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With more than 25 years of experience with Ernst and Young, Gerard Dalbosco, understands successful leadership. As Managing Partner - Markets, Asia Pacific, Gerard is focused on maintaining momentum and keeping clients at the forefront of his agenda. Gerard graduated from our Williamson Community Leadership Program in 2001. Since graduating from our program, Gerard has utilised the acquired skills and implemented the techniques into his professional life. Gerard spoke with Leadership Victoria and shared his advice on innovative leadership and driving change in the workplace. 

Williamson Community Leadership alumnus  Thane Joske had no idea that being a mentor in the Skills Bank Program would bring a fresh perspective to her professional life.

It is the third year that Leadership Victoria has partnered with Vic Sport in our Skills Bank mentoring program.

Since 2010, ten of our alumni have each acted as a mentor to emerging leaders within Vic Sport and many great friendships still remain.

LV’s Skills Bank program paired with a mentoring initiative with Vic Sport allowed Ms Joske to combine two of her passions – sport and leadership. “My major motivation to participate after Williamson was to give back and be an active member of the LV community,” Ms Joske said.

As a part of the Citizen Leadership Project, Leadership Victoria (LV) along with the Environment Protection Authority (EPA) presented a masterclass on organisational change and leadership to an array of alumni and participants. This event formed part of the Citizen Leadership Project, supported by the Hugh Williamson Trust.

In 2011, LV Program Manager for Ideas Josie Daw, was made aware of the recent organisational changes at the EPA through a conversation with LV alumni and EPA Director of Strategic Relations Matt Vincent.  

The collaborative approach to addressing change at the EPA was an ideal example of innovative leadership and was facilitated in a session which highlighted the importance of honesty in the workplace and employee engagement.

The JJ Clark Room was buzzing with Tweets on Tuesday morning as Samantha Bell, Managing Director of Runaway Digital, inducted many and impressed most with a detailed account of engaging with the Twittersphere.

Some participants set up their accounts for the first time and others learnt how to get the most out of this still relatively new form of direct communication between citizens. Click here to see some photos of the event on Facebook.

The sold-out Twitter workshop was part of LV’s Citizen Leadership program, which aims to inspire critical reflection and educate participants about new modes of communication that have been at the forefront of recent social movements that utilised new technologies.  

Pssst ... I'll let you into a secret – a new trend is underway and it's reshaping leadership everywhere. It was very much alive in the room where I was facilitating the Leadership Victoria Master Class (Leadership Online 4 May 2012) - a key part of LV's Citizen Leadership Project. I came away feeling very optimistic about changes that are challenging and influencing leaders everywhere. Now more than ever before I can see the opportunities to grow and develop community leadership. Here's why.    

Citizen Leadership is occurring in unprecedented force across the globe. In recent times we have seen the successes and subsequent fallout from the Arab Spring protests, the Occupy movements and the Kony campaign. 

With the advent of social media it only takes one brief tweet from a high-profile person to spark off a storm of controversy. Yet at the same time, if social media is utilised properly, it can be an excellent tool for today’s leaders to connect with people and drive change. 

About

Past Events

Upcoming Events

 

Citizen leadership is a powerful force creating change in our communities.

In a new program commencing in 2012 Leadership Victoria is hosting a number of events that identify best practice for leaders in the digitally inspired twenty-first century. In conjunction with a range of speakers drawn from our extensive network of practitioners, these events inspire leaders, drive change, create networks and impart the necessary skills for future leaders. 

About

New technologies have increased the speed of communications between citizens, who can often organise themselves and react faster than governments to create change. The Arab Spring and the global Occupy movement are two dramatic examples that have contested, and even toppled, governments. New software technologies have fundamentally altered the ways in which citizens can talk to each other, using text, audio, and video, through mediums such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. New mobile hardware is blurring the lines between computers, phones, digital radio, television, and more. Communication is no longer one-to-one, but one-to-many, giving each of these platforms the potential to harness the capacity of millions, or, for the message to be lost in the ether. What is the nature of leadership in this new world, where anybody can become the next citizen leader?

At Leadership Victoria we believe leadership skills must be developed to meet the challenges of a technologically changed world. As awe-inspiring and overwhelming as the explosion in social media over the past five years has been, there is an old art of communication at the centre of this technological revolution. Where there is communication between engaged citizens there is a role for leadership. While citizen leadership utilising social media may be more fluid and less hierarchical than traditional leadership structures, events such as the London Riots remind us that not all forays into the new world of mass communications have been pleasant. Good leadership requires critical reflection and inspires as much in those it reaches out to. The Citizen Leadership program will consider the challenges, as well as the opportunities, leaders face in the new era.

The Citizen Leadership Project is generously supported by the Hugh Williamson Foundation.

Past Events

Inspire leaders - Leading Online: Masterclass

May 2012

During this first Masterclass, citizen-leader Emily Hehir in conjunction with CEO of the Australian branch of Change.org Nick Allardice, shared their knowledge of how to advocate for change at the grass-roots level through online forums. Mr Allardice, a social change advocate and entrepreneur, created and led high impact national campaigns. Change.org is an online forum in which people start their own petitions, potentially attracting hundreds of thousands to their cause. This program dealt with a range of situations which theorised how leaders can harness this kind of momentum for social change in the real world. We discussed the implications of open internet platforms and whether or not they are always positive for social movements, or a danger of reactive populism online? Emily and Chris discussed the challenges of online activism, facilitated by our Leader-in-Residence Chris Kotur.

Read the event summary here.

Drive Change - Disrupting the Hierarchy: Masterclass

June 2012

In 2009 the Environmental Protection Authority began an ambitious review of its decision-making structures. The result was a new leadership approach designed to utilise the specialised knowledge of the EPA’s highly skilled workforce by gaining more feedback from staff and listening to their suggestions. The Disrupting the Hierarchy masterclass, presented by Chairman of the EPA Cheryl Batagol, and CEO John Merritt will encapsulate a number of important and forward-thinking business and leadership tips to achieve a harmonious and progressing company culture. Cheryl and John shared their experience in this type of leadership style, which takes its cues from the bottom up.

Read the full article.

Create Networks - Leadership and Twitter: digital communication for online times: Masterclass

June 2012

Citizen leader, Sam Bell a global social network aficionado, facilitated this masterclass and provided guests with the most up-to-date knowledge about Twitter and business. The ‘hands-on’ workshop allowed participants to enter the world of tweeting and showed how you can use it to develop and extend your leadership capability. The masterclass provided skills for everyone, at all levels of media-savviness. Sam explored the latest international online trends with Twitter which provided an innovative insight to maximize the effectiveness of our tweets. 

Read the event summary here.

Melbourne Knowledge Week Event

Leading Conversations: Changing Communications in the Leadership Landscape

November 2012

Leadership Victoria hosted a facilitated public conversation between The Honorable John Cain, former Premier of Victoria and Dr Margaret Simons, Director of the Centre of Advanced Journalism at the University of Melbourne. The discussion theorized the role of leadership in a time of changing communication styles. The event provided robust debate and an array of diverse opinions.

Mr Cain uses time-honoured methods of communication such as letter writing, face to face meetings and the telephone, while Dr Simons is renowned as an early adopter of social media and technology. Each leader discussed how they encounter or resist new media, and how their communication styles have evolved over time.

Guests enjoyed morning tea, networking and an opportunity to chat with our speakers following the event, which was held as part of the City of melbourne's "Melbourne Knowledge Week" program

Upcoming Events Create Networks - Citizen Dinners

Part of the impact of social media and new technologies on our society is the importance of diverse networks of skilled contributors to drive change. Leadership Victoria will invite alumni to host Citizen Dinners that will facilitate creating networks. Each dinner host will receive instructions designed to facilitate a groundswell of conversation about pressing social issues that require leadership.  The outcome of the information captured from each dinner will be presented at a Citizen Leadership workshop later in 2013.

 

Citizen Leadership Forum

In 2013, LV will hold a Forum for leaders across sectors to collectively envision Citizen Leadership.  The Forum date and program for 2013 will be announced soon.