This three-day journey into the desert in Central Australia will challenge your beliefs, enhance your resilience and creativity and help you lead a healthier professional and personal life.

As a leader, you are the conscience of an organisation. How you act, respond to situations, and treat other colleagues resonates throughout your entire workplace. Your impact as a leader has a profound effect on the way your team relates and on the environment you create.

Your values, ethics, honesty and integrity are the key to being not just an emotionally healthy leader, but also an inspirational one. The question is: How do you learn to lead from this place of authenticity?

For millennia, indigenous Australians have embodied this deep connection to self and to their land. Rather than leading from logic – setting goals, timeframes, performance measures, and using techniques to “change” things – they have an innate ability to lead from within using their intuition and accepting things just the way they are.

On this leadership experience, you will spend time away from charts, lists and meeting rooms to fully immerse yourself in Eastern Arrernte country and the beliefs and cultural practices of indigenous Australians. Each day, you’ll venture out from your homestead to visit sites, where you’ll learn to slow down, tune in and become more aware of your whole environment, before returning to a hearty outback meal and campfire at night.

What will the extreme heat teach you about dealing with chaos? How do the indigenous survive drought and how does this knowledge support you in your own leadership journey?

Executive coach Sue Gregory and traditional medicine man Frank Ansell will help you answer these questions and more, explaining how to apply this knowledge in practical ways to give you powerful insights into your own personal and professional challenges.

The Spirit of Leadership is a unique opportunity to re-evaluate how you engage and your impact on others, discover a sense of community, expand your vision, and reshape your management and leadership practices in a was you are unlikely to have experienced before.

This experience will support you in:

  • improving your personal and professional relationships
  • becoming more centred and grounded
  • reducing stress and cope with chaos
  • clarifying your thoughts and thinking processes
  • trusting your intuition and make better decisions
  • gaining a deeper appreciation for yourself and for others
  • nourishing your creativity and boost innovation

Our experiences are unique and visionary, designed to stimulate your creativity and your capability to lead in challenging situations. Our approach to leadership is refreshing and moves well beyond what you would normally experience within the world of work. You explore and learn personally as well as through engaging with others and connecting to the powerful desert environment.

 

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Retreat Leaders

Frank Ansell

Frank Ansell is a traditional medicine man (ngungkari) from the Arrernte community in Central Australia. He is a respected healer and coach in the indigenous community and has gained a valuable reputation in the wider community and corporate world.

Frank combines ancient aboriginal teaching with modern techniques, offering a gentle intuitive style of wisdom and humour that provokes people to reflect on the way they do things, why they do things and where they want to go.

Frank holds a Certificate IV in Mental Health, Certificate III in Clinical Health Work and is a traditional landowner for the Undoolya region in the East MacDonnell Ranges near Alice Springs. He has also co-authored a book on mental health for indigenous people.

WATCH: Frank Ansell at TedxBrisbane  ‘Knowing you can do anything if you want’

Sue Gregory

Sue is an executive leadership coach and facilitator with a 33 years experience in the corporate, government, not for profit and indigenous arenas. She supports people to rediscover their spirit, and uncover their power. Sue’s work ranges across individuals, boards, CEOs, teams and the community, supporting the development of peak leadership, resilient people, emotionally healthy teams and caring organisations. Her methodology is based on indigenous wisdom from her time in Central Australia and the latest developments in neuroscience, and leadership.

Testimonials

‘My time in the desert was profound and insightful and I am living in a new way as a result – long may that last!   So thank you for your care, compassion and the large part you played in my desert experience.  It was such a fabulous experience – to be in country I know and love yet see it and experience it in such a different way. ‘ – C.Power, October 2014

‘I came on this trip to have an outback experience, to benefit from any healing opportunities and to grow my leadership skills. I didn’t really know what to expect but I was open. I came back completely transformed. Being in the vast land opened me up to new possibilities in thinking which will affect me, my business, my community and beyond. My heart has been opened to the extraordinary gifts of indigenous culture. Frank and Sue’s healing helped me deal with some past trauma issues relating to an illness and helped me develop a much stronger appreciation of self and others. On this trip, I developed extraordinary insights and intuition, become more centred and really felt the connection with land. Thank you for a trip of a lifetime. It has touched me both personally and as a leader.’  N.Smith, May 2015

‘I went to the Starlight Camp a little tense & wound up. I left there feeling light & unburdened, knowing the power is instantly in me to change my thoughts to constructive & positive. I feel totally ready to share my renewed energy with others.’  M.Waller, May 2015

 

To express your interest in our next Spirit of Leadership experience, please contact us and we’ll be happy to let you know when forthcoming dates are confirmed.