Indigenous leadership workshop adventure

Leadership workshops and courses, particularly Indigenous Leadership, have been popular for sometime now. There’s the Australian Leadership Centre in Canberra, the Federal Department of Family, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs (FAHCSIA) Indigenous Leadership courses, various Indigenous Youth Leadership courses and the Wesfarmers Arts Indigenous fellowship program at the National Gallery of Australia to name just a few.

So it’s refreshing that Debbie Abraham, Director at the Lake Macquarie City Art Gallery, recently took a different tack in combining Indigenous leadership with working with your Aboriginal community. Like many great opportunities it was born out of adversity and credit to Regional & Public Galleries NSW (RPG NSW) for picking up on the initiative when it didn’t get the green light elsewhere.

I was part of this inaugural workshop at Lake Macquarie Gallery and can report it was successful at both an individual and group level. Mark Wright from People Create UK, fresh from running the Accelerate Indigenous Leadership Program for the British Council and Australia Council was a wonderful facilitator. He allowed the discussion to open up around issues of working with Aboriginal communities from both sides and brought us back to leadership tools and techniques that might help as needed.

Mark’s leadership tutorials and exercises really formed the spine and core interest for all in attendance, an even split of four and four between Indigenous and non-Indigenous. Mark opened by explaining working with Indigenous communities was not his background but he was aware of sensitivities and learning a lot as he went. The 'British' thing never came up again, though I mentioned in passing that the goal of two weeks in UK for successful Accelerate participants wasn’t my cup of tea.

Mark explained that much of leadership theory wasn’t new and cited Alexander the Great as a student of Aristotle as an example. Over the next two days we charted a path not unlike the classic Hero’s Journey. So it was no surprise really when the Hero’s Journey was offered as a leadership template. What surprised was how effectively it worked, whether the goal was long term of short project, personal, organisation or community.

The Hero’s Journey has been made popular by US scholar Joseph Campbell is a classic narrative found in stories around the world: the hero lives in a normal world (for them), receives a call to adventure but has “threshold guardians” before he venturing forth, receives instruction from a mentor, refers often to a talisman symbol, faces various trials and tribulations including nemesis and temptations from Sirens before obtaining an elixir which will be well received by their community, creating a new normal world.

See how easy it is? Now put down that Siren (cup of coffee, email distractions) and find that elixir!

Steve Miller, M&G NSW's Aboriginal Sector Programs Manager