SWAHS leadership course - lead, follow or get out of the way

NSW Breast Cancer Institute (BCI) Network Operations Manager Barry Finch was among the 45 staff managers selected to participate in the new SWAHS leadership course, which was piloted in 2008.

Held mid last year, the course focused on leadership development, transactional and importantly transformational leadership and, culminated just before Christmas in each of the participants giving presentations to the course organisers, their coaches and members of the SWAHS Executive. After months of work, the challenge for all the presenters was to crystallise their presentations into 'five slides and five minutes'.

“We were supposed to give a presentation about the project we had worked on, our mission statement, our outcomes and our learnings, and it was made very clear to us all that it was to be presented on set PowerPoint templates,” Barry said.

“I took the view that I needed to put something very different forward. I greatly appreciated the insights of Anthea Penny and Paul van Hauen during the course and especially enjoyed the one on one mentoring sessions I had with Linley Frith, my executive coach during the last half of the program. I wanted to present back to each of them something to think about.“

Barry discarded the predictable and dug a lot deeper. “My presentation focused on the insights that I gained from the course. For a course in transformational leadership to be meaningful for me and have an impact, I realised that I had to be open and take a risk. I had spent the whole of my working life in the architectural and project management fields in private, US corporate and public health sectors and had been in my current role at the BCI for 6 months or less and was learning very quickly that my capacity in one did not automatically translate to the other.”

In developing his presentation, Barry touched on core issues about transformational leadership, such as the need to transform oneself, to keep dreaming, to have and share a vision, to develop and maintain trust, to sustain good humour and to preserve one’s integrity. He selected bright colours and used a series of bold graphic backgrounds that told the story of his journey.

“My slide backgrounds are from a Russian website with graphic artwork that I absolutely love. I wanted to use real emotion, humour, colour, graphics and simple words and concepts, things that reflect what I am and the insights that I gained. It was very important to me personally that I at least tried to reach people’s heart and soul not just their head and hands,” Barry revealed.

When Linley, Barry’s coach, realised he wasn’t interested in the must-use templates, she emailed him to say that while she absolutely loved it, she had spoken to one of the internal coaches and had been advised that “the template is non negotiable”.

Barry’s response: “My mum used to tell me that I was the only child she knew who was expelled from preschool kindergarten for not doing what I was told and how she had to go down and try and explain me. While I’ll never know for sure, I suspect Linley might have also needed to do the same.”

While the five slides and five minutes instruction still stood, something changed and the course participants were informed by Warren Westcott that they could use the standard template or their own as long as the content addressed the set criteria. With Linley’s support, Barry was free, within reason to do his own thing.

And it seems that Barry’s own thing struck a chord. Some time after the presentations, Linley emailed Barry and told him that the panel had voted his presentation best overall.

“Everyone was really impressed and loved your fresh approach and the depth to your presentation. Again it takes great personal courage to take risks – you did it and you did it your way and it sent a very strong message to us all.”

Barry said it was a fantastic opportunity to do the course and gave special thanks to everyone involved including Steve Boyages and Abd Malak, under whose mentorship and leadership the course was developed and continues to be actively supported in 2009.

“I owe a debt of gratitude to each of those who took us through our journey, encouraged us to think differently and shared their knowledge and wisdom with each of us.”

Barry recently joined with some of the original course participants to complete the advanced leadership course modules and has had the opportunity to present some of his insights to the new class of 2009 who have recently commenced their own journey.

Barry’s post-course reflection

During my youth I learned to sail and was taught by my father the art of reading the moods of the sea, the wind, the set of your sails and anticipating the motion of the boat with an ever watchful eye on the compass.

In my late teens I crewed in several Sydney to Hobart races and was mentored by an old salt who taught me not only how to sail by the stars but to understand the myths and legends that surrounded them.

In our leadership course we asked and got asked about the difference between management and leadership. For me management is like sailing by a compass but leadership is about understanding how to set your course by the stars.

On each of the yachts that I sailed on you looked down to use a compass and in so doing, focused more on the task and destination rather than experiencing the journey. To set your course and sail a yacht at night by looking up at the stars is to enjoy the universe.