February 2021
Produced by Every Child and Australia and New Zealand School of Government (ANZSOG), Australia
Every Child and ANZSOG partnered to work on systems leadership to enhance the wellbeing of children and young people, and our nation’s future productivity, prosperity and equity.
The project centred on engaging senior leaders – through surveys, interviews and forums, across the public and community sectors, with First Nations leaders, and representatives from the tertiary, philanthropic and corporate sectors – to map, learn and strategise about how to address systems level opportunities and barriers to every child reaching their potential.
The project’s purpose was to leverage the experience and insight of senior leaders and knowledge from the lived experience and expertise of citizens, practitioners, researchers, investors and managers, to drive improvement to the value and impact of our systems.
Systems leadership has been described as “leadership across organisational and geopolitical boundaries, beyond individual professional disciplines, within a range of organisational and stakeholder cultures, often without direct managerial control. Its purpose being the intention to effect change for positive social benefit across multiple interacting and intersecting systems.” (Ghate, Lewis, & Welbourn, 2013)
The project focused on the opportunities for better aligned and integrated approaches across and within systems in governance, policy, programs, investment, workforce, community engagement and services and infrastructure.
The project’s value proposition was that a ‘systems approach’ will make a difference to the outcomes that we seek to achieve, and our collective insights can contribute to the effectiveness and impact of leaders in and across systems – individually, organisationally and collectively, and at all levels, to drive improved outcomes for children and young people.
