We caught up with one of this year's Emerging Leaders Program participants, Georgy Zachariah, Senior Capital Works Planner, City of Onkaparinga to find out how he is enjoying the program so far.

What made you sign up for the Emerging Leaders Program?

By participating in the Emerging Leadership Program, my primary goal was to augment my knowledge of local government and significantly deepen my understanding of political and sustainability contexts, which are among the modules being presented. In addition, I am aiming to broaden my professional network and gain mentorship from experienced leaders.

As a pioneer leadership program, the objective is not just to learn and implement impactful leadership best practices, but also to foster personal growth and development. This aspect of the program fuels my aspirations to undertake diverse roles within the City of Onkaparinga.

A recent module focused on Culture – what was your biggest takeaway from this session?

The session proved highly enlightening, particularly in exploring the relationship between culture and leadership and their combined impact on organisational success. In particular, I found the importance given to showcasing the difference between Paternalistic culture & Stewardship culture quite insightful, especially aligning an individual’s vision to the organisation's interest and contributing to its success.

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

I look forward to the different modules the teams will present. In addition, working on a group project that could contribute to enhancing the functioning of local government is quite appealing.