Role Models for Leadership Development and Training

All of us, to one extent or another, are influenced by the media that we typically spend a fair percentage of our time watching.

In that sense, few people would dispute that, in terms of leadership programmes, Aboriginal and Torres Islanders may struggle to see too many obvious media examples of First Nations leadership in action on the screen. 

It is important to recognise that this doesn’t mean that such role models don’t exist.  You may see rather more of them in factual news programmes than other modes but there is little doubt that in drama and fiction, it isn’t easy to spot portrayals of Aboriginal leaders in action.

To be fair, this isn’t just an issue for Aboriginal and Torres Islander leadership programmes. 

Much of the media of Australian and wider western society continues to be dominated by the portrayals of leaders who are largely of white European ethnic background.  True, over recent decades, notably in programmes originating in the United States, there has been an increase in the portrayal of male leadership figures from Afro-Caribbean ethnic backgrounds but they are still in a tiny minority and female leaders from those groups continue to be notable by their almost total absence. 

That last point applies irrespective of their ethnic origin, though when they are (rarely) shown in leadership roles, seeing Aboriginal or Afro-Caribbean women portrayed is exceptionally unusual. Occasionally one might see a female portrayed in a major leadership role when she is of white European cultural heritage but Aboriginal, Afro-Caribbean and Asian women continue to be largely ignored.

This is a great pity and a major challenge for indigenous leadership programmes in Australia. 

Whilst TV and movies continue to bombard people with cultural and gender stereotypes, it makes the challenges of leadership development amongst groups such as aboriginal womenthat bit harder.

It is to be sincerely hoped that at some time in the near future, the various production organisations recognise this problem and deal with it effectively. 

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Top Tips for Restoring Someone’s Confidence

One of our primary objectives at the Stars Institute is to try and improve the self-confidence of the people who attend our various courses and sessions.

 Obviously, space doesn’t permit us here to go into a lot of detail but we will pick out a few key themes.

• Identifying the cause(s) of low self-esteem. Some people simply walk through life believing they are not capable of effective leadership and motivation. It’s not easy but it’s important to try and understand what is causing that. Generic tendencies are a useful clue but they are not always the final answer, as sometimes specifics are required. 

• Showing, by example and exercise, that they are not alone. Low self-confidence is endemic within many sections of the Aboriginal and Torres Islander communities. Yet one of the classic symptoms of a lack of self-confidence is to assume that you are the only one struggling with the problem and that everybody else seems to be fine. By proving that not to be the case, the challenges can be seen to be part of a much wider cultural context.

• Encouraging positive actions to deal with some causes of low self-esteem. Knowing that an aspect of your life is badly damaging your self-confidence is one thing but the effect may be unlikely to go away unless you take positive steps to address the cause. In some cases, that may not be possible but in others, with a little willpower and some appropriate help, it may be.

• Allow the individual to demonstrate success. It’s an old and valid saying that “nothing improves self-confidence better than success”. Completing a range of exercises and group activities where the individual is empowered to achievement, can boost self-esteem immeasurably. 

• Developing a regime to monitor and continually improve your confidence. The benefits of any training course, seminar or education program, needs to be maintained and rolled-out long after it is finished. That means that self-confidence improvement activities will need to be continued by the individual as part of their everyday life. 

 Nobody is pretending that it is easy to address this fundamental problem but it can be done providing you have appropriate and skilled individuals assisting. That’s where we come in!

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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? 

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