ANZSOG’s Towards Strategic Leadership: Building leadership and strategic thinking skills for troubled times
27 February 2022
● News and media
“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 challenge of reopening and shifting to a COVID-normal world, high-quality strategic leadership will be more important than ever.
ANZSOG’s Towards Strategic Leadership (TSL) program – presented by experienced facilitators Paul ‘t Hart and 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 2022 TSL program will again be delivered online across eight weekly sessions in April and May and aims for participants to leave with a new renewed strategic outlook, political astuteness, personal resilience and the capacity to reflect, collaborate, lead and learn continuously.
Julie Etchells is a Senior Executive with the Queensland Department of Children, Youth Justice and Multicultural Affairs, who completed the TSL course online in 2020. She said the program 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. The TSL course helped me to find how the parts of me fit together with the organisational parts, and the politics of delivering in the public sector.”
“Due to COVID-19, I had the opportunity to engage with the course in a virtual way. That gave me the chance to do the readings, take in the information and reflect on it, and still have that communication with colleagues in the course.”
“One of the readings that Paul and Robbie 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.”
“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.”
The online TSL program consists of eight half-day sessions with facilitators, spread across eight weeks. The format allows time for reflection between sessions, and the chance to begin incorporating ideas into participants’ daily work.
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.”
For more information on the TSL program for 2022 click here. The course begins with an orientation session on 5 April and applications are now open.