We caught up with one of this year’s Emerging Leaders Program cohort, Amanda Holden, Senior Systems Accountant at City of Mitcham to find out how she's finding the program so far.

What made you sign up for the Emerging Leaders Program?

I am always interested in self-improvement, I have social anxiety, so I wanted to join this program to help push myself into situations that push me out of my comfort zone. This helps me develop more confidence in myself. I also wanted to build my network in local government, I have only been in local government for around 4.5 years and have only worked for one council. I thought this would be a great opportunity to meet others from different councils. Also, I wanted to learn more about leadership skills to help with career progression.

The most recent module focused on Culture – what was your biggest take away from this session?

I really enjoyed the speakers from the modules, in particular it was great hearing from Tony Piccolo who gave insight into local governments interaction with state government and his experiences in local government. It made me think about how council can use local MPs to help bridge the gap between local and state government on important issues. 

I really enjoyed hearing from Paul Di Iulio the CEO of Campbelltown, in particular the focus on innovation and how the ARC came to fruition. It was great to see big picture thinking happening in council and how innovation can have a positive impact. It was great having a tour of the ARC to see what facilities they offered.

What are you most looking forward to as the program progresses?

Learning more about leadership skills and putting them into practice. I am looking forward to the module on Leading Change as this subject is very valid in the ever-changing world and in my short time in council I have been a part of some really big changes so far. I have found the modules delivered by UniSA very interesting and have allowed for a lot of self-reflection. In particular looking at the way I interact with people around me and how I my perceptions of interactions, could be perceived differently from those around me. I am excited about the group project, I think that my team have picked a really interesting and relevant subject and look forward to December to see all the group project.