Lisa Ryan, Sydney Leadership 2007
New solutions in government
As the Manager of Harm Reduction & Viral Hepatitis for NSW Health, with a senior staff and a budget of $20m, Lisa Ryan is responsible for public health initiatives affecting over 100,000 of some of the most vulnerable members of the NSW population—people with or at risk of HIV and hepatitis C. In 2007 when she came to Sydney Leadership, Lisa was looking for more effective ways of leading the response to multi-dimensional social issues.
“I wanted to find a way that allowed me to lead from within government, to work in a way that was inspiring and energising, and was more effective than traditional bureaucratic management,” she explains.
“I was looking for a program that would give me a theoretical framework for making sense of complex problems, as well as concrete skills around leadership and change management. And I wanted to learn from other leaders in the corporate sector and the community sector.”
“Sydney Leadership was the most sophisticated program I have ever done for its capacity to really look at what makes a problem complex and what needs to change to address it,” says Lisa.
It was an experience on retreat in Dubbo, during a deep—and frank—structured dialogue with staff from Police, Health and other community service providers that provoked a critical insight for Lisa.
“I realised that if you can make a space safe enough, people will talk more honestly about the challenges they experience and engage in a deeper analysis of the problem. Then they will start to generate new solutions. We generally rely on centrally driven solutions to problems but if we engage communities and frontline staff we get much more diverse perspectives and much better results in the end.”
Working with conflict was an important lesson Lisa took from Sydney Leadership.
“We’re working in a culture that values quick results but doesn’t necessarily give us the space to do the slow, effective work. Sydney Leadership reminded me that creating opportunities for people to air their different opinions is much more productive than creating ‘peaceful’ relationships between government and stakeholders. It fundamentally changed how I manage staff members too. I’m much better equipped to have the deeper conversations and generate completely new solutions, with staff and stakeholders alike,” she says.
Lisa continues to meet regularly with other Sydney Leadership 2007 graduates, sharing their leadership challenges and providing support for each other—something she describes as “incredibly valuable.”
She has also recently partnered with Social Leadership Australia to work with NSW Aboriginal sexual health workers in an intervention to engage community and develop more culturally responsive health services.
“Getting better health results for Aboriginal people is the most urgent task for the health system in Australia,” says Lisa. “This is a first in the country. It’s really exciting.”
