We caught up with a couple of this year's Emerging Leaders Program participants, Carly Broadbent, Senior Development Officer - Planning, City of Onkaparinga and Leon Nguyen, Finance Manager, Port Augusta City Council to find out how they are enjoying the program so far.
You were part of the organising group for the recent Rural Perspective module. What did you want the cohort to get out of the module?
Our group's aim was to take the cohort on a journey from city to soil with a focus on Mount Barker, Murray Bridge and the Coorong. We were interested in understanding the difficulties that regional and rural councils face from a sustainability perspective, with limited resources, and often less staff and larger land areas than most metropolitan councils. Our main goal was to provide an engaging and interesting module, allowing opportunity to gain insight into governing from a rural perspective whilst listening to our very inspiring guest speakers with a picturesque backdrop.
How did you find organising the module with your group?
The rural perspective module was very challenging - as we were the first module group, we wanted to set the bar high, and we had a whole day to plan. Our group was very organised, passionate about the topic and we established early on what our
individual strengths were. We had regular weekly meetings and had a team’s chat which we all actively contributed towards. We had members of the group who were very creative and big picture thinkers and then other group members who would ground us and work out the finer details. I am very honoured that I got the opportunity to work with Craig, Tara, Victoria, Jamie, Lyndal and Lok and I am proud of the
module which we delivered.
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What was your biggest takeaway from the module?
All our guest speakers were so passionate about their regions and roles, which I found to be very inspiring. I especially enjoyed their honesty in answering questions from the cohort. My biggest take away is that those who are in leadership positions have often worked for many different councils or in varied roles and disciplines across an organisation, they have not been afraid to get out of their comfort zones, which in turn has contributed to their expanse of knowledge and ability to positively lead teams and organisations. From a rural perspective, collaboration across council and often an adjoining council is key in order to deliver for the community, which should always be our main focus as public servants.
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