This month we spoke with Dewald Hartzenberg, Manager City Maintenance, City of Charles Sturt, about his career journey so far and recent move, his experience in the LG Professionals SA Executive Leaders Program, and his advice for those participating in the 2025 LG Professionals SA South Australian Management Challenge.

What is your role and how long have you been in local government?

I am currently the Manager City Maintenance at the City of Charles Sturt. I’ve been in Local Government for 14 years, starting in the City of Tea Tree Gully communications team as their Events Officer.

You completed the Executive Leaders Program with LG Professionals SA in 2024, and you’ve recently gained a new role in management. What have you learned from XLP that you’ve been able to apply in your new role?

Firstly, the Executive Leaders Program (XLP) was just amazing! For me, it was the right thing at the right time, and I still have a strong sense of connection with the content, the facilitator, and my fellow participants. I cannot recommend the program highly enough!

I moved into a management role at the City of Tea Tree Gully almost 3 years ago during significant organisational change. A key takeaway from XLP that I’ve put into my daily habit is to seek to understand. In management, it’s easy to feel pressure to speak, to be seen and to have the pearls of wisdom, but building trust with your staff, peers and broader workforce relies on listening to one another. This learning has challenged me to look in the mirror to reflect on how I think and the actions I prioritise. Following the program, my focus has shifted from solving problems quickly to making progress on complex challenges over time. The by-product of this has been that I’ve slowed down a bit and been able to bring others along on a journey. I’m super keen to keep progressing through my action plan after the course, there is much more content to put into practice!

You have participated in the Local Government Management Challenge, and you’ve been a mentor! What’s the biggest piece of advice you’d pass along to new participants having been on both sides?

The challenge is fantastic, such a great buzz of energy around it and a wonderful opportunity for self-development. I would encourage anyone going into the challenge to be very clear on why they are doing it. While the challenge is a competition and has a winner, I would encourage participants (teams and mentors) to approach it from a self-development perspective versus striving to win. I think you will get a lot more out of the process and learn more about yourself if you enter with an open mind and are ready for some surprises to come your way!

What’s next for you in your professional development journey?

At the beginning of this year, I joined the team over at the City of Charles Sturt, so for now I am looking to settle in and learn more about CCS and the wonderful people who work here. Following on from this, I have some plans for further study in a couple of years' time, but for now the XLP has given me a smorgasbord of concepts to put into practice. I am busy re-designing my leadership approach which includes prioritisation for where my energy gets consumed and a fresh new set of goals and KPIs for the next 3 years.

Tell us something about you that we don’t know?

During my late teens and early twenties, I worked as a recording engineer based out of Sydney. This was a wonderful career, and I learnt a lot about people, which has been so valuable for me in my career in local government.