Australian Women's Leadership Symposium

I had the pleasure of taking a group of incredibly talented #Zoetis women including Lauren Rowston, Kat Wade, Natalie Robertson and Megan Lui to The Australian Women's Leadership Symposium in Sydney. We heard some inspiring stories from great women including former banking exec and now maverick consultant Alexandra Tullio, journo and all-round advocate of women's sport Angela Pippos, lecturer and guru on leadership pathways Dr Terrance Fitzsimmons, former NZ PM Dame Jenny Shipley, and the ever poised and sharp as a tack former President of the Australian Human Rights Commission Emeritus Professor Gillian Triggs.

You can imagine the wealth of insights in the room... So I penned a few of the key takeouts I gleaned from the two days, and hope they may provide a little inspiration for you too.

1. Leading yourself and a team through change, be it small incremental change or disruptive innovations, is actually pretty simple with a huge payoff:

• Have a clear vision of what the end-state looks like. Remain centred and focused, and if you're leading others through change, create plenty of time and space for conversations as people gather behind you.
• Do your pre-work and create an environment that enables you and your team to flourish.
• SCARF is an interesting neuroscience-based model that has been used to assist people to manage through change. If you want to read up on this model, try this: https://web.archive.org/web/20100705024057/https://www.your-brain-at-work.com:80/files/NLJ_SCARFUS.pdf. In essence, the model proposes you can facilitate change by minimising perceived threats and maximising rewards across people's status, sense of certainty, their degree of autonomy, their relatedness and finally their sense of fairness. Rosemary Hegner ASM, the inspiring and pragmatic Director of the NSW Health Emergency Management Unit applies this in her incredibly demanding role for NSW Health.
• Make change and challenging your energy source. Make failure your fuel.

2. Be conscious and ever-vigilant of your #leadership shadow. Put simply, your leadership shadow is built from what you say, how you act, what you prioritise and how you measure what gets done. This model forms the basis of the Male Champions of Change cultural framework, but when you think about it more broadly, the greatest leaders are conscious of the shadow they cast, from their daily conversations in the corridor to town hall presentations. Another way to think of it is the expressions on people's faces or the words they say after the leader leaves the meeting. Be aware of the impact of the million little things...

See your-leadership-shadow for more information on the Male Champions of Change Initiative.

3. Your "#who-ness" matters. Deeply. What's your "who-ness"? It's the intangible. It's what you value, it's your values. It's what you care about, it's who cares about you. It's the words in your eulogy, not your resume. Remember that the role you have is just one of the cloaks you wear. Just as your clothing doesn't define who you are, nor should your role. It's not what you've done, it's who you are. I recommend David Brook's The Road to Character if you are looking for more insight on the essence of this "who-ness". David Brooks, The Road to Character

4. Dare to be a person of significance. Lead from wherever you are, but remember that the first step is often the most difficult. Do your preparation, be tenacious, be courageous, be resilient. And be prepared to make changes or decisions others don't expect or understand.

There were lots of incredible stories by inspiring women told over the two days, all adding to a consistent theme underpinning many great leadership conferences. But there was one particularly powerful closing thought by author and commentator (and hilariously engaging speaker) Jamila Rizvi... though there is plenty outside your control that will provide challenges and obstacles, confidence in your ability should not be one of them.