Joe Murfet and Leading with Authenticity

Joe Murfet is a Jingili-Mudburra man who was born and raised on Larrakia Country in the Northern Territory and has been living and working on Wurundjeri Country since 2004. He is also a decade long public servant in the Victorian Government, and currently the Manager of First Peoples Partnerships and Engagement at the Department of Transport and Planning and was looking for a new experience when he decided to undertake the Williamson Community Leadership Program. For Joe, WCLP was not “not a program that you can just do it and come out the other end as a cookie cutter leader”, but a journey.

During his time in WCLP, what was clear to Joe was a “really strong sense of responsibility for putting First Peoples first, a sense of giving back to a community that has been so good to me, but also that real gratitude and remembering where you came from and who you are”. Joe explains that his drive to lead, and ultimately his leadership purpose, arise from his various layers of identity; he describes his leadership as a reflection of the different parts of community and family that he is involved in.

Prior to the program, Joe believed he knew what good leadership looked like, often modelling himself after leaders that he looked up to. He described this as a “habit of trying to emulate what I liked in that person and picking out those leadership traits”, believing that if it worked for them, it would also work for him.

However, during WCLP he quickly realised this was not the case, finding it “confirmed that my way, more often than not, is enough” without having to emulate or replicate anyone else. Reflecting on the program, Joe describes the importance of being immersed in the WCLP community “because you can see difference points of view, hear different stories, and not only the challenges but also you learn about what works well and you think differently about how to operate in your part of the world.”