Prepare to take the next step in your career
ANZSOG’s Towards Strategic Leadership program uncovers the potential strengths in public service leaders and encourages them to overcome personal obstacles and think more strategically about their everyday practices.
Applications are now closed. Click on the "express your interest" button to leave your details and we will contact you once applications are open for the next iteration of Towards Strategic Leadership.
“The best online course I have done.” – 2020 TSL participant.
ANZSOG’s Towards Strategic Leadership is a unique program tailored to prepare leaders for the exceptional challenges facing the public sector today. Public sector leaders will develop the qualities needed to thrive in volatile and uncertain times across eight weeks. Participants walk away with a renewed strategic outlook, political astuteness, personal resilience and the capacity to reflect, collaborate, lead and learn continuously.
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TSL is specifically designed to meet the needs of senior public servants and to provide participants with the opportunity to reflect, learn and grow to be able to carry out their roles with clarity, wisdom and energy.
Participants will leave the program with a defined sense of purpose, a stronger sense of self and the ability to recognise and manage urgent and important tasks within their organisation and the public sector more broadly.
TSL offers best-practice online delivery and will nurture an inspiring environment where learning can happen that otherwise does not take place in a work context filled with day-to-day pressures or in a conventional classroom setting.
Participants will be co-contributors and an integral ingredient to the program’s success. TSL will harness the knowledge and experience of participants who, as professional peers, share a common language and a commitment to public service.
Previously delivered face-to-face across a two week period, TSL was moved online for the first time in 2020 as a result of the ongoing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The online delivery received overwhelmingly positive feedback, maintaining the spirit and tradition of the face-to-face delivery by ensuring a keen focus on personal reflection in the context of the crisis environment.
The entire program is run under Chatham House Rule.
TSL is the ideal program for senior public sector professionals, such as Directors and Branch Managers, and more generally those who are in the process of moving from tactical to strategic leadership roles. The program is designed to help them perform their roles with purpose, good judgment, and strategic nous. TSL will provide a tangible boost in confidence and capabilities and prepare leaders to face senior executive responsibilities.
The following is a selection of testimonials from TSL 2020 participants:
Public sector leaders are expected to maintain a long-term perspective and discern strategic opportunities for renewal and transformation amid daily pressures. It is therefore critical that they continue to invest in developing their leadership capabilities and their professional resilience in order to lead adaptive responses.
TSL is not your average leadership program. It has innovative and respected program co-directors at the helm. Paul ‘t Hart brings 35 years of research, consulting and training on crisis leadership throughout the world to the program. Robbie Macpherson has been training and coaching corporate, community sector and public sector executives in Australia and New Zealand for more than two decades. They have co-facilitated TSL for more than 10 years. The program creates a dynamic forum which combines non-traditional learning methods, such as extensive individual and group-based reflection and real-world case studies, with peer consultations and critical thinking.
Across eight modules, participants explore:
TSL encourages participants to identify personal and institutional strengths and weaknesses, helping them understand their personal leadership styles, and how their roles fit within their organisation, the broader public sector and the community.
Participants will develop reflective and strategic thinking and discover tools to discern and address the urgent and strategically important tasks, with an emphasis on integrating them into their everyday practices.
WATCH: 2018 TSL participants Tom McGregor and Nicole Opie talk about the live case study.
TSL is delivered online across 8 x half-day sessions plus orientation, and features:
Module details:
Cost: $15,000 AUD (excluding GST)
Please note: A student may enter into a salary sacrifice arrangement with their employer to attend the program. The student's employer will be billed the program fee. This will be discussed on a case-by-case basis with the applicant's sponsoring agency.
TSL participants will explore thematic thrusts, that will be interwoven in the structure of the program and both the asynchronous and live activities, including:
Our participants are leaders who value the importance of rising above 'fire-fighting' and relentless 'issue management' in public service life. They are keen to get ahead of the game.
Professor of Public Administration at Utrecht University and Associate Dean of the Netherlands School of Public Administration in The Hague. His experience with leadership is based on extensive and close-up research, training and consulting in the Netherlands, Sweden and Australia. His work focuses on political and public service leadership, policy evaluation, public accountability and crisis management. He currently leads a program of research in what makes public policies, organisations and networks particularly successful.
Managing Director of Adaptable Leadership. He has extensive experience developing senior public sector leaders as well as executives in the corporate and not-for-profit sectors. He has worked in Scotland, Australia, the Netherlands, the US and South Africa.
It's less academic than other courses, and deliberately so. It's highly pragmatic with practical elements but is led by contemporary thinking and research about public sector leadership.
Owned by and working for the governments of Australia and New Zealand, ANZSOG is not a regular training or education provider. We work with our government owners and university partners to create and deliver education programs and research which is tailored to meet the needs of public sector leaders today.
Led by renowned academics and top practitioners from the government and non-government sectors, ANZSOG’s programs, unlike those of a standard business school, provide public servants with the capabilities and tools they need to address the distinct challenges they face on a day to day basis.
Nominate a public sector executive, such as a Director or Branch Manager, or someone who is moving, or is ready to move, from an operational to a strategic leadership role.
The program will suit those seeking clarity in their decision-making to help them perform their roles with purpose and good judgment.
ANZSOG offered a scholarship in early 2021 to assist the development of an Indigenous leader working in the public sector in Australia and Aotearoa-New Zealand. The scholarship, worth $15,000 to $45,000, was to be used exclusively for an ANZSOG foundation program, either the Executive Master of Public Administration (EMPA), the Executive Fellows Program (EFP) or Towards Strategic Leadership (TSL).
The inaugural 2021 Scholarship was awarded to Palawa woman Brenda McDermott, currently working in the Victorian public service. Brenda commenced the EMPA in 2022.
Due to the on-going impact of COVID restrictions on the delivery of all ANZSOG programs, the timeline for the next First Peoples scholarship is yet to be determined. If you are interested, please review the pdf selection criteria (656 KB) and email your interest to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. We encourage you to sign up to the ANZSOG Indigenous news, and/or our general e-news, both of which will be used to notify potential applicants when scholarship applications open.
The sponsoring government or agency covers program costs, including tuition fee and program materials.
A student may enter into a salary sacrifice arrangement with their employer to attend the program. The student's employer will be billed the program fee. This will be discussed on a case-by-case basis with the applicant's sponsoring agency.
The ANZSOG experience reaches well beyond the classroom. The national and international networks to which participants gain access to while completing the TSL program will be invaluable throughout their career.
Our Alumni Program helps participants to maintain and build on their peer-to-peer relationships, creating a broad community of public sector managers from around New Zealand, Australia and internationally. This provides an opportunity for ongoing learning and support from peers, greater exposure to different perspectives, and an appreciation of work done, and solutions found, elsewhere.
Participants will have opportunities to immediately apply new insights to their workplace and are encouraged to share what they learn with others.
We encourage sponsoring managers to facilitate such opportunities for participants to ‘give back’ and add further value.
We encourage you to speak to one of our TSL alumni to get an insider's perspective. Please contact our Alumni Coordinator via email at: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to arrange an introduction. Alternatively, submit an expression of interest to be contacted by a member of the Programs team.
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