Thinking Partner for Systemic Change
If you're leading complex initiatives in cultural or digital transformation, climate, or sustainability, the path can be all-consuming and politically sensitive.
Thinking Partner for Systemic Change offers a personal development journey uniquely tailored to each leader's needs.
Outer Work: Structural and Cultural Challenges
The outer work delves into the dynamics of organisational change, requiring observation, interpretation, and experimentation. Dr Josie McLean provides a strategic sounding board to help guide leaders in deciding the right actions, performed strategically and sensitively. Leaders will gain tools, including:
A systems-thinking approach for analysing situations and acting strategically.
Techniques for engaging and rallying people to foster genuine ownership of changes.
Designing processes that facilitate adaptive work and ensure the longevity of changes.
Monitoring organisational discomfort to avoid pushing beyond capacities.
While these structural and cultural challenges are significant, overcoming them requires an exploration beyond traditional behaviour patterns.
Inner Work: Personal Growth and Awareness
Inner work, though often overlooked, is crucial. It involves understanding how personal loyalties, role perceptions, and habitual behaviours might limit leadership abilities. Achieving true change starts with inward reflection.
Josie helps leaders identify patterns, such as pressing for rapid changes, over-relying on long-time but unskilled employees, and undervaluing broad engagement. By recognising these patterns, leaders can expand their behavioural freedom, enabling them to navigate systemic changes more effectively.
Expected Outcomes
Outcomes vary based on challenges and time investment, but participants can anticipate:
Enhanced personal change and leadership capabilities.
The development of a guiding vision for change initiatives.
Organisational experiments to learn what works within their context.
Observable changes in others’ behaviour over time.
This program is designed to empower leaders with the insights and tools needed to navigate the complexities of systemic change with confidence and competence.
“Josie worked with me and my leadership team at Flinders University across multiple years, supporting a strategic uplift in leadership capability. Josie’s work focused on both team dynamics and individual development, and she brought a thoughtful, evidence-based approach to every engagement. Josie was highly collaborative, responsive to feedback, and deeply professional in her interactions with me and the team.
Josie’s ability to build trust and challenge constructively made her an invaluable partner in our transformation journey. I strongly endorse Josie for any role requiring leadership development, strategic facilitation, or cultural change within a complex organisation.”
“ I am deeply fortunate to have worked with Josie both through the Governor’s Leadership Foundation and then as an executive coach. I actively sought Josie out for coaching following our time together in the GLF.
Josie’s organisational development skillset is formidable. Her approach to systems is evidence-based while also being grounded in warmth, deep empathy and a value set that resonates with my own. As a coach, Josie doesn’t give answers; rather, she’ll nurture your own capacity to make links, solve problems and reinvigorate your work.”
“An excellent year and a great journey with Dr Josie McLean.
The team have been fortunate to benefit from her leadership and facilitation over the last 12 months.
I’ve been fortunate to be part of a great team and witness the growth and learning.
Thank you very much Dr Josie McLean...”