The Challenge
Leaders influence everyone around them; from their attitude and their work ethic to their behaviour, what they do sets the tone for the entire workplace.
Can the behaviour of a leader be changed?
Can effective leadership behaviour be taught?
Psychology and innovative leadership frameworks are at the core of changing the behaviour of an organisation's leaders and its leadership culture. Leading the way in organisational theory, academic Richard Boyatzis’ Intentional Change Theory is centred on what leads to long lasting behavioural change in an individual. To make long-term 'change', an adjustment in someone's behaviour is not enough. For leaders in particular, their habits, capabilities, dreams or aspirations also need revisiting to change their leadership behaviour and, in turn, the leadership culture of the organisation.
The Client
Queensland Government - Queensland Treasury
Underpinning Queensland’s financial position and economic state, Queensland Treasury provides economic and financial advice to the Queensland Government and the community. To do this, their leaders need to deal with complex challenges, work collaboratively and develop a high performance culture in others.
Queensland Treasury came to QUTeX wanting their future leaders to explore and experiment with forging and deepening multi-level collaboration for performance and to enhance their thinking to deal with complex challenges.
Through a collaborative process, the program seeks to change the behaviour of Treasury’s leaders on a deeper level and influence the leadership behaviour of the organisation.
“[In the program] they look at themselves, they look at their teams, and they look at their organisation and ask, not ‘what’s wrong with me as a leader?’ but ‘what’s possible?’”
- Dr. Geoff Abbott, Director, Executive and Organisational Coaching QUT
The Impact
QUTeX’s approach was to design a program underpinned by Boyatzis’ Intentional Change Theory and grounded in positive psychology. The Great Leaders Program commenced in 2015 with the objective to encourage sustained individual behaviour development with integrated components including workshops, action learning groups, and individual and group coaching.
As a result, the program has made a significant impact not only on the participants, but is starting to have a positive impact on the organisation as a whole. The Great Leaders Program designed specifically to meet the needs of Queensland Treasury brought mindfulness into the participants’ leadership, developed a high performance mindset and a passion for coaching and mentoring others.
The Great Leaders Program [was] an opportunity to build my networks further and put the finer points on my leadership skills and to explore different viewpoints.
- Great Leaders Program graduate
How can QUTeX help you?
What’s the leadership culture of your organisation like? Does it foster coaching and mentoring? Changing the leadership culture of your organisation requires expertise in business, leadership and psychology. QUTeX leverages the whole of the university’s resources to develop educational programs for organisations just like yours. Using learning that is interactive our programs maximise the learning potential of your team so they can apply what they learn as they go.