Michelle Loader MAICD (pictured), Managing Director of executive search and advisory Future Leadership™, which works with many of Australia’s board and executive community, sees the pattern clearly. “Organisations continue to hire for stability, even though they’re operating in volatility,” she says. The distinction matters more than it might first appear. The Future Leadership Capability Compass 2026, drawn from assessments and interviews with thousands of senior leaders across 23 industries, maps the alignment between what boards demand from their leaders and how those leaders actually show up.
The high-demand capabilities – strategy and purpose, stakeholder management, communication and influence – show strong market alignment. Australian boards are well-stocked in this respect, but these only provide the licence to operate.
The ability to transform is a different conversation entirely. The Compass reveals some capability gaps that should command board attention:
→ Adaptability and resilience
→ Innovation and creativity
These are not emerging concerns. They are the lowest-alignment capabilities in the assessed talent pool.
“Boards say they want leaders who can navigate disruption, then design governance systems that penalise intelligent failure,” says Loader. “If we systematically reward certainty and short-term stability, then we shouldn’t be surprised when adaptability remains a suppressed capability. The behaviour we incentivise is the behaviour we get.”
Blind spots
There are also quieter findings, ones Loader describes as blind spots. Personal growth (the capacity to continuously evolve one’s thinking and judgement as context shifts) and digital literacy (the practical ability to harness value from digital tools) rank as the lowest-demand capabilities of all. Directors may believe they have both covered. The research suggests otherwise.
Loader offers a question to ask at your next board meeting: When did we last rigorously challenge our own capabilities in the way we do our CEO and executive team?
Future Leadership’s framework for closing these gaps is deliberately practical – buy the right high-demand capabilities through executive search, borrow adaptive and innovative capabilities through targeted development or interim talent, and build transformational leadership from within.
But the precondition for any of it is cultural. If your reporting rhythm leaves no room for experimentation and setback is treated as failure rather than data, capability investment will only go so far.
Adaptability isn’t just a development nice-to-have. It’s a governance risk that belongs on the board agenda.
Capabilities of the Future: What might Government 3.0 look like?
What might Government 3.0 look like?
Rewiring Capability, Not Just Reforming Government
By David Baber, Senior Partner, Future Leadership
The Australian Public Service is standing at an inflection point. The question is no longer whether government needs to transform, but whether its capabilities, systems, and capacity can keep pace with the conditions it now operates within.
What is emerging is not incremental reform, but the early shape of Government 3.0: a model defined by real-time responsiveness, AI-augmented decision-making, and system-wide capability orchestration. The risk is that we attempt to reach this future with institutions still designed for Government 2.0, hierarchical, process-bound, and optimised for control rather than cognition.
Context: Volatility Only Continues to Increase
Three forces are converging across all tiers of government, and none of them are temporary.
Demand has become nonlinear. Health, housing, climate, and social services are no longer predictable policy domains. Jobs and Skills Australia finds that productivity is now less about efficiency and more about how well systems match skills, participation, and capital in real time.
AI is compressing decision cycles, not simply automating tasks but reshaping how work is defined. The shift is toward blended roles requiring both technical and human capabilities, with a 50/50 convergence expected across most jobs. In government, this collapses the distinction between policy, delivery, and data.
Meanwhile, institutional trust is declining as public expectations are rising. Citizens expect personalised, real-time services; agencies face greater scrutiny, tighter fiscal constraints, and a reputational environment that punishes both failure and inaction.
The Government 3.0 Paradox:The public sector must become faster, more adaptive, and more human, while remaining accountable, equitable, and safe.
This paradox is sharpened by automation bias: the tendency of experienced practitioners to defer to AI outputs even when they contradict professional judgment. Faster processes without stronger critical thinking can degrade decision quality. AI can amplify error at scale where human oversight is weak. As Deloitte notes, leadership in the AI era is about getting the balance right between augmentation and automation.
Government 3.0 demands a shift from process optimisation to cognitive optimisation.
Capability: Hiring for Stability, Operating in Volatility
Data from the Future Leadership Capability Compass reveals a structural tension at the heart of APS workforce strategy.
“We are hiring for stability while asking leaders to deliver in volatility.”
Governments continue to prioritise stabilising capabilities: strategy, stakeholder management, communication. But the environment also demands transforming capabilities: adaptability, innovation, systems thinking. The gap between the two is widening. The challenge is to achieve balance.
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Figure 1.0: APS capability demand and alignment, Capability Compass 2026
Five capability shifts define what Government 3.0 actually requires. Adaptive intelligence over policy expertise alone: leaders must navigate ambiguity, not eliminate it. Systems thinking as a core operating skill, because linear policy thinking fails in complex systems. AI literacy as a governance capability, meaning regulatory, ethical, and strategic fluency, not just technical knowledge. Critical thinking as a defensive capability, because in an AI-enabled environment the ability to interrogate outputs is as important as generating them. And stakeholder capability as system orchestration, as government becomes more networked across public, private, and community domains.
Designing AI Systems That Strengthen Judgment
Government 3.0 is not about deploying AI. It is about how AI is embedded into decision systems, and whether those systems are designed to make humans better at their jobs or to quietly displace judgment.
Three design principles matter. Human-in-the-loop must be meaningful, not symbolic: leaders must retain genuine authority to override AI outputs and be trained to exercise it. AI should surface uncertainty, not conceal it, highlighting confidence levels, data gaps, and alternative scenarios. And feedback loops must be real-time and behavioural.
Service NSW illustrates the point. Its 94%+ satisfaction rate was driven not just by digital investment, but by continuous feedback mechanisms, flatter structures, and decision-making redistributed closer to the frontline. Learning happened at the system level, not just the individual level.
Capacity: The Hidden Constraint
The Capability Compass draws a distinction worth emphasising: the issue confronting many APS agencies is often not capability, but capacity.
“Transforming capabilities may be latent, not absent, suppressed by structure, predictability and control.” – Future Leadership Capability Compass 2026
This shows up as leaders too overloaded to think strategically, risk-averse cultures that penalise experimentation, and hierarchical decision-making that slows adaptation. Deloitte’s research reinforces this, noting that organisations struggle to redirect human effort toward higher-value work even where the tools exist.
Government 3.0 requires deliberate reallocation: from compliance toward cognition, from reporting toward decision-making, from hierarchy toward empowered teams.
“If Government 2.0 was built to deliver services efficiently, Government 3.0 must be built to make better decisions, faster than the problems evolve.”
In an AI-enabled economy, productivity is a function of decision quality, not just output. National competitiveness depends on how effectively humans and machines work together, and Australia’s declining rankings in digital competitiveness and future readiness signal that this transition is yet to really gain momentum.
Unless we redesign how government is structured, measured, and led, AI will accelerate the system we have, not the one we need.
David Baber is an executive search professional, leading the Public Sector practice at Future Leadership. He has placed candidates nationally at the highest levels of federal, state and local government and he often supports integrity agencies and government business enterprises. His practice also includes board placements and people advisory. Connect with him.
Unlocking Adaptability and Innovation in Australia’s For Purpose Sector
Unlocking Adaptability and Innovation in Australia’s For Purpose Sector
By Kate Wheeler, Partner, Future Leadership
Across Australia, our leadership capability data is telling a clear and compelling story. The very capabilities required to navigate uncertainty and complexity in an increasingly tech-augmented world, are lagging.
Our Future Leadership Capability Compass to be released in March draws on multi-sector leadership assessments, revealing the most ‘in-demand’ capabilities of 2026 on one hand, and how leaders are showing up against those capabilities, on the other. The report reveals a growing pressure on a cluster of capabilities that are no longer “nice to have”, but essential: adaptability, creativity, systems thinking and digital literacy. These are the capabilities leaders need to navigate uncertainty, integrate technology, respond to shifting community expectations and redesign organisations under constraint.
And yet, across sectors, they are the least consistently developed.
When it comes to Australia’s For Purpose sector, this is not a future risk. It is a present reality. The report reveals not a capability deficit, so much as a capacity deficit. And with the right approach, capacity can be scaled.
A burning (out) capability platform for the For Purpose sector
The For Purpose sector sits at the intersection of rising community need, tightening funding, workforce fatigue and increasing complexity. It employs 1.47 million Australians, engages 3.2 million volunteers, and contributes economic value comparable to some of Australia’s largest industries. At the same time, it is being asked to lead on climate response, digital inclusion, social cohesion and care for our most vulnerable communities.
An early look at our Capability Compass data from the sector shows us what the experience already confirms on the ground: the system is demanding adaptability and creativity faster than it is enabling them.
This is not because For Purpose leaders lack capability or intent. It is because the conditions in which they operate make those capabilities difficult to sustain.
This is not a capability gap. It is an enablement gap.
The For Purpose Sector Development Blueprint released last year by the Australian Institute of Company Directors, is unequivocal. The sector operates under chronic structural constraint. Funding is often partial, short-term and program-specific. Full cost recovery is rare. Investment in leadership development, data capability and innovation infrastructure is frequently categorised as overhead rather than as core to impact and sustainability.
In this environment:
professional development becomes episodic
innovation is discussed, but not well resourced
creativity remains conceptual rather than operational
It is difficult to adapt without time.
It is difficult to create without capital, financial or otherwise.
And it is difficult to learn without exposure to different ways of working.
The Compass doesn’t reveal a failure of leadership. It reveals a misalignment between what the system demands and what it enables.
Why the For Purpose context is fundamentally different
Unlike the private sector, where profit provides a clear organising principle, or government, where policy delivery anchors workforce planning, the For Purpose sector is organised around purpose, trust and legitimacy.
Leaders must navigate:
multiple funders and regulators
volunteers alongside paid staff
boards with fiduciary and moral accountability
communities whose lived experience must shape decisions
This creates a leadership context where influence matters more than authority, where outcomes are long-term and relational, and where failure carries reputational as well as human consequences.
Ironically, these conditions demand more adaptability and creativity, not less.
Yet despite constraint, the For Purpose sector demonstrates strengths many sectors are now trying to build.
The Blueprint recognises the sector’s leadership in co-design, shared decision-making, and systems collaboration; all capabilities critical to addressing complex social challenges. Purpose-led attraction and engagement remain powerful differentiators in a low-trust environment. Leaders develop breadth early, operating across governance, funding, service delivery and workforce wellbeing simultaneously.
These are not accidental strengths. They are forged by necessity.
What’s missing is systematic investment to deepen, scale and sustain them.
Where pressure points are widening
The Capability Compass and the Blueprint converge on the same fault lines:
fragmented investment in leadership and professional development
limited, inconsistent workforce and capability data
fragile succession pipelines and bench strength
uneven digital and data capability
As funding pressures intensify, many organisations are turning to mergers and alliances as a survival strategy. Yet too often, mergers prioritise financial and operational integration, while talent, culture and capability integration are under-designed.
This is a risk, but it is also an opportunity.
Mergers as capability accelerators, not just cost controls
Handled well, mergers are one of the most cost-effective moments to lift capability:
roles are being redesigned
ideas are being cross-pollinated
governance is being reset
leadership expectations are being clarified
Handled poorly, they erode trust, trigger attrition and stall performance.
First, capability must be treated as shared sector infrastructure, not organisational indulgence. Evidence-based, sector-wide capability frameworks reduce duplication, improve targeting and allow investment to scale, particularly when supported by initiatives such as ARC-funded research.
Second, development must shift beyond courses to real-time movement. Cross-sector project teams, secondments, board observer roles and partnerships across sectors are among the most powerful (and cost-effective) ways to build adaptability and creativity.
Third, focus matters. Under constraint, organisations should prioritise a small number of keystone capabilities. Adaptability, systems thinking, stakeholder influence, commercial acumen and practical data literacy are some that unlock performance across roles.
Finally, capability must be designed into mergers, not bolted on after. Clarifying critical roles, aligning capability expectations and deliberately creating cross-entity leadership teams costs far less during integration than repairing damage later.
The moment we are in…
Australia’s For Purpose sector does not lack talent.
What it lacks is enablement at scale.
The Capability Compass, when released in March, will demonstrate where the capability gaps exist. Future Leadership exists to help organisations build capacity where they need it most.
If you choose to partner with us, we will work collaboratively, deliberately and with evidence, to build identified priority capabilities into everyday practice to meet your needs. Through our strategic capability offerings, organisations can buy, borrow or build talent in ways matched to budget and scaled for impact.
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Kate Wheeler partners with For Purpose boards and executives on talent strategy, executive search, and leadership capability building. With 20+ years supporting the For Purpose sector through governance challenges, transitions, and strategic growth, she brings practical insight grounded in real-world impact. Connect with her.
Australia’s Biotech Industry: Building a Sovereign Wealth Platform
What struck me at AusBiotech this year wasn’t just the scale: three days, 60+ sessions, 250+ speakers. It was the remarkable consistency of message. From ministers to CEOs to returning expats, the same urgent themes emerged: sovereign capability, global ambition from day one, and the critical need to bridge the gap between brilliant science and commercial leadership.
Get these three elements right, and Australia transforms from a talented R&D destination into a genuine biotech powerhouse where companies go the distance.
Building Global Leadership Through Sovereign Capability
Australia must evolve beyond being exceptional at early stages of commercialisation to become a sovereign platform for biotech success. While we excel at early translational work, our ecosystem must now actively support companies that expand globally while deliberately bringing value—capital, IP, and capability—back home.
The most successful companies will be those that use our ecosystem tactically—leveraging our talent pools, clinical trial excellence, and capital access—while maintaining laser focus on building businesses that can compete and win globally.
It’s encouraging to hear government leaders positioning biotech and medtech as pillars of economic resilience, not just health policy. We have undeniable strengths: clinical excellence, world-class universities, a quality workforce, and established supply chains. Our challenge? A domestic market too small for global scale. The solution requires companies to expand internationally while strategically reinvesting at home.
Senator Ananda-Rajah captured it perfectly, positioning Australia as one of only ten countries with a true science cluster. Her commitment to smoothing the researcher journey from feast-or-famine cycles signals important policy evolution. Meanwhile, practical collaboration through Austrade, state bodies, AusBiotech as examples, helps companies navigate our vast geography and connect meaningfully.
But we must shift our focus from celebrating “the ecosystem” to building transformative companies that change patient lives.
Bridging R&D Excellence with Commercial Muscle
David Gall from the National Reconstruction Fund laid bare our early commercialisation funding gap. With 15% of their pipeline in medical sciences, the unmet demand for scale-up capital is clear.
The critical question: How do we connect Australia’s world-class R&D with the commercialisation expertise needed for later-stage development, market entry, and scaling?
A fundamental mindset shift is emerging. “Getting to first-in-human trials” isn’t the endgame. True leadership means ensuring patients benefit across multiple markets while maintaining control of your company’s destiny.
Mark Womack’s “as-if” principle resonated deeply: act now like the company you intend to become. Choose your clients, set your standards, and behave as if you’re already that scaled, global company—not a hungry startup taking whatever comes.
If we want more Cochlears and Telixs, we must stop just celebrating “grant funded” or “Phase I completed” as victories. Success means defining the endgame, acting “as if” from day one, and building the commercial capabilities to get there.
Tech-Savvy, Borderless Leadership for Tomorrow
The AI conversation has matured significantly. It’s no longer optional. Boards should be asking: What’s our AI strategy? How are we governing it? How will it accelerate time-to-patient and reduce cost-of-goods?
Leading companies already integrate AI holistically—as tool, tactic, and strategy—with explicit governance around where AI will and won’t be deployed. The emphasis is refreshingly practical: define your problem first, then determine AI’s role. Companies that don’t embed AI into drug discovery, project management, and manufacturing will fall behind rapidly.
The geographic centre of gravity is shifting decisively. Asia-Pacific has evolved from sideshow to rising biotech investment hub. Australian companies must design multi-jurisdictional strategies from inception: where to generate data, where to launch, and how to structure partnerships that return value to Australia.
Our biggest underutilised asset? Our diaspora. AusBiotech’s survey revealed that of 1,300+ trained Australian medical research professionals overseas, 60% would consider returning if opportunities existed. Many would contribute as advisors even before relocating. The barrier isn’t willingness—it’s how easy we make reconnection.
Too many Australian biotechs operate with 1-2 year horizons rather than endgame vision. Companies that scale from $4 million to $100 million in a few years do so by acting “as if” from day one—in their hiring choices, client selection, and quality standards.
Five Concrete Moves for Biotech Leaders
Define your global endgame and act “as if” today Map your 10+ year vision: which markets, which patients, what scale. Make every current decision—hiring, quality systems, partnerships—as if you’re already that company.
Design a sovereign-plus-global strategy Explicitly determine what stays sovereign (radiopharma production, core IP) versus where you need global partners (manufacturing, distribution). Use international revenue to deliberately strengthen Australian jobs, infrastructure, and training.
Build deliberate commercial leadership pipelines Map your gaps in late-stage development, market access, health economics, medical affairs, and business development. Engage diaspora talent through advisory boards, fractional roles, and secondments. Value international experience rather than discounting it as “different.”
Establish board-level AI governance Set clear guardrails around ethics, data, and IP with priority use-cases: trial optimisation, portfolio modelling, process analytics, knowledge management. Ensure leadership understands AI as strategic capability, not IT project.
Diversify funding beyond government support Treat R&D tax incentives and grants as leverage, not life support. Build early relationships with strategic pharma partners, specialist life science investors, and corporate venture—particularly in Asia-Pacific where growth capital is re-emerging.
The Path Forward
Australia’s biotech sector stands at an inflection point. We have the science, the talent, and increasingly, the political will. What we need now is the commercial leadership courage to think bigger, act bolder, and build companies that don’t just participate in the global biotech revolution—but lead it.
The message from AusBiotech 2024 was clear: sovereign capability and global ambition aren’t competing priorities. They’re two sides of the same coin. The companies that understand this—and act accordingly—will define Australia’s biotech future.
Sandra Kerr is a Life Sciences and Health Leadership expert and Partner, Executive Search at Future Leadership. Connect for a strategic discussion about your talent pipeline.
An Education Leadership Conundrum: Inclusive Leadership in Universities
A capability review of higher education leadership reveals a need for greater diversity, if we are to achieve systemic change.
The Australian Public Service Commission has released a capability review of the Department of Education, calling for a “holistic systems perspective”. Last year, less than 10% of Australian Vice-Chancellors came from culturally or linguistically diverse backgrounds.
Can we achieve whole-of-system change without increasing inclusive representation across the system? This is both a conundrum and a concerted effort.
I often reflect that executive search has a privileged role in contributing to the future direction of an organisation. Throughout the period wherein we are deeply entrenched in the search process, the partnership allows us to witness the current state, understand the emerging context, and unpack the capabilities of the entity.
This privileged position is amplified when you work with a sector that has societal impact, and for me, that is education.
A founding principle of our firm has been supporting organisations to achieve diversity in leadership, gender diversity of course, but increasingly leadership teams that reflect the intersectional diversity of the Australian community.
What the Universities Accord Got Right
The Universities Accord Final Report, released in February 2024 with its 47 recommendations for transformative reform, was explicit about the need for inclusive leadership.
The Accord goes on to argue that we need the proportion of Australians with tertiary qualifications to rise from 60% to 80% by 2050. That’s over 1.8 million Commonwealth Supported Places annually. We won’t achieve that kind of demographic transformation without bringing all Australians along on the journey.
Data from journals like Higher Education Research & Development and the Australian Educational Researcher consistently shows that over 50% of articles published in 2024 were related to one or more of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, yet our leadership appointments suggest we’re still optimising for different metrics entirely.
ACER’s latest research on “Rethinking assessment in response to generative artificial intelligence” and “Help for educators daunted by students’ poor mental health” points to exactly the kind of complex, cross-cultural challenges that require leaders who understand systemic disadvantage, not just academic tradition.
The Capability Review’s Uncomfortable Truth
The Federal Department tasked with overseeing our $55 billion education system operates with “varying degrees of responsibility across education sectors” while simultaneously presiding over universities that remain stubbornly monocultural at the top, despite being among our most diverse institutions at student and staff levels.
The capability review identified macro trends including “growing number of Australians living in poverty,” “declining birth rate relative to ageing population,” and “unpredictable geopolitical climate”. These aren’t abstract policy challenges; they’re lived realities that diverse leadership teams understand viscerally.
When the proposed Australian Tertiary Education Commission (ATEC) launches, it will inherit a system where Indigenous leaders have been “pivotal in embedding Indigenous knowledges and perspectives across disciplines,” yet these rolesremain proportionally too lowto have genuine impact in systematic transformation.
So, here’s what I’m pondering: if Australia’s National Science Statement emphasises “elevating Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander knowledge systems” as a national priority, why aren’t more executive search firms, like us, conducting leadership searches that determinedly elevate the communities whose knowledge remains in the shadows?
At Future Leadership 3% of the thousands of appointed senior leaders, over two decades, have been executive First Nations and Aboriginal leaders. Many of them, in Higher Education.
This isn’t about optics, it’s about competitive advantage. The research is unambiguous: leadership teams with diverse perspectives make better decisions, drive innovation, and build organisational resilience. With Australia’s Economic Accelerator investing $270 million in 2024/25 and the National Reconstruction Fund deploying $15 billion, we’re making massive bets on sectors that universities must help deliver.
Yet we’re placing those bets with leadership teams that are failing to include the communities, networks, and perspectives essential for success in Asia-Pacific partnerships, Indigenous knowledge integration, and culturally responsive innovation.
The Leadership We Need
The Department’s 1,700 staff are tasked with stewarding an education system serving millions of increasingly diverse Australians. Universities Australia’s 2025 federal election statement calls for ‘building a stronger, more prosperous Australia.’ But prosperous for whom, and led by whom?
The next phase of innovation won’t be purely technological. It will be equity-driven. Leaders who understand systemic disadvantage are uniquely positioned to challenge outdated assumptions about merit, participation, and success. Whether reimagining admissions processes, designing culturally responsive learning environments, or supporting neurodiverse students, diverse leadership ensures inclusivity is embedded into innovation.
An Uncomfortable Conclusion
The capability review’s call for “holistic systems perspective” is spot on.
If the Education Department truly wants to coordinate a complex, federated education system serving diverse communities with varied needs, it needs to model the leadership transformation it expects from universities. And if universities want to remain relevant in an Australia that will be 80% tertiary-qualified by 2050, they need leaders who reflect and understand that future Australia, not the one that appointed them.
My educated guess is that we can’t afford not to diversify our education leadership.
Anyone who’s taken a history lesson must surely agree.
About the Author:
Andrew Nortonleads the higher education and vocational education practices at Future Leadership. He partners closely with government sector specialists, appointing and supporting senior executives, academics and board directors. Andrew has built enduring networks at a national and international level and is highly respected as a trusted advisor to clients and candidates alike.
Be 10% Braver: The Call to Courage for the Next Generation of Women in Leadership
Be 10% Braver: The Call to Courage for the Next Generation of Women in Leadership
By Liz Jones, Managing Partner, Future Leadership Let me start with a confession: I never set out to become an expert in leadership.
But after more than 25 years of sitting across the table from extraordinary leaders (and a few not-so-extraordinary ones), I’ve come to realise that the most important work we do at Future Leadership isn’t just filling jobs, it’s helping people with leadership potential back themselves. Especially women. Especially in education. And especially now.
We’re living in a world that’s throwing curveballs like never before. AI, climate change, social disruption, mental health, neurodiversity, this generation of students (and educators) are coming of age in times that demand not just smarts, but adaptability, resilience, and vision.
So the question for all of us, particularly those who shape our schools and learning environments, is this:
How do we make sure the next generation of women leaders are brave enough to back themselves, and bold enough to build futures they can’t yet imagine?
It starts with us.
What I Look for (and Don’t) in Education Leaders
This July, I had the pleasure of speaking at the #WomenEd Australia Webinar. The event was titled “10% Braver – Planning and Applying for Leadership“. It was a riveting conversation with Michelle Dennis, Head of Digital at Haileybury, and Lauren Sayer, Director at Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority and Melbourne Girls Grammar. Here’s something I said at the event, and I say often, because it still surprises people: your CV is not a marketing brochure.
It’s not about puffery or perfect phrasing. It’s about impact. What did you inherit? What did you do? What changed?
When I’m reviewing candidates for senior education leadership roles, I’m not just ticking boxes for years of experience or formal quals (though yes, they still matter). I’m looking for future-ready capability. Things like:
Adaptability: Can you lead through ambiguous and complex times?
Capability growth: Do you understand how to build capacity in others?
Emotional Awareness: Have you created environments where people feel safe to try, fail, and try again?
And here’s the clincher: Have you evolved with the times, or are you clinging to yesterday’s definitions of leadership?
Because schools don’t want status quo. They want transformation. They want leaders who’ve figured out how to integrate AI thoughtfully, engage with cultural complexity, prioritise wellbeing, and create climate-conscious strategies with students at the centre.
CVs and Cover Letters: The No-Fluff Version
A little practical advice (because we all love a tip we can use right away): if you’re applying for a leadership role, read the Candidate Information Pack properly.
I mean really read it. The capabilities listed in there? That’s what the interview is going to be based on. Don’t write a generic cover letter. It’s not 2003. Instead, connect emotionally to the organisation. Reference their values. Mention a school leader you admire. Show me that you’ve done your homework and you give a damn.
And for the love of all things good in education, don’t regurgitate your CV in your interview. Tell me a story. Use the STAR method: Situation, Task, Action, Result and be reflective and ensure you make it relevant to the client. Nail 10 great, scalable stories and be able to deliver them with clarity and energy.
Because when you walk into that interview, the panel already thinks you can do the job. What they want to know now is: How will you do it? And will you do it in a way that fits who we are and where we’re going?
The Spiral Career and the Power of Saying “Yes”
We need to shift our mindset about what a leadership journey looks like.
It’s not always a straight line up. Sometimes it’s a spiral. Sometimes it loops sideways through a secondment or a role in a different sector. That doesn’t mean you’re off track, it means you’re building breadth.
I’ll never forget one panellist, Lauren Sayer, who shared how her first leadership opportunity came through a four-week secondment on interactive whiteboards. Unpaid. Unfamiliar. But she said yes. And that tiny step became the foundation for everything that followed.
We need to teach our emerging women that leadership doesn’t require perfection or readiness. It requires willingness.
Getting Over the “Not Ready Yet” Syndrome
Let’s be honest, we’ve all heard it:
“I don’t tick all the boxes.”
“I’ve never held a formal leadership title.”
“I’m not sure I’m ready.”
Here’s the truth: no one is ever “ready” in the way they think they need to be.
What matters is whether you’ve been developing leadership behaviours before you hold the title. Have you mentored others? Piloted an initiative? Led a tricky conversation? Sat in discomfort and worked through it with integrity?
You don’t need the crown to lead. You need courage.
Interview Prep: The Bit No One Practices Enough
Too many candidates stumble at the final hurdle because they haven’t prepared properly.
Here’s my advice:
Practice your stories like you’re prepping for a role in a movie. Know your data. Your timelines. Your budget figures.
Don’t wing it. Record yourself. Watch it back. Cringe a little. Then get better.
Get comfortable asking bold questions at the end of an interview. Not “What’s the culture like?” (snooze). Ask, “What are the biggest strategic risks you’re facing, and how could this role help address them?” Boom. You’ve just reframed yourself as a partner in progress, not just a candidate.
Capability Over Compliance
Schools used to ask: Can you manage compliance? Keep the trains running?
Now they’re asking: Can you lead a transformation? Navigate complexity? Build a team that thrives through disruption?
If you’re still preparing for yesterday’s interview questions, you’re going to miss tomorrow’s opportunities.
So here’s what you can do right now:
Engage with future thinking. Read about how AI is reshaping assessment. Learn how climate change is impacting school infrastructure.
Build cultural competence. Not just in terms of DEI policies, but real-world, community-led understanding.
Understand neurodiversity, not just as a challenge to accommodate, but as a strength to amplify.
And if you’re serious about stepping up, consider using our Future Leadership Capability Framework (FLCF). It’s a diagnostic tool we use with leadership teams to pinpoint capability gaps and map future readiness. Reach out if you want a link to the interactive version, we use it every day to support leaders just like you.
Onboarding and the First 100 Days
So you’ve landed the gig, big congrats!
Now what?
Forget the old-school 100-day listening tour. The bar is higher now.
Leaders who make a mark early:
Establish feedback loops (yes, include student voice!).
Use diagnostics to fast-track understanding of team dynamics.
Honour the existing culture and begin building adaptive capacity.
And please, be kind to yourself. Impact is expected quickly, but perfection isn’t. Show up ready to learn, and the credibility will come.
The Gendered Double-Bind (and What to Do About It)
Let’s talk straight: women in education leadership still walk a tightrope.
Too soft? You’re seen as lacking gravitas. Too assertive? You’re suddenly “intimidating”. We’ve all been there.
Here’s my advice:
Own your collaborative, emotionally intelligent, systems-thinking leadership style. That’s not a liability, it’s exactly what our schools need.
Don’t water yourself down to fit a broken mould. Break the mould.
You don’t need to mimic masculine leadership to be effective. You need to model courageous, human-centred leadership. And that’s often a space women occupy brilliantly.
For the Educators Shaping Tomorrow’s Women
This article isn’t just for the aspiring leaders in the room. It’s for the education leaders already at the helm, those shaping the pathways for the next generation of brave women.
Here’s your challenge:
Say yes to mentoring. One conversation can shift a career.
Create leadership opportunities before titles, invite your emerging leaders into decision-making spaces.
Celebrate spiral careers. Value what people learn outside the box.
Make space for reflection. Ask your team what they’re learning, not just what they’re delivering.
And most importantly: tell the truth about your own journey. The messy bits. The pivots. The doubts. That’s what gives other women permission to dream, and permission to dare.
Final Thought: Bravery Begets Bravery
We tell our girls they can be anything. But unless we model bravery ourselves, unless we show what it means to put our hands up before we feel ready, to ask the hard questions, to speak when it’s easier to stay quiet—we’re sending mixed signals.
So let’s be 10% braver. Not just in how we lead, but in how we lift.
Let’s raise our voices, open doors, and pave the way for a future where no young woman doubts she belongs at the table, or at the front of the room.
Because if we don’t back them, who will?
About the Author:
Liz Jones is Managing Partner at Future Leadership. With over two decades of experience placing senior leaders across the education sector, she’s a straight-talking champion for capability over credentials, people over performance, and brave women backing themselves. She leads Future Leadership’s national education practice and is a firm believer that a 10% braver mindset can change everything.
Council Capabilities Under Constraint: Insights from Alexandra Deng’s LGPro Webinar
Council Capabilities Under Constraint: Insights from Alexandra Deng‘s LGPro Webinar
In a recent LGProwebinar, Alexandra Deng, Associate Partner of Talent Acquisition at Future Leadership, delivered compelling and practical insights on ways Local Government can develop leadership capabilities whilst operating in an increasingly constrained and high-demand environment.Her presentation, titled “Capabilities Under Constraint,” addressed one of the most pressing questions facing local government today: What are the top Council capabilitiesneeded for the future?
Capabilities to future-ready the Council workforce
Drawing on extensive experience in organisational development and talent acquisition at Future Leadership, our Organisational Psychologists have developed the Future Leadership Capability Framework (FLCF) to help organisations tackle emerging talent challenges. This structured framework supports conversations around talent acquisition, succession planning, and learning and development.
Council leaders consistently highlight several capabilities as pivotal for future-readying their teams. Focusing on these capabilities through targeted development ensures Council not only survives in a complex environment but thrives under pressure.
Systems thinking: a “whole of Council” approach
The most frequently cited capability for development is systems thinking, also known as enterprise leadership. This encourages leaders to adopt a “whole of Council” perspective on strategy, decision-making, and implementation. Many Councils operate in functional silos, missing opportunities for collaboration and efficiency. Systems thinking helps leaders understand how services, departments, and external stakeholders interconnect, which is essential for tackling complex community issues.
Leaders can foster systems thinking by designing cross-departmental projects, mapping cause-and-effect across teams, offering secondments, and creating shared goals beyond individual KPIs. Psychologically safe workplaces, where challenge and collaboration are welcomed, provide the ideal environment for this capability to grow.
Ethics & integrity: strong governance
Operating in the public sector with public funds requires leaders who demonstrate integrity and ethical decision-making. Councils increasingly expect officers and Councillors to champion governance and accountability.
Developing ethical leadership can include senior leaders modelling ethical choices, creating mechanisms for staff to call out questionable behaviour, and empowering all levels of staff to take ownership of governance as part of their day-to-day responsibilities.
Organisational capability: aligned talent & match-fit systems
Delivering on community needs depends on having both the right people and systems in place. Strategic workforce planning, acting or interim roles to bring fresh perspectives, and early engagement with People & Culture teams help ensure the Council has the right capabilities.
Trusted partnerships with aligned recruitment providers also strengthen the organisation, ensuring talent is sourced that can sustain long-term success and deliver on the Council’s vision.
Commercial acumen: maximising resources and finding synergies
Financial maturity is essential to balancing short-term needs with long-term sustainability. While many public sector leaders excel in service delivery, commercial realities can pose challenges.
In practice, commercial acumen involves monitoring industry trends, using insights to make informed, risk-aware decisions, understanding political and funding environments, negotiating and innovating revenue streams, and communicating decisions effectively to ratepayers.
Session results
When we asked session participants which capabilities they considered most important for Council, their teams, and their own development, the majority chose Systems Thinking, followed by Commercial Acumen. Together, these capabilities enable faster, more efficient decision-making and innovation in a resource-constrained environment.
Systems thinking does not always come naturally and benefits from training that clearly shows what enterprise leadership looks like at every level and in every role. Practical ways to encourage this “whole of Council” approach include:
Link systems thinking to real results & lived experience: Show how collaboration drives measurable outcomes such as Council revenue, community satisfaction, and project delivery. Highlight where siloed behaviour has caused delays or missed opportunities.
Reward enterprise behaviour: Recognise and reward team members who engage across the Council. Tie performance measures, acting-up roles, and learning opportunities to enterprise thinking.
Remove barriers to collaboration: Siloed teams often resist working across functions due to inefficiency or lack of clarity. Clear processes, shared goals, and discussion forums make collaboration straightforward and motivating.
If you’d like to know more about how to future proof your council leadership with the right capabilities, reach out to me: [email protected]
Alexandra Deng is an Associate Partner specialising in agile talent within Future Leadership’s Interim Executive practice. with a focus on senior appointments in the Public Sector, she works across all levels of Government, with a functional speciality in People & Culture. Alexandra is diversely experienced in Human Resources and Law, having held senior positions in People & Culture across industries including technology, R&D, horticulture and construction.
Here’s an uncomfortable truth: while you’re still debating whether to post that senior role internally or externally, your competitor just hired an interim leader who’s already three weeks into solving the problem you’re still defining. Welcome to the new reality of business velocity, where the luxury of six-month hiring processes belongs in the same museum as fax machines and annual performance reviews.
Disruption isn’t coming, it’s here, it’s accelerating, and it’s ruthlessly exposing every inefficiency in how organisations approach talent. The companies thriving aren’t just adapting to disruption; they’re weaponising it by fundamentally rethinking how they access leadership capability. They’ve discovered what progressive organisations have known for years: interim leadership isn’t a stop-gap solution, it’s a strategic accelerator.
The Adaptability Advantage
The numbers tell a stark story. Gallup’s latest research reveals that global employee engagement has fallen to just 21%, with manager engagement dropping even more dramatically from 30% to 27%. Meanwhile, 57% of employers report moderate or significant negative effects on productivity from skills gaps, and nearly one in five employees are perceived as not proficient in their roles. This isn’t just a recruitment crisis, it’s a capability emergency that traditional hiring approaches simply cannot address fast enough.
Traditional permanent hires come with baggage. Not the personal kind, the organisational kind. They arrive with expectations shaped by their last company’s culture, processes, and pace. They need time to understand your unique ecosystem, build relationships, and figure out where the political landmines are buried. By the time they’re truly effective, your window of opportunity may have slammed shut.
Interim leaders operate differently. They’re professional adapters, wired to hit the ground sprinting rather than walking. They’ve seen this movie before, multiple times, across multiple industries, and they know how to read organisational DNA quickly. While permanent hires are still asking “How do things work here?”, interim leaders are asking “What needs to change, and how fast can we do it?”
This adaptability isn’t just about speed, it’s about perspective. Interim leaders bring pattern recognition from diverse contexts. They’ve navigated digital transformations in manufacturing, led restructuring in financial services, and driven innovation in healthcare. They’re walking libraries of what works, what doesn’t, and what kills momentum. That cross-pollination of ideas and approaches is invaluable when disruption demands fresh thinking.
Consider the interim COO who transformed a traditional retailer’s supply chain by applying lessons learned from managing disaster relief logistics. Or the interim CTO who accelerated a bank’s digital transformation using frameworks developed in the gaming industry. These aren’t anomalies, they’re examples of how interim talent brings adaptive intelligence that permanent hiring often can’t access.
Staying Agile in an Inflexible World
Agility isn’t just about moving fast, it’s about moving smart, and that requires organisational flexibility that most traditional structures can’t support. Permanent headcount comes with permanent overhead, permanent politics, and permanent resistance to change. Interim leadership flips this dynamic, creating pockets of high-performance capability that can be deployed precisely where and when they’re needed most.
Think of interim leadership as organisational special forces. Elite units deployed for specific missions with clear objectives and timelines. They’re not constrained by the usual organisational inertia because they’re not invested in preserving the status quo. Their success is measured by results, not politics, and their timeline is measured by impact, not tenure.
This creates a different dynamic entirely. Teams respond differently to interim leaders because everyone understands the mission is time-bound and results-focused. There’s less posturing, fewer turf wars, and more urgency around execution. It’s remarkable how clarity of purpose and timeline can cut through organisational complexity.
Smart organisations are building this agility into their operating model. They maintain core permanent leadership whilst strategically deploying interim capability for transformation initiatives, crisis response, market expansion, or innovation projects. It’s a hybrid approach that combines stability with surge capacity.
Derisking the Talent Equation
Traditional hiring is expensive gambling. You’re betting six-figure salaries, equity packages, and significant onboarding investment on limited data points: interviews, references, and gut instinct. The cost of a bad senior hire isn’t just their salary, it’s the opportunity cost of lost momentum, demoralised teams, and delayed results. McKinsey research suggests that failed senior executive hires can cost organisations up to $2.7 million when you factor in all the downstream impacts.
In early 2025, CEO departures reached record highs, while interim appointments surged. Research cited in Forbes indicates that nearly 25% of new CEOs appointed in the first two months of 2025 were on an interim basis, a significant increase from 8% during the same period in 2024.
The situation is compounded by a leadership development crisis. Research by Gallup shows that less than half of the world’s managers (44%) say they have received management training, yet 70% of team engagement is attributable to the manager. When 44% of employers cite evolving business needs and 42% point to constantly evolving skills requirements as primary causes of skills gaps, the traditional approach of hoping permanent hires will adapt becomes increasingly untenable.
Interim leadership fundamentally changes this risk profile. Instead of betting on potential, you’re buying proven performance. Most interim leaders come with portfolios of completed assignments, measurable outcomes, and references from multiple contexts. You’re not guessing how they’ll perform under pressure, you’re seeing evidence of how they’ve already performed under similar pressures.
The financial model is equally compelling. Whilst daily rates for top interim talent might seem high, the total cost of engagement is often lower than permanent hiring when you factor in recruitment fees, onboarding costs, and the risk of having to repeat the process if the hire doesn’t work out. More importantly, interim leaders are incentivised to deliver quickly because their reputation depends on measurable results within defined timeframes.
This de-risking becomes even more critical in uncertain markets. When economic headwinds make permanent headcount risky, interim leadership provides access to senior capability without long-term commitments. Organisations can scale expertise up or down based on market conditions whilst maintaining strategic momentum.
The Perfect Fit: When Interim Makes Most Sense
Not every role or situation calls for interim leadership, but the sweet spots are expanding as business velocity increases. The data reveals why: with only 37% of organisations planning to increase their training investment and skills gaps affecting nearly one in five employees, traditional development approaches aren’t keeping pace with market demands.
Digital transformation initiatives are perfect interim territory. These projects require deep technical expertise, change management capability, and the political independence to challenge established ways of working. An interim CTO or interim head of digital can drive transformation more aggressively than someone who has to live with the long-term political consequences of disrupting comfortable patterns.
Market expansion represents another prime opportunity. Launching into new geographic markets or customer segments requires different skills and approaches than maintaining existing operations. An interim leader can build the beachhead, establish the foundation, and hand over to permanent leadership once the market opportunity is validated and scaled.
Complex projects with defined endpoints, mergers and acquisitions, major system implementations, regulatory compliance initiatives, benefit enormously from interim leadership. These situations demand deep expertise, intense focus, and the ability to work across organisational boundaries without being constrained by traditional hierarchies.
The organisations winning in disrupted markets aren’t just using interim leadership reactively, they’re building it into their strategic capability. They maintain relationships with proven interim talent, understand where interim solutions can accelerate outcomes, and aren’t constrained by traditional thinking about permanent versus temporary roles.
Final Thought
This isn’t about replacing permanent talent. It’s about building a more agile, responsive leadership model. One that recognises the speed of change, and the need for capability that can match it.
If you’re navigating disruption and need support from proven executive talent, I’d welcome a conversation.
Josh Mullens is Partner – Interim Executive at Future Leadership. With more than 15 years’ experience delivering senior interim appointments across Australia and the UK, Josh works with clients across commerce, industry, government, and professional services to navigate disruption and deliver critical outcomes.
Leadership Diversity and Health Outcomes: A Systems Approach to Equity
Leadership Diversity and Health Outcomes: A Systems Approach to Equity
As a health sector specialist working within one of Australia’s most dynamic healthcare environments, I have seen what happens when we hire for fit alone without serious consideration of hiring for flex. There is a balance to be struck, and the true magic of executive search comes alive when we unlock the transformative power of diverse leadership to drive better health outcomes for all.
Let’s start by taking a look at the clear evidence, moving beyond correlation to causation. The correlation between leadership diversity and patient outcomes is not just compelling, it’s critical. Health leaders hold accountability for building diverse and inclusive teams, in order to build resilient, equitable healthcare systems that truly serve their communities.
My exploration of recent research demonstrates that engaging diversity meaningfully through inclusive leadership, embracing talent across hierarchies, and engaging different perspectives enables healthcare workers of all kinds to feel they can speak up and participate, which in turn, can save lives. DEI in health is beyond an ethical imperative; it’s a clinical necessity.
In multiple studies of quality in cardiovascular care, top performing hospitals have been shown to have the capacity to embrace staff across hierarchies and engage differences so that healthcare workers of all kinds feel they can participate meaningfully in improvement efforts.
In the two-year, longitudinal Leadership Saves Lives study of 10 hospitals, DEI initiatives impacted the ability to adopt a culture of improvement rather than blame, which was linked to significant reductions in risk-standardised mortality rates. This research underscores that inclusion in leadership isn’t just about fairness, it’s about clinical excellence and patient safety.
A study by the National Academy of Medicine found that racially and ethnically concordant care results in greater patient satisfaction and better health outcomes. When patients see themselves reflected in their care teams and leadership structures, trust increases, communication improves, and clinical outcomes follow suit.
NSW Health: A Systems Approach
NSW Health is the largest public health system in Australia with over 146,000 staff across the state who come from a diverse range of backgrounds. The organisation exemplifies a future-facing systems approach to diversity and inclusion, and indeed the communities in which Local Health Districts serves, are some of the largest and most diverse in Australia.
The systems approach recognises that diversity must be embedded at every level, from boardrooms to bedside care. The NSW Aboriginal Health Plan, for example, is grounded in deep Aboriginal knowledge about caring for Country and community. Systemic reform is being led by Aboriginal voices, with the government working closely in partnership with Aboriginal-controlled organisations and local communities. The reform demonstrates how diverse leadership perspectives can address complex challenges like health equity, social attitudes, and environmental sustainability, simultaneously.
More broadly, NSW Health aims to reflect the community that it serves, which means that it can treat all patients and clients with respect, understanding and compassion. This integration is evident in NSW Health’s comprehensive workforce planning, which takes account of existing health disparities and encourages diverse leaders to bring different perspectives to policy development. Leadership diversity drives organisational culture change in measurable ways. The guiding coalitions in six of the 10 hospitals that were most successful in the Leadership Saves Lives study were distinguished in three ways:
including staff from different disciplines and levels in the organisational hierarchy
encouraging authentic participation by the members
and, using constructive patterns of managing conflict.
Community Engagement Through Representative Leadership
Globally, healthcare organisations are recognising the imperative of representation today. Modern Healthcare’s 2024 Diversity Leaders List honours individuals and organisations who are working to address the deep divides that exist in patient outcomes and access. These leaders understand that when diverse ideas are introduced, creativity flourishes. Leaders from various backgrounds often challenge conventional thinking, sparking problem recognition and innovative solutions.
Research has shown that racial and ethnic minorities often report lower satisfaction with their care experiences compared to white patients. This disconnect between hospitals and the patients they serve can present a cultural gulf that must be overcome if the healthcare industry is to transition to value-based, patient-centred care.
NSW Health’s approach to community engagement demonstrates this principle in action. The organisation’s programs, such as the Employ-my-ability program has achieved an 89% job placement rate for trainees with significant intellectual disability, illustrating how inclusive leadership creates opportunities while building organisational capacity for serving diverse populations.
This cultural shift requires deliberate action. At Future Leadership we see diversity not as a token reflection of social background, but as an assessable analysis of the cognitive diversity leaders bring to their team. Research shows that when evidence-based diversity is coupled with an inclusive team culture, organisations improve both patient care quality and financial results. Evidence-based diversity initiatives translate into meaningful outcomes rather than superficial changes.
How to Attract Diverse Leadership: The Art of Accessible Executive Search
Building diverse leadership teams requires intentional strategies that go beyond traditional recruitment approaches. Healthcare organisations must reimagine how they identify, attract, and select leaders, moving from conventional methods that often perpetuate existing patterns to inclusive practices that open doors to exceptional talent from all backgrounds.
The foundation of successful diverse talent attraction begins with how organisations present themselves in the market. Healthcare organisations must actively promote their commitment to diversity and inclusion across all communications, ensuring that potential candidates from underrepresented groups see themselves reflected in the organisation’s values and leadership.
This includes using inclusive language thoughtfully across multiple touchpoints to ensure diversity and accessibility at every stage of search and advisory processes. Simple but powerful signals, such as including pronouns in standard communications, highlighting diversity achievements, and ensuring diverse representation in marketing materials, communicate an authentic commitment to inclusion.
At Future Leadership, we believe successful organisations embed diversity and inclusion language and policy as fundamental parts of their culture and governance, making it clear that this isn’t merely a recruitment strategy but a core organisational value that permeates all operations.
Traditional executive search processes often inadvertently favour candidates who fit established profiles, somewhat limiting the organisation’s access to diverse talent. At Future Leadership we take systems-based approach to clearly outline expectations and commitment to inclusive practice and diversity objectives upfront. We do this via our Model of Leadership.
To a systems-based view of talent
The most effective approach involves embedding a capability-led methodology that focus on a candidate’s potential to succeed in a role based on core capabilities, behaviours, and future contributions, rather than relying solely on traditional CV-based approaches that favour linear career paths and specific, opportunity-defined skills.
This requires a strong partnership between search consultants and clients to identify critical future capabilities, such as strategy and drive, adaptability, systems thinking, or emotional awareness, opening doors to candidates from diverse backgrounds who may not have typical industry experience but possess the attributes needed for success in healthcare leadership.
The language used in job descriptions and role advertisements significantly impacts who applies. We support healthcare organisations to avoid gendered, ableist, culture-biased or age-biased language that may discourage qualified candidates from diverse backgrounds.
This means using inclusive terminology that appeals to broad audience of differing leadership styles. For example, describing roles as requiring ‘collaborative leadership’ instead of demanding a ‘strong leader’ can attract different types of capable leaders who may approach challenges with emotional intelligence and inclusive decision-making rather than traditional command-and-control styles.
Qualifications should be described in ways that allow diverse capabilities and experiences to be seen as assets. Rather than requiring specific industry experience, successful job descriptions also provide an opportunity where transferrable skills and the ability to bring fresh perspectives to complex healthcare challenges can be considered.
The initial contact with potential candidates is also critical in executive search and sets the tone for the entire recruitment process. Healthcare organisations should use welcoming and inclusive language when introducing roles and show openness to diverse backgrounds and pathways to leadership.
This involves emphasising transferrable skills, underlying capabilities, and values alignment alongside relevant lived experience. Rather than focusing solely on traditional career progression, successful outreach highlights how diverse experiences, whether in community organisations, other industries, or non-traditional career paths, can bring valuable perspectives to healthcare leadership.
The Future of Health Leadership
The evidence clearly shows that diverse leadership is not only a moral imperative but also provides significant clinical benefits.
Healthcare organisations with diverse leadership better understand and address community needs, while adequately engaging a wide range of diverse
The systems approach demonstrated by organisations like NSW Health provides a roadmap for integrating diversity into every aspect of healthcare delivery. By embedding diverse leadership throughout organisational structures, measuring outcomes systematically, and maintaining accountability to community needs, healthcare systems can achieve the dual goals of equity and excellence. Diverse leadership teams are innovation engines. When diverse teams might create a telemedicine platform for underserved rural areas, addressing needs overlooked by more uniform groups. This innovation capacity is crucial as healthcare faces unprecedented challenges from demographic change, technological advancement, and climate impacts.
The transformation to truly equitable, accessible and sustainable healthcare requires leadership that reflects the communities we serve. Future Leadership role models DEI, recognised by Diversity Council Australia as an Inclusive Employer, certified as a Great Place to Work, and achieving B Corp status, we put into action the belief that diversity and inclusion drive business success.
Are you ready to have a conversation about elevating DEI in your talent processes?
Michael De Santis is a Partner at Future Leadership and a recognised expert in health system leadership and workforce transformation. This article draws on current trends, national inquiry findings, and Future Leadership’s on-the-ground experience to support health sector leaders in shaping sustainable, future-ready organisations.
In Conversation with Dr Theresa Ruig & Jo Fisher: Leadership & Accessibility
In Conversation: Dr Theresa Ruig and Jo Fisher
“My lived experience is not a limitation, it’s a leadership lens.”
– Dr Theresa Ruig
It was really wonderful to welcome Dr Theresa Ruig, recipient of the Jo Fisher Future Board Scholarship, to the Melbourne office of Future Leadership last week. Theresa sat down with co-founder and director Jo Fisher to share her views on inclusive board leadership, accessibility, and the strategic value of lived experience in governance. The conversation was candid and wide-ranging, and one that hit home about why representation matters at the highest levels of leadership.
Now in its third year, the Jo Fisher Future Board Scholarship supports aspiring board directors from diverse backgrounds to complete the Australian Institute of Company Directors(AICD) course and receive tailored mentoring to prepare for impactful board roles.
In the discussion below, Dr Ruig reflects on what motivated her to apply, how her lived experience has shaped her leadership lens, and why accessibility must be seen not as compliance but as a competitive advantage.
Scroll down to watch the full video and read highlights from the conversation.
Dr Theresa Ruig met with the Future Leadership team after her insightful conversation with Jo Fisher on inclusive board leadership.
Theresa’s motivation to apply
For Dr Ruig, the decision to apply for the scholarship emerged from a period of pause and reflection.
“Last year, I was at a career inflection point,” she shared. After a long career across higher education, governance, and the not-for-profit sector, she was exploring how to reorient her impact. “When my younger brother passed away, I took a break from work to ask, ‘What do I want to do next?’”
That time of reflection led her to complete a Social Impact Fellowship and explore roles in diversity and inclusion, but something deeper was calling.
She says her passion for accessibility and inclusion made her consider how she could advocate more effectively at the board level.
With eight years since her last board role, she saw the scholarship as a timely opportunity to re-engage. “I believe in serendipity,” she said. “The scholarship appeared at the right time. Applying affirmed my confidence to move back into this space.”
Lived experience as leadership
Dr Ruig’s background spans academic research, education, people and culture, and board governance, but at the centre is a commitment to creating environments where others can thrive.
“My time in the disability sector taught me to value lived experience as an asset,” she said. “I’ve been a client, a volunteer, a staff member, and a board member. Bringing those perspectives together, that’s a strength.”
She believes accessibility should not be an afterthought or compliance measure, but a strategic priority. In the disability sector, accessibility is a competitive advantage. It enables organisations to thrive in services, workforce, and offerings.
It’s a mindset she hopes to influence boards to embrace more openly. She says that boards are thinking more about cybersecurity, they need to think about accessibility the same way: as a strategic issue that spans products, services, stakeholder engagement, and workforce.
What accessibility really means
For Dr Ruig, accessibility in leadership is not just about physical ramps and lifts. It’s a holistic lens that organisations must apply across their products, services, workforce, and stakeholder experiences.
“One in five Australians has a disability. That’s untapped potential. Participation rates for people with disabilities are 53%, compared to 84% for those without. Organisations facing workforce shortages should explore this.”
She urges leaders to treat accessibility as a core strategic concern, not an afterthought. It should be a strategic priority, not a compliance box.
Technology as enabler and barrier
For Dr Ruig, technology has been both a gateway and a gatekeeper. “Technology has enabled me to do things and have a career that perhaps 30 years ago I may not have been able to do,” she said, referring to the role of screen readers and other adaptive technologies that allow her to engage fully in professional environments.
But she was quick to point out that technology can also become a significant barrier, particularly when internal digital systems used by staff are not built with accessibility in mind.
“You might hire a person with a disability, but if your systems aren’t accessible, you’re not setting them up for success. They may not be able to do their job well. They may not be able to achieve their potential.”
This, she says, is a missed opportunity for organisations. Accessibility shouldn’t stop at customer-facing channels. It must be embedded into procurement decisions, system design, and internal communications.
“Have you thought about accessibility in the design thinking phase? Have you gathered input and voices from people with diverse access needs before rolling out new tech?” She challenges organisations to treat digital accessibility as a strategic priority: Are your systems accessible? Are your communications inclusive? These are strategic questions, not afterthoughts.
Applying her new qualification
While Dr Ruig appreciates formal education, what excites her most about the AICD course is not just the qualification itself, but what it represents: a deep dive into the real, complex issues boards are grappling with today.
“I love a qualification. But it’s also about understanding contemporary board issues and learning from others.”
For her, the learning isn’t isolated to theory, it’s about insight-sharing, expanding perspectives, and exploring how leaders in other sectors are responding to shared challenges.
“I’m very much about that sort of social learning that occurs when you’re working and learning with other people and how you can take that to change your own perspective.” Her aim is to combine that learning with her own evidence-informed approach, measuring what matters, asking different questions, and contributing a lived experience lens to the governance conversation.
Broadening impact across sectors
While Dr Ruig has deep roots in the disability sector, she is ready to broaden her impact. With experience in education, people and culture, and human services, she is focused on sectors where her values, expertise, and lived experience can converge.
“I have a love for education, health, human services, but beyond that as well. It’s about how I take my skills, lived experience, a passion for accessibility and inclusion into any sector that aligns with my values.”
Her sights are set on boards willing to lead with courage. “Boards that are willing to be innovative in this space, that’s where I see the potential to position accessibility and inclusion as a strategic advantage.”
Parting reflections
As the conversation drew to a close, Dr Ruig offered a thoughtful encouragement to future board members and aspiring leaders navigating uncertainty or self-doubt:
“You’ll never ever be ready for something. So don’t wait till you’re ready to try. Just step off the cliff and give it a go.”
She underscored the transformative power of representation:
“We can’t underestimate the value of representation. Until we see more diverse people on boards and in organisations, we won’t advance the change we want to see. You’ve got to see it to be it.”
These closing words reflect not only her conviction but her call to action, a reminder that inclusive leadership is both a personal journey and a collective responsibility.
Theresa’s story is a powerful reminder that when we design for inclusion, we don’t just open doors, we reimagine what leadership can look like.
About Jo Fisher Future Board Scholarship:
The ‘Jo Fisher Future Board Scholarship’ is awarded annually by Future Leadership to support emerging leaders from underrepresented backgrounds to prepare for board service.
Dr Theresa Ruig is an academic, accessibility advocate, and leadership strategist with a PhD in social impact. Legally blind since the age of 10, she brings lived experience and research expertise to the boardroom, championing inclusive governance and systemic change across sectors including education, health, and not-for-profit.
Jo Fisher is the Founding Director of Future Leadership and a recognised leader in executive search and board advisory. She established the Jo Fisher Future Board Scholarship to elevate underrepresented voices in governance and continues to mentor and advocate for inclusive, forward-thinking board leadership.
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