ANZSOG’s 2024 EFP gives senior leaders an understanding of how to adapt their leadership to contemporary challenges

Effective public sector leadership requires leaders to develop their personal capabilities and understanding of the broader environment they work in, but finding spaces to step back and reflect on challenges is difficult. 

ANZSOG’s Executive Fellows Program (EFP) offers a dynamic and interactive learning experience where participants learn both from a cohort of peers, and a group of guest presenters which includes academics and senior public sector practitioners from Australia, Aotearoa New Zealand and around the world. 

The 2024 EFP challenges senior public sector executives to develop new leadership perspectives, while exploring contemporary issues, such as the digital transformation of government and global uncertainty. 

The program consists of two week-long intensives in Wellington and Melbourne in November, following an online orientation session on 24 October.  

EFP Program Director Robin Ryde, a London-based leadership, strategy and organisational development expert, author and former Chief Executive of the UK National School of Government, said that one of the core principles of the EFP was the in-place immersions. 

“We want to take learning out of the classroom and look to the place we are in to find inspiring and different examples of leadership and public service transformation,” he said. 

“The 2024 EFP will feature a focus on the digital transformation of government, including visits to tech companies, and the chance to think more deeply about how the fundamentals of government are being changed by technology. 

“We will be continuing our exploration of different lenses on leadership, such as e.g. Inclusive Leadership with Laura Liswood, Social Identity Leadership with Alex Haslem and Myth-Busting Management Ideas with Todd Bridgman.” 

Other guest faculty include: Australian Public Service departmental secretaries Natalie James and Jim Betts, institutional culture expert Dr Alastair Stark, and Aotearoa New Zealand public servants Raj Nahna, and Paul James. 

Mr Ryde said that the EFP was a chance for senior leaders to spend time reflecting with peers on how they could adapt their leadership, and deepen their understanding of the forces shaping the public sector landscape. 

“In a sense we press the pause button – and create some time for reflection and development and invite participants to think about: how am I doing now as a leader? How would I think about myself, my strengths, areas I could develop further?,” he said. 

“Leaders need a range of qualities to be effective: the creativity and imagination to find solutions to novel, complex and often unsettling challenges; broad-mindedness that likely comes from having worked in a number of sectors or contexts; and an ability to see themselves and the public sector not as the primary, but as one of many, creators of public value 

“We want to challenge and provoke them and encourage them to think about different ways of adapting their style of leadership.” 

The four circles of leadership 

The 2024 EFP program is structured around four circles of leadership – Leading the Self, Leading Others, Leading the Organisation, and Leading in the External Environment. Understanding all four circles and how they fit together is important for senior leaders to be effective. 

“The first area that we focus on is the notion of the Leading the Self.  In many ways, this is a cornerstone of leadership because before you can even begin to think about leading others, you have to understand how to lead yourself. It’s about raising self-awareness, asking what is my authentic self as a leader, exploring ideas like resilience or adaptability, looking at the shadow you cast as a leader, ” Mr Ryde said. 

“But of course it’s not enough to understand yourself really well, you have to bring others with you. You have to understand that side of emotional intelligence, which is about understanding other people’s interests. How are other people feeling in the team or in the space? How do I overcome the resistance that we encounter in leading change?”  

While understanding these aspects of leadership is vital, as leaders rise in seniority, it becomes more important for them to understand how to lead their organisations, and understand the context in which they are leading.  

“We may be amazing at leading ourselves. We may be fantastic at bringing others on board, but if we don’t understand the culture, the structure, the values, the management practices of our organisations – then that doesn’t matter,” Mr Ryde said. 

“The fourth circle, or lens, is about the external environment – what is often described as a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world. I don’t think it’s too dramatic to talk in these terms. We experienced the pandemic just a few years ago.  And it is still with us in various ways. We see economic shifts going on, political shifts all the time and we need to adapt our leadership to them.”  

The 2024 program is organised around four cross cutting themes, which Mr Ryde said shaped the work of leaders in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand.

• Leadership in Response to Electoral Change (anticipating, preparing for, and leading through electoral shifts at home and abroad) 
• Digital Transformation (from cyber security and data analytics to Artificial Intelligence and disruptive technologies) 
• International Volatility (from the global spectre of war to diplomatic tensions in the region) 
• First Nations Leadership (taking stock of public service engagement with indigenous perspectives and models of leadership) 

“Relatively recently, New Zealand went through a change in government and electoral processes. When we start this program, it will be just a few days after the US will have elected a new president. And an election is scheduled for Australia early in 2025,” he said. 

“In the last15-20 years we’ve come a long way in terms of how we think about First Nations relationships in Aotearoa New Zealand, in particular, the work that’s been done on Crown-Māori relations. These things are really important for us to look at as examples of deliberate change and purposeful readjustment of how we engage with First Nations peoples.” 

“The theme of digital transformation is a major one. The technology that we are seeing now is so much more sophisticated than it was before. Our ability to access more data than we’ve ever had before, or to reach the whole nation at the touch of a button, means that we have to make fundamental changes to the skills we need, the way we work and the way we lead. 

 “I think we have barely begun this journey, but the change is fundamental and the exploration we engage in on the EFP is part of that effort. 

“We’ll be doing some exploration of that, by visiting tech companies and universities as well as talking to government departments about the successes and challenges they are facing, and by having EFP participants present their findings back to the group,” he said. 

ANZSOG’s 2024 Executive Fellows Program is designed for high performing leaders and public sector senior executives, such as: Deputy Chief Executive Officers (CEO), Deputy Director-Generals, Deputy Secretaries, and executives two levels below CEO, Director-General or Secretary. The program begins on October 24, and includes two five-day in-person immersions in Wellington and Melbourne. More information, including how to apply is available here.