Australian Rural Leadership Foundation program, Kimberleys, WA

As it celebrates its 25th anniversary this year, this leadership organisation shows it has runs on the board.

The group at Lake Argyle. Picture: Helen Trinca

On the 12th day, when they came to the rock pool, David Kimmorley dug out some fishing line and, lacking any bait, fixed a small piece of foil paper to the hook. Minutes later he was hauling in the black bream. Kimmorley and his colleagues had been eating canned beans for days but that night they cooked on the campfire. It felt like paradise in the Kimberleys.

Kimmorley, from across the continent at Hannaford, 360km from Brisbane, is used to roughing it. His 12,000 acre property has been drought affected for five years, and a few months back when his four-wheel drive broke down the 57-year old walked 15km for help, unable to phone home thanks to the lack of mobile connection in this remote country. Even so, after two weeks sleeping in a swag and on limited rations, he had lost weight and was looking forward to a shower.

By the time Kimmorley and the other 32 people on the Australian Rural Leadership Foundation program got to the shores of Lake Argyle, 70km from Kununurra, they were low on food but high on experience.

For the foundation staff welcoming them back, the emotion was nothing new: after 24 years of a program designed to increase the leadership capability of rural and regional leaders, they are no longer surprised at the impact of a course that pushes people physically and psychologically.

At this point it would be usual to detail the challenges and problem-solving in the wild, and show how tough it was for the 17 women and 16 men, aged from their 20s to their late 50s. But the experiential program wants participants to be unprepared for the survival exercise and alumni are asked not to talk about it widely. Over a quarter of a century, the 1000 people who have been through the program have kept mum. Suffice to say that, operating in five teams of six or seven people plus a trained facilitator, the members of Course 24 covered a lot of ground by troop carrier and on foot, and had a series of adventures that left some wondering exactly what they had signed up for.

It was just the start of a 15-month program: over the next year, participants will take time out from their day jobs and families to build their skills, networks and leadership capability. They will wind up with an international dimension – two weeks in Indonesia.

‘Until you understand yourself, it’s very difficult to lead others.’

The foundation, based in Canberra under CEO Matt Linnegar, a former chief of the National Farmers Federation, was set up by the Labor government in 1992. It was a time when the bush was in trouble and policymakers feared an exodus of talent from the country. What was needed, it was decided, was to take established leaders and make them even better so that they could make a difference – not just to their own farms and businesses, but to their broader communities. The two-week experiential program conducted by Outback Initiatives, a company based in Western Australia, is designed to change them, so that they in turn can effect change.

Says Linnegar: “It’s about leadership from the inside out … Until you understand yourself, it’s very difficult to lead others. The philosophy is to give people a sense of lifelong learning and development, and how they influence others and accelerate the work of others.”

A veteran of the 2001 course, Linnegar says it changed him as the young head of the Ricegrowers Association.

“I had to work hard to focus more on how I helped other people to lead,” he says. It also forced him to decide where he wanted to have an impact as a leader: “I made a decision that I wanted to have an input on the national stage.”

Linnegar recently looked at similar rural leadership courses in the US and found few had the level of experiential engagement, partly because of the high-risk culture in the States.

The setting is important. Facilitator Graham Smith says the “sheer beauty and vastness” of the Kimberley “gets people off balance and out of their comfort zone, and then there’s the healing effect”. The program builds specific skills, but more important is the collaboration, networking, mentoring and learning from other experienced leaders. In the next year, the group will launch pilot community initiatives in various regions as they practise their skills.

When researchers at Deakin University last year tracked the impact of the program, they found 93 per cent of alumni had developed “significantly enhanced leadership capacity” and 87 per cent felt they were more effective as leaders.

‘Some spoke of the shock of having to rely on others.’

At Lake Argyle, where the 33 camped for their final night and debriefing sessions, they talked of how the program tested their physical and mental courage. Some spoke of the shock, as highly competent people in their daily lives, of having to rely on others.

Nathan Adams, managing director of Five Star Abalone, based in Augusta in WA, has read a lot of management books but had some “a-ha” moments as the theories started to make more sense.

“My leadership style has been getting everyone there – but dong the majority of the work,” he says. “The course showed me about really letting go and building trust in others. Also the need for everyone in the team to have a role and a purpose.”

Barb Howard, network director of Country Arts, WA, also learnt the need to “bring other people along”. As well, she realised, “I need to see feedback as a key learning element, and I need to channel my energy and not try to do too many things.” She will use the program to build a network across Australia and across sectors for arts groups, which she says are often isolated.

Howard is passionate about the talent in the bush: “I think rural Australia is underestimated. There is a heap of capacity there already (but) it is underutilised. People have a high degree of resilience and entrepreneurship.”

For Stacey Lugsdin, the Kimberley trip was “character building”. At 55 she did not feel too old for the course – her kids are grown and she has the time for leadership activities. But it tested her physical courage: “The worst was standing over that gorge at night and wondering how I would get across.”

Lugsdin and husband Ian run a merino property 15km from Hay where they breed merinos and develop innovative fleece products. They also run the Toyota and Mitsubishi agencies in the town, and Lugsdin conducts wool-classing courses at the local TAFE. She says city Australians are too influenced by “negative media”, especially around the treatment of animals.

“We are so aware of animal ethics,” she says. “We pay more to ensure pain relief for our animals.” But the big challenge is the education of country Australia: “Education is not quite as accessible and we want people to have the same access (as those in the city). But if people have to travel (for education) they just don’t go.”

The problem of distance is top of mind for Trish McKenzie when she talks about the gap between country and city Australians. McKenzie and husband Jim run goats and sheep on a property 98km from Cunnamulla in Queensland.

‘I don’t think (city) people understand how hard it is.’

She says poor mobile and internet connection is a big problem. There is reception in town but the isolation is real when they’re out in the paddocks. It makes organising the basics extremely difficult. McKenzie works two days a week for the Royal Flying Doctor Service and says the strains in the bush range from a heavier workload because many farmers cannot afford staff to the impact on towns when they stop spending in tough times.

David Kimmorley says “even trying to do a deal is very hard” without the mobile access city Australia takes for granted. It would cost him $3000 to get a decent signal to his farm from a telecommunications tower 40km away.

Drought is ever present. This is the fifth year of drought around Hannaford: “I don’t think (city) people understand how hard it is; they take water for granted,” he says.

Kimmorley, who is the national vice-president of the Goat Industry Council of Australia, says the Kimberley course taught him to trust others to deliver. He and will use the leadership training to help build the industry.

In the 1990s the program was sometimes seen as too male and too white, but now it aims for a gender balance and to include indigenous leaders. This year, they included Johani Mamid, a director of Yawuru PBC, a Broome indigenous group. He says the course offered a safe environment “where you could constructively find your place”.

Participants have varied backgrounds and careers: Owen Brinson runs a family business selling cut flowers in the Yarra Valley in Victoria; Belinda Chambers is a director of Lake Moodemere Estate in Victoria, which produces wine grapes and lamb and operates a cellar door, café and accommodation; Dale Chapman is co-owner of First Food Co, a Queensland bush food business; Alex Dunn is a medical doctor from Weipa; Kate Gunn runs a farming business on the Liverpool Plains, NSW, and has a Masters in Economics; Tim Chaffey, also from the Liverpool Plains, is a farm manager; Ronnie Hibma is a Victorian in the dairy business; Paula Johnston works at James Cook University, Townsville; Rachel Kelly is a policy manager with the Ricegrowers Association; Will McCrohon is a feedlot manager of the JBS Australia’s Riverina Beef Feedlot; Freda Nicholls is an author who helps run a family farm at Gundagai; Rick Malone is a Griffith agronomist; Katherine Waterhouse works in the Department of Agriculture in Canberra; Simone Jolliffe is a NSW dairy farmer; and Grant Melrose is a manager at John Dee in Warwick, Queensland.

For the foundation’s Linnegar, the big challenge for the bush is to ensure it has a stronger role in determining its future. “Rural people talk about the rural/urban divide, but I personally don’t think that it is a divide, it’s a lack of awareness,” he says. “I think there are high levels of empathy for the bush and high levels of respect for farmers. The answer is not to educate city people but to better understand city people.”

Helen Trinca was a guest of the ARLF at the conclusion of the course.