IPWEA Vic Blog

Speaker notes complied by IPWEAvic Board Member Matthew Hill:

Kerry Thompson – CEO Wyndham City Council spoke at the IPWEA Breakfast on February 10 2011

Initial introduction to leadership was through the ‘old school’ approach of dictatorship – watching it done using fear, control and command…  As my career progressed I was exposed to many and varied styles and as such developed a balanced approach – manage things, lead people.

A key question we need to understand what is the difference; what is the priority; what is the outcome required.

In our everyday roles we manage things (assets, money, processes, systems, KPIs, achieving goals) and lead people.  Both management and leadership are needed for organisation success.

EG:                               Management                          Leadership

                                      Control                                    Commitment

                                      Reactive                                  Proactive

                                      Goals                                      Vision

                                      Standardization                       Innovation

Qualities of a Leader:

Leaders are aware of the paradox: e.g. being proactive and reactive simultaneously, working on goals while pursuing vision, needing standardization while also needing innovation – need to find the balance.

EG:  consistency, discipline, processes and systems, policies etc but for contemporary organisations and especially ones experiencing growth, we need to change, challenge the status quo, experiment and question

Leaders need to be comfortable with uncertainty, dealing with complexity and the most important leadership quality they determined was creativity.

Creativity involves calculating the risks, exploring and trying new ideas, innovating in how they lead and communicate – requires being open minded

One of the other key leadership qualities was building operational dexterity (speed and flexibility).  The ‘how’ was to weave collaboration in to the way employees work – to gain collective intelligence.  The research outlined ways to do this even in global companies with staff in different countries – find ways to work across silos, new methods to encourage conversations, explore and encourage and raise the visibility of ideas and insights.

Other key qualities:

• Integrity, and be a role model at all times.   It is what you do and don’t challenge that will mark you as a leader.  Avoidance is not an option for a leader.
• And never give up the right to be “wrong”  – it is okay to say “I don’t know”
• Active listening, open questions (hold judgment). Allow conversations (with an open mind about outcomes) e.g. don’t go with expectations about outcome…..
• Culture starts with self….be aware of leadership impact…build on what is working well, don’t take it for granted, and have the courage to question, challenge for the future.

What is the relevance in Local Government (Wyndham CC)?

City of Wyndham – significant growth: has been for years and will be for another 20 yrs plus….  10,000 plus extra people per year, 50 plus babies born a week. 

Complexity of growth compounds the pressures within an environment  of  more compliance, regulations, reporting to state govt, scrutiny by media,  higher community expectation – do more with less, communicate and engage, improve service levels, advocate on our behalf etc.

As a governing body we need  to have policies , processes etc  but absolutely vital to provide the space and culture to talk about what is “outside the box”, provide a platform for creativity in addition to  “what is inside the box”.

Wyndham will go from 150,000 to 400,000 people, technology has and will significantly change the way we work and communicate, new generations of employees will want to work differently, there is now, and will probably continue to be, skill shortages….can we afford not to step outside the day to day and seek staff’s ideas and ensure a culture of constant review for improving and innovating?

My role as a Leader

My role as a leader is to create more leaders – for now and the future

That means: to create and continue to build a culture that focuses on personal accountability, empowerment, delegation into the organization, collaboration across functions, across the organization.

A culture where there is comfort with change and encouragement to challenge the status quo, allow “mistakes (calculated!!) with learning.   Aim for success not perfection.

The challenge for an organization experiencing growth is the “busyness”: the day to day operations becomes the “culture” and limits the opportunity for innovation, strategic conversations and for “people”.

Leading people means making time for one on one conversations outside managing!

There are no shortcuts to building a positive corporate culture and here’s another paradox: you never get there… it is a continuous journey.

Vision for me at Wyndham…that I have a culture and a workforce growing future leaders so I become redundant!!