Indigenous leadership goes from strength to strength

Desert Knowledge Australia leadership course participants (left to right) Kellie Tranter, Ian McAdam, Barbara Shaw, Leadership Development Manager John Rawnsley, Benedict Stevens and Thomas Newsome. Photo: Steve Strike.

Indigenous leadership programs in Alice Springs are starting to show real benefits to community, says Desert Knowledge Australia’s John Rawnsley.

“Our leadership program impacts on each person differently, but you can certainly notice the growth in everyone. There are obvious changes in those taking part and in how they are interacting with their communities,” he says.

The Alice Springs Desert Leadership Program was established in an effort to keep up-and-coming leaders in Alice Springs.

Desert Knowledge Australia has been operating the 18 month program for the past 12 months. It’s a national organisation with a long-term vision of harmony, sustainability and prosperity for desert Australia.

“It’s not a standard style of program. The town of Alice Springs has co-designed it as much as possible,” Rawnsley says. “Mentors from the community, business and government sectors, and local business have joined with government in sponsoring it and giving it local endorsement.”

Part of the strength of the program is its mix of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal participants and mentors who focus on people working together in shared leadership.

Aranda and Kayteye participant Skye Thompson says the program has given her a first-hand experience of different types and styles of leadership.

“We have a good combination of people who have different opinions and skills, and if we work as a group, we could possibly address some issues in the Alice Springs community,” she says

While town-focussed, the program has taken participants further afield, to places such as Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne, meeting senior leaders in the corporate, diplomatic and community sectors.

“Our up-and-coming leaders gained connections, insights and knowledge. They met people like the US Ambassador and an international corporate leader,” Rawnsley says.

Developing leaders is also the focus of the Cape York Institute’s Leadership Academy in the north of Queensland.

The academy encourages adult leaders and high school and tertiary students. It aims to restore the small “l” leaders who were once the strength of Cape York communities – in families, workplaces and volunteer organisations – as well as to support those who hold formal or elected positions of leadership.

Rick Phineasa from the Cape community of Bamaga joined the Leadership Academy two years ago and is now the project officer with its Higher Expectations secondary program. 

He says it’s important that Indigenous people develop leadership skills in order to lift their communities. “It’s like the philosophy ‘all ships rise with the tide’.

“Some people are born as leaders in their families, their football teams, their communities. With them you’ve got the clay to work with. But you need to develop those qualities, in an ongoing process of connecting them with resources and people to mould them to become leaders,” he says.