Outward Bound with ADFA

The magic number in the military was 40. To some, it was 40 days, 40 days before a tour finished or perhaps 40 days until your service ended. For me, it was when my military service started 40 years ago.

40 years ago, as a young officer, I embarked on an ideological journey, a battle that played out in Angola where Capitalism took on Communism, a war, mostly undocumented, where the Cold War was anything but cold.

We taught our craft with a zealousness born of youthful na?veté and indoctrination where allowing communism to prevail was unthinkable. Special operatives teaching battalions of drafted civilian soldiers. Crafting them, as we were, into instruments of an ideological war. The irony is that I see something similar playing out in Ukraine and I ask myself, have we learned nothing?

Years later, as part of a business leadership exercise, I was to witness a YouTube clip showing young innocent children bearing the brunt of similar teachings, the victims of war, boobytraps and mine warfare.

The YouTube clip revealed, and I witnessed, laughing children, living an ostensibly normal life, until the camera panned in and the reality of the seeds of war dawned. That these people, mostly children, were hapless victims of a likely flawed clash of ideology, paying an enormous price now living with the loss of hands and limbs. The reality was that this was the human cost of a latter-day war in some nondescript country not too dissimilar to Angola where I had worked those many years ago.

Watching this footage, I felt my past come rushing back, and the gravity of the seeds of destruction I’d sown confronted me head and heart on. I choked up and cried that day in front of many business leaders in an inner state of contrition and I yearned to make amends.

40 years later I have had the privilege of working with a group of Australian Defence Force Academy (ADFA) members representing the Airforce, Army and Navy young leaders embarking on an officer leadership journey.

I spent time in the Australian bush with fine young women and men, mentoring on leadership to assist their choice of the ‘high road’, as they lived out their desire to be officers in service of their country.

I was able to share my story and convey to them the gravity of the choices they will make. Of the impact their actions will have and how that adds colour to a few of the brush strokes in the art of their leadership. An art form where what we sow, has far-reaching consequences that may even, like my journey and dawning, take 40 years to harvest.

But why tell this story of ideology and the challenge this has for leadership? Well, every one of us leads in some aspect of our life and in my opinion, it’s this reality which represents our greatest opportunity for a planet needing ‘humans’ to lead a regeneration for a sustainable future.

What will the seeds of a regenerative, ‘all life matters’ ideology have on the planet’s sustainability? What does our personal leadership need to encompass and what do our actions have to look like to bear fruits we can be proud of when we harvest in 40 years from now? To do nothing, the alternative is 40 years of inaction, an option in my opinion, that we do not have.

How can we leverage our businesses to provide ecosystems for the development of our people our current and future leaders? To provide the tools, the mindset, the vision and the momentum needed to maintain and evolve these enterprises while sustaining and regenerating our planetary ecosystems for the betterment of all living things?