We love just about everything that Malcolm Gladwell has written but during this, the week of International Women’s Day his recollection of the story of Ms Abbie Conant, American musician being selected and then unselected as the lead trombonist in the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra strikes us as pertinent (Blink Penguin Books 2005).

Mum seldom comes to the footy (“I can’t read the stupid scoreboard!”) but when she does, her love of being a part of something is palpable. She feels connected and included.

I recently supported Christopher Brown and Faith Halliday of the Western Sydney Leadership Dialogue, in the delivery of their five-day ‘Collaborative Leadership Program (CLP) 2022’. This extraordinary program immersed 35 existing and emerging leaders from organisations with an interest in Greater Western Sydney (GWS), embracing a once-in-a-century, city-shaping experience in Sydney’s West. Having now been immersed in it myself, I know that one of the key attributes of GWS is the richness of the various cultures, combining and collaborating to produce a brighter future. There is obvious trust and respect between them all largely, I believe, because diversity is so naturally strong, but it is the inclusivity that is really significant. I recently heard Carolyne French (Head of Leadership Excellence at Thinka) on a Gallup CliftonStrengths© podcast describe diversity as ‘having a seat at the table’ but inclusivity as ‘having a voice at the table’. I like this very much and it sums up exactly what’s going on in GWS. Most importantly, it is the combination of this with a powerfully aligned vision and sense of purpose that is creating so much energy in the West.

In a recent bit of sport commentary, I heard a broadcaster say of a player “from up here in the box I always thought him to be a humble man, but his teammates tell me he’s actually very confident”. This made me reflect on how frequently I hear people mix up the complex relationship between humility and confidence.

I remember a line in an old war movie. A wise old Colonel is telling a young officer “on the battlefield you represent me and the way you represent me, reflects on me”.

My great-grandfather Edwin (Ted) Leane was one of The Fighting Leanes of Prospect – once called the “most famous family of soldiers in Australian history” by historian and war correspondent, Charles Bean.

Some years ago I was in charge of a small section of Navy people. There was me, a couple of other slightly more junior officers and a handful of non-commissioned sailors one of which was an indigenous Australian. As was often the case in those days he’d be ‘given’ a nick-name Sooty, probably on the day he joined the Navy. He didn’t seem to mind being called Sooty but I refrained from doing so as it seemed disrespectful in some way. That might sound like positive leadership behaviour but its not the case. You see I called the other sailors by their nicknames: Smouch, Jacko, Dusty etc but I addressed Sooty as ‘Leader’ which was the abbreviated, slightly formal version based on his rank, Leading Seaman. In trying to be respectful I was in fact excluding him in the way I addressed him.

As an active Navy reservist, I watched with interest late in 2020 as the Department of Defence took seven sets of intra-Defence organisational Values (Navy, Army, RAAF, Special Ops Command, Australian Public Service, Australian Defence Force Academy and Cadets), poured them into a big values magi-mix and produced a new set of Defence Values…a sort of ‘one size fits all’. There was very sound strategic reason for this, specifically the ongoing push for “better alignment in support of a stronger, more capable, Joint and integrated Force”.

One way a leader can murder team performance is to selfishly place themselves in the middle of everything, right in the hub. Picture an old sailing ship helm. Hub in the middle, spokes and a rim at the outer limit. This is hardly original thinking but in my mind if the leader is in the hub, team members sit on the handles that protrude from the outer rim and the spokes are lines of communication.

Being the captain of a warship can be a lonely existence. Eating, chilling out, watching tv and resting in isolation will impact different people in different ways. Regardless of where a captain sits on the intro-extravert spectrum however, s/he needs some sort of trusted sounding board to ‘download’ on.

During the 1990s I served at sea in the Navy under a ‘Leader in Service’ who I now commonly refer to as Captain-my-Hero. One day a ship with a significantly junior Captain was to rendezvous with us to start several days of training manoeuvres. On joining us, this ship got its final approach horribly wrong and put both ships in danger of collision. After a simultaneous reversing of engines, we were both stopped in the water, much like two charging thoroughbreds skidding to a stop in a cloud of dust. As we slowly backed out of trouble Captain-my-Hero quietly called for his Signals Yeoman and I managed to hear him dictate a message to be dispatched by flashing light:

When I was a teenager my sisters introduced me to Crosby, Stills & Nash. Nash, the smooth, Welsh ex-Hollies musician was a terrific songwriter and these words from ‘Wounded Bird’ (Songs for Beginners, 1971) always struck a chord:

Leaders whose overwhelming desire is to serve their people reside, I believe, where humility meets generosity. They create constructive cultures where brilliant ideas, creativity and innovation are bountiful, and mistakes tolerated. These ‘Leaders in Service’, exceptionally comfortable in their own skin, personify the words of the great Robert Greenleaf, who pioneered Servant Leadership in the 70s. He said that “Leadership must, first and foremost, meet the needs of others”.

Even prior to this week’s dramatic series of events in the US, I had been considering how leadership can be so dangerous when being attempted by a largely inept and flawed human. My Dangerous Leadership model is completely based on the behaviours of D.J. Trump but elements of the model could apply to many flawed leaders of the last 100 years or so. Where for instance might you place K. Rudd or T. Abbott? Steve Jobs was hardly perfect. Hitler's petulance was off the scale while George 'Doubya', regardless of his recent positive leadership commentary, is definitely in there somewhere. It’s a very long list and no one is perfect that’s for sure.

It is a great privilege to be asked to deliver an Anzac Day Address. The question “What does Anzac Day mean to you?” will be answered differently by almost every Australian.

" Know yourself and you will win all battles" - Sun Tzu