Alice Springs Desert Leadership

“Everyone stop thinking you’re right all the time, and start listening.”
Participant Fionn Muster, Senior Consultant, Michels Warren Munday

Re-imagining Alice

October 2011: The inaugural Alice Springs Desert Leadership program for Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians has concluded a journey of almost two years, with key members of the divergent community coming up with a united vision for durable solutions to the serious challenges facing the Northern Territory town.

Alice Springs Desert Leadership is the first of its kind in Australia, a program using the adaptive leadership approach for black and white Australians working together – focusing on starting real conversations, listening and learning to respond to entrenched issues that have not been tackled before.

Despite their many differences – from a Native Title landholder fluent in several languages, including English, to the head of a high-profile engineering firm – all the participants shared the same desire to transform their community.

Over an 18-month period, they explored the complex factors behind entrenched disadvantage and developed a blueprint for change based on their common aspiration: for Alice Springs to be a place where everyone belongs and feels safe.

Participants were chosen based on their potential for leadership and commitment shown for the future of their community, representing a broad cross-section of backgrounds and with a range of formal educational levels. The group of 19 comprised roughly 50% Indigenous and 50% non-Indigenous Australians including police, emergency services workers, artists and experts from environmental and communications fields.

The program, developed and delivered by Social Leadership Australia and Desert Knowledge Australia, in partnership with the NT Government Statutory Corporation - included field trips to Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra and meetings with leaders such as United States Ambassador Jeffrey Bleich and Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin.

On the final ambitious project, the group articulated their shared purpose and vision for Alice Springs in a manifesto created against a backgrop of the Commonwealth Government ‘NT Intervention’ and associated issues of increased migration of people from remote communities.

With the important bonds forged among the group as well as with mentors from the desert town, Alice Springs now has a group of emerging leaders with developed leadership skills and importantly, a practical new approach to solving specific complex issues and building pathways to engagement and collaboration in their community.

Program facilitator, SLA's Liz Skelton, says one of the inaugural program's main achievements was the ability to get so many of Alice Springs’ key emerging figures working together, overcoming differences in culture and outlook.The place-based nature of the program meant the unique problems facing the community could be analysed and workshopped, creating a space for people to speak from the heart and engage in the necessary difficult conversations.

“Working on issues in Alice Springs was a case in point about how black and white Australia are engaging with each other,” Liz says.

“If we can understand and engage differently on some of the leadership challenges facing Alice Springs, it provides the potential to springboard to other areas of Australia.”

Liz says with such a diverse group with different demands and commitments, just getting everyone into the room was a challenge, and giving participants the tools to really hear each other was the beginning of the learning process.

“With such a diverse group of people from hugely different backgrounds, we thought, if we can work explicitly with the diversity in this program in a safe space, then people can use the same skills outside.in their work in Alice.”

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Participants in the Alice Springs Desert Leadership Program

Kristy Bloomfield, Paralegal, Central Australian Aboriginal Legal Aid Service
Joe Clarke, Football Operation, The Clontarf Foundation
Georgina Davison, Manager, Library Services, Alice Springs Public Library
Lyndon Frearson, General Manager, CAT Projects
Jade Kudrenko, Ranger Training Officer, Central Land Council
Nichole Kerslake, Co‐Artistic Director, Red Dust Theatre
Lynda Lechleitner, Life Skills Worker, Tangentyere Council
Donna Lemon, Training Officer, Central Australia Aboriginal Congress
Mark Lockyer, Community Advocate
Ian McAdam, Assistant Director, Alice Springs Football Academy, The Clontarf Foundation
Fionn Muster, Senior Consultant, Michels Warren Munday
Thomas Newsome, Consultant, Low Ecological Services
James Nolan, Constable, Northern Territory Police
Sam Osborne, Consultant, Dare to Lead, Principals Australia
David Quan, Firefighter, Northern Territory Fire and Rescue Service
Barbara Shaw, Community Advocate
Benedict Stevens, Aboriginal Liaison Officer, Alice Springs Hospital
Skye Thompson, Finance/Deputy Manager, Ingkerreke Outstations Resource Services
Kellie Tranter, Manager, ASSU, Alice Springs Hospital

Sponsors are now being sought to provide resources for a second round to nurture the place-based inter-cultural leadership Alice Springs program.