Leadership development, career transitions and generational transformation: Leadership capability planning for the Public Service

Each jurisdiction in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand offers a dynamic setting for developing public sector leadership capability. Workforce demographics, generational shifts, staff mobility, and career transitions all play a crucial role in shaping the strategies for fostering and sustaining effective leaders. To tackle these challenges, ANZSOG partnered with the Queensland Public Sector Commission (QPSC) and the Business Insights Unit at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) to explore system-wide approaches for leadership development.

A leadership framework is a structured model that outlines the key principles, capabilities, and behaviours expected of leaders within an organisation or sector. Commonly used in the public sector, they provide a shared language and set of guidelines for developing, assessing, and supporting leadership at all levels. However, these frameworks often prescribe a ‘one-size-fits-all’ leadership development pathway, presenting a linear progression up a leadership ladder.

This research introduces an alternative perspective to the kinds of frameworks currently used in the public sector, the Wallace 2D architecture, which explains capability as a relationship between skills/competencies and mindsets. Within this, ‘mindset’ is not simply an attitude or disposition that is adopted. It is a social-emotional and cognitive development or ‘maturation’ that is relational and experiential. In other words, leadership capability evolves through context, in relation to others and in relation to the field of practice. Through this experiential journey leaders evolve their understanding of how they know their own capability and skills. This contemporary 2D model provides a conceptual tool for public sector leadership strategic planning that is focused on flexible and inclusive pathways to empower leadership growth.

This proposed architecture was shaped in collaboration with the QPS to incorporate four leadership contexts and associated descriptors. Rather than simply replicating Wallace’s work, the researchers derived a bespoke framework co-designed with the jurisdiction partners.

This research offers cross-jurisdictional relevance, providing insights that can help build leadership capacity and resilience across government sectors.

The primary audience for this research includes public service leaders, as well as human resource and workforce planning teams responsible for leadership development and capability building. Additionally, both Australian and international public sector organisations may see this framework as a model for adapting leadership development in their jurisdictions, while ANZSOG and other public sector training bodies can use the findings to inform leadership training programs.

This project was conducted in three phases.

Phase 1: Evidence Review

The evidence review involved a review of academic and grey literature, current offerings in the QPSC leadership space and selected interview with key stakeholders. This also included workshops with QPSC where key priorities were identified.

Phase 2: Integrative Review

This phase involved bringing together the insights gathered from working with QPSC and the evidence review. After working with QPSC to identify key priorities, the team assembled and integrated the insights from phase one.

Phase 3: Showcasing a leadership development module

This phase was about bringing the research to life. The team conducted a final workshop to discuss the report and its implications for the QPSC. They also demonstrated how simulation-based training could be used in leadership learning and development.

The final report presents a consolidation of the available science and practical knowledge across seven themes: 

• Leadership and leadership in practice 
• Evidence supporting the Wallace 2D architecture 
• Leader development – what to aim and train for? 
• Measuring performance within the proposed architecture 
• Likely challenges and obstacles that could impact implementation 
• Diversity and inclusion 
• Learning from others (across jurisdictions) 

This project presents an evidence-based review of the most effective leadership approaches in the literature, focusing on the challenges and aspirations of the Queensland Public Sector. The proposed framework emphasises the relational nature of leadership and leadership development, recognising the diverse pathways individuals take into leadership roles and providing relevant and practicable insights into leadership development. While the research was focused on the Queensland context, the insights and lessons derived are broadly applicable across all jurisdictions.