Jennifer Cullen, Queensland Leadership 2009-2010
As the CEO of Synapse (formerly the Brain Injury Association of Queensland) a non-profit organisation dedicated to improving the quality of life of people living with and affected by Acquired Brain Injury, Jennifer Cullen had plenty of experience tackling life’s hard issues...
But it was a critical turning point on the Queensland Leadership program in 2009 that helped Jennifer overcome a particular professional challenge she was struggling with.
“It was on our first get together on the Opening Retreat and I was talking about how hard it was for us to ‘crack’ Far North Queensland,” Jennifer explains.
“I was using all this systems talk —‘If we can do this and that’—but what I heard back was that I was avoiding the ‘hard’ issue of how to work with Aboriginal people.
"I realised the solution had everything to do with me having the courage to understand that I had a role to play between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people.”
The insight led to a breakthrough for Jennifer, and for Synapse, which is now expanding its services into the new region.
Jennifer says Queensland Leadership has taught her how to identify the real issues and diagnose the leadership challenges she and her organisation face by ‘hitting the pause button’ rather than ‘barrelling straight in’.
“I’m a bit of ‘put-the-right-system-in-place-and-off-you-go’ person but I’ve learned to stop and ask, ‘Who are the missing voices? Who’s not part of this conversation?’ By identifying who’s missing and working constructively with conflict we’ve actually had much more success at Synapse.”
Originally attracted to the program’s practical, hands-on focus and eclectic mix of participants from the private, government and NGO sectors, Jennifer says Queensland Leadership gave her the opportunity to re-examine the role and value of not-for-profit organisations and to bring some new-found respect for her sector both to the program group and back to her team.
“I was able to challenge the notion that we’re the ones who put our hand out and ask for money. As the third sector we need to be able to say that we actually have the capacity to contribute (a) economically and (b) to deliver welfare in this country. We have products that we can sell and we’re not all take, take, take.”
As a result, says Jennifer, Synapse is now reaching out to partners outside the NGO sector to act as both allies and devil’s advocates, to bring about change.
Jennifer believes that it’s important for younger Indigenous leaders to understand they can be a successful leader “in an indigenous organisation or a white one”.
“We need to join that conversation between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people so we can create the next bunch of leaders,” she says.
The 2011-12 Queensland Leadership program is now open for applications.
