector leaders will develop the qualities needed to thrive in volatile and uncertain times. Participants will walk away with a renewed strategic outlook, political astuteness, personal resilience and the capacity to reflect, collaborate, lead and learn continuously.  

TSL is specifically designed to meet the needs of senior public servants and to provide you with the opportunity to reflect, learn and grow to be able to carry out your role with clarity, wisdom and energy.    

As a participant, you will leave the program with a defined sense of purpose, a stronger sense of self and the ability to recognise and manage urgent and important tasks within your organisation and the public sector more broadly.    

TSL offers blended delivery and will provide an inspiring environment where learning can happen that otherwise does not take place in a work context filled with day-to-day pressures or in a conventional classroom setting.    

You will be co-contributors and an integral ingredient to the program’s success. TSL will harness the knowledge and experience of all participants who, as professional peers, share a common language and a commitment to public service.    

Previously delivered face-to-face across a two-week period, TSL was moved online for the first time in 2020 as a result of the ongoing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The online delivery received overwhelmingly positive feedback, maintaining the spirit and tradition of the face-to-face delivery by ensuring a keen focus on personal reflection in the context of the crisis environment. The current delivery is designed to take the best of both these worlds with an intensive 4 day residential and four online modules designed to consolidate the post-residential integration of TSL learning experiences into participants’ work practices.      

The program is run under Chatham House Rule. The Chatham House Rule helps create a trusted environment to understand and resolve complex problems. Its guiding spirit is: share the information you receive, but do not reveal the identity of who said it. 

TSL is the ideal program for senior public sector professionals who are in the process of moving from tactical to strategic leadership roles. The program is designed to help you perform your roles with purpose, good judgment, and strategic nous. TSL will provide a tangible boost in confidence and capabilities and prepare you to face senior executive responsibilities.  

Public sector leaders are expected to maintain a long-term perspective and discern strategic opportunities for renewal and transformation amid daily pressures. It is therefore critical that they continue to invest in developing their leadership capabilities and their professional resilience in order to lead adaptive responses.   

TSL is not your average leadership program. It has innovative and respected program co-directors at the helm. Paul ‘t Hart brings 35 years of research, consulting and training on crisis leadership throughout the world to the program. Robbie Macpherson has been training and coaching corporate, community sector and public sector executives in Australia and New Zealand for more than two decades. They have co-facilitated TSL for more than 10 years. The program creates a dynamic forum which combines non-traditional learning methods, such as extensive individual and group-based reflection and real-world case studies, with peer consultations and critical thinking.   

Across the modules, participants explore:   

• the triangle of self, role and system within which strategic leadership takes place   
• assumptions about themselves, their organisation and the wider public sector   
• the distinctive governance challenges associated with different types of crises   
• the factors driving the adaptive capacity of public institutions   
• the opportunities for driving change, fostering learning and accelerating innovation that open up during critical junctures.   

TSL encourages you to identify personal and institutional strengths and weaknesses, helping you to understand your personal leadership style, and how your role fits within your organisation, the broader public sector and the community.   

You will develop reflective and strategic thinking and discover tools to discern and address the urgent and strategically important tasks, with an emphasis on integrating them into your everyday practices.   

Format: Blended (Face to face residential plus four online modules) 

Duration: 4-day residential; four x online consolidation modules  

Location: Residential will take place in Melbourne  

Dates:

Orientation: 17 March 2023 (1pm-2pm AEDT | online)

Module 1:

• 3 – 5 April 2023 (9am-5pm AEST | face-to-face in Melbourne);
• 6 April 2023 (9am-3pm AEST | face-to-face in Melbourne)

Module 2: 12 April 2023 (1.30pm-6pm AEST | online)

Module 3: 17 May 2023 (1.30pm-6pm AEST | online)

Module 4: 24 May 2023 (1.30pm-6pm AEST | online)

Module 5: 31 May 2023 (2.30pm-5.30pm AEST | online)

Cost: $22,533 excluding GST

Students are responsible for their own travel, some meals, and accommodation to and from the residential

Please note: A participant may enter into a salary sacrifice arrangement with their employer to attend the program. The participant’s employer will be billed the program fee. This will be discussed on a case-by-case basis with the applicant’s sponsoring agency.  

TSL participants will explore thematic thrusts, that will be interwoven in the structure of the program and both the asynchronous and live activities, including:   

• Strategic leadership   
• Self, role, system   
• Authority vs Leadership   
• Technical vs adaptive challenges   
• Relational work: informal authority and leadership capital   
• Identity work: navigating us and them   
• Communicative work: rhetoric, dramaturgy, symbolism   
• Political work: up, down, and out   
• Collaborative work: Leading when no one is ‘in charge’.   

TSL encourages you to identify personal and institutional strengths and weaknesses, helping you to understand your personal leadership style, and how your role fits within your organisation, the broader public sector and the community.   

You will develop reflective and strategic thinking and discover tools to discern and address the urgent and strategically important tasks, with an emphasis on integrating them into your everyday practices.   

Who should I nominate?

Nominate a public sector executive, such as a Director or Branch Manager, or someone who is moving, or is ready to move, from an operational to a strategic leadership role.   

The program will suit those seeking clarity in their decision-making to help them perform their roles with purpose and good judgment.   

First Nations Public Administration Scholarship

An Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander or Māori public servant will receive a fully-funded place in one of ANZSOG’s 2024 foundation programs, which include the Executive Master of Public Administration (EMPA), through the 2024 ANZSOG First Nations scholarship. Applications for the 2024 Scholarship open on 31 May and close on 6 October 2023.

This second ANZSOG scholarship was announced at the First Peoples to All Peoples conference in Meanjin Brisbane in March 2023, and is part of ANZSOG’s commitment to building capability in First Nations administration and lifting the number of potential First Nations leaders in all levels of the public sector.

This scholarship will help to build the capacity of First Nations leadership within the public sector and give the recipient a career-changing opportunity.

The recipient of the scholarship will be able to choose any ANZSOG foundation program: Executive Master of Public Administration (EMPA), the Executive Fellows Program (EFP), Towards Strategic Leadership (TSL), or Deputies Leadership Program, and have all academic costs covered.

The inaugural 2021 Scholarship was awarded to Palawa woman Brenda McDermott, currently working in the Victorian public service. Brenda commenced the EMPA in 2022.

Applicants for the scholarship must Identify as either Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander or Māori and be currently working in the public sector in Australia or Aotearoa New Zealand, and are expected to remain in the public service for the period of their scholarship.

Applications for the Scholarship are now open and close on 6 October. Full criteria for the scholarship are available here.

Investment

The sponsoring government or agency covers program costs, including tuition fee and program materials.   

A participant may enter a salary sacrifice arrangement with their employer to attend the program. The participant’s employer will be billed the program fee. This will be discussed on a case-by-case basis with the applicant’s sponsoring agency. 

Julie Etchells – TSL 2020 alum, Senior Executive Leader, Department of Children, Youth Justice and Multicultural Affairs

The ANZSOG experience reaches well beyond the classroom. The national and international networks to which you will gain access to while completing TSL will be invaluable throughout your career.  

Our Alumni Program helps you to maintain and build on their peer-to-peer relationships, creating a broad community of public sector managers from around Aotearoa New Zealand, Australia and internationally. This provides an opportunity for ongoing learning and support from peers, greater exposure to different perspectives, and an appreciation of work done, and solutions found, elsewhere. 

You will have opportunities to immediately apply new insights to your workplace and are encouraged to share what you learn with others. 

We encourage sponsoring managers to facilitate such opportunities for participants to ‘give back’ and add further value.   

We encourage you to speak to one of our TSL alumni to get an insider’s perspective. Please contact our Alumni Coordinator via email at: alumni@anzsog.edu.au to arrange an introduction. Alternatively, submit an expression of interest to be contacted by a member of ANZSOG’s Education team.