From the CEO

The theme of this year’s Consult Australia Leaders Conference was ‘Leadership in the Decade of Disruption’. We explored the four traits of leadership that are key to working through disruption and coming out safely (or even stronger) the other side. Those leadership traits are, purpose driven, inclusive, empathic, and ethical. Over two days, with the effervescent Kim Seeling Smith of Ignite Global as our MC, leaders from inside and outside our industry shared their insights. Covering tough issues such as sexual harassment in the workplace with the Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Kate Jenkins, through to care for country with a moving closing presentation from Claire Beattie, we discussed and workshopped the challenges and opportunities. Macquarie Bank’s Economist Jason Todd took us through the state of the economy, and we released our Economic Forecast Report for 2021, with a 6-month update to be released shortly.

We will soon be launching a ‘save the date’ for our brand new conference event that we’re planning for 2022. The Consult Australia team is very excited about sharing this with you and we’ll be unveiling more details over the coming months.

Leadership is an enigmatic term, whilst much has been written about what makes a great leader, we continue to consume content to understand leadership. Is leadership something we’re born with or can it be learnt over time, how much is nature over nuture? Expectations of leadership change over time, therefore styles of leadership also evolve. In Professor Samson’s article for this edition, he identifies the intrinsic skills that have made leaders successful in business. Aurecon adds courage to the list, exploring the courageous mindset. Michael Lewarne at Unmeasured answers the question by proposing that leadership is a choice that we can all choose to make. Over the last 15 months remote working and less time in the office has been the biggest change for the business community since the arrival of the internet. In their article, Management 4 Design provides eight steps that you can take to lead through this change. Lisa Samways at Arcadis shares a tool that they have been using, which can be applied to navigate through change.

Passing on leadership and building a legacy is also an important role for all leaders, Kate Drews at SMEC, identifies that sponsorship is one of the most powerful tools in facilitating direct change in leadership diversity.

There will always be the elite few that were ‘born to lead’. However, I am drawn the concept that leadership is a choice, that we all have leadership traits that can be nurtured, through training and development, the rolemodels around us, and those that sponsors us. This describes one of the core values in the network of members that is Consult Australia. Through the network that Consult Australia creates, we build our knowledge, we learn from others, and connect with great people.

We will be running a high impact leadership information session, which is complementary on 22 June 2021 in partnership with Julie Birtles, Founder, and Ian Banister of BEyond Excellence. This will explore leadership capacity building along with insight into their pioneering and practical approach to leadership development. Look forward to seeing you there.

Nicola Grayson

CEO

Leadership is an enigmatic term, whilst much has been written about what makes a great leader, we continue to consume content to understand leadership. Is leadership something we’re born with or can it be learnt over time, how much is nature over nuture?