Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Leadership

The French Emperor Napoleon I had a very novel question he always asked when presented with a recommendation that someone was promoted to the rank of General in his armies.

After dutifully listening to the inevitable lengthy list of all the attributes and qualifications of the person concerned, he would ask pointedly – "Yes, yes, that’s all very well - but is he lucky?"

At the Stars Institute of Learning and Leadership, we have no ambitions to try and produce military dictators who then try to take over the known world!  Even so, Napoleon’s mention of luck does have some relevance to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leadership programs.

That is - what is luck in the context of leadership?

That’s actually a complex question and we do not pretend to have all the answers to it but what we do know is that many events, both positive and negative, attributed to ‘luck’ are in fact no such thing.

Programs looking to develop Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leadership need to take into account the fact that more than 200 years of cultural subjugation has led to members of these societies having a predisposition, perhaps understandably so, to believe that they are ‘unlucky’.

Breaking down the anticipation of failure and encouraging people to think that to some extent they can create their own success isn’t easy.  When it is achieved, it can also be difficult to encourage the realisation that success has come about as a result of their personal development rather than simply that their luck has changed for the better, as that can lead to thinking that it could reverse itself in future.

Of course, misfortune can strike anyone at any time and for reasons they could not possibly have foreseen or had any degree of control over.  Once again though, it’s important not to see that as yet more evidence of inevitable bad luck but instead as those inevitable life obstaclesthat need to be overcome.

We know that this change in mindset can be achieved and we regularly achieve it as part of our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leadership programs.  Why not come along and allow us to convince you that luck plays a much smaller part in your life than you might believe?