The Queensland Branch continues its outreach across the State. Our ACEL Queensland Awards have been circulated widely and our Awards committee has had its first preliminary meeting. The Pivotal People network has again been active. On 26 February Brisbane Girls Grammar School hosted the first Brisbane-based Pivotal People event for 2025. Ms Susan Garson presented a wonderful session, *Metaphors for Middle Leadership*, utilising learnings and insights from her recent doctoral research. Our Darling Downs community hosted a “Meet and Greet” afternoon at Zack’s Restaurant Toowoomba on Thursday 27 February was very well attended. Planning continues for the Middle Leaders Summit to be held on the Gold Coast in July as is the conceptual planning for our early career teacher workshop to be held early in Term 3.
We all know that leadership is a very difficult concept. It requires structured thinking as well as tangential and counter cultural intuition not to mention, on occasions, ample sprinklings of good luck. When thinking about the concept and scope of leadership recently, two quotes have resonated deeply. The first is from Edward Abbey’s (1968) beautiful book Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness. Harper Collins. To set the scene. The light from Abbey’s campfire is fading slowly as it burns down to its smouldering embers. He observes at this point:
…I take my walking stick and go for a stroll down the road into the thickening darkness. I have a flashlight with me but will not use it unless I hear some sign of animal life worthy of investigation. The flashlight is a useful instrument in certain situations, but I can see the road well enough without it. Better, in fact.
There’s another disadvantage to the use of the flashlight; like many other mechanical gadgets it tends to separate a man [a person] from the world around him [them]. If I switch it on my eyes adapt to it and I can see only the small pool of light which it makes in front of me; I am isolated. Leaving the flashlight in my pocket where it belongs, I remain a part of the environment I walk through and my vision though limited has no sharp or definite boundary (p. 33).
There is so much to unpack from these words. Is leadership more than ever about the need to see both with and without sharp or definite boundaries? What do we miss out on if we only see where we are led?
The second quote is from the late Irish Poet, author and theologian – John O’Donohue. I used it last week when presenting the ACELQ prize for the top student in the Master of Education (Educational Leadership) course at the Queensland University of Technology. When talking about leadership O’Donohue notes:
Good wise leadership will be attuned to the vitality of a true ethos and helping to establish it.
These 18 words are so powerful, and the path set by O’Donohue is far from easy. To achieve this takes courage, discernment and endurance. The steadfastness to operate in such a space can be challenging and at times confronting – it is worth it!
Dr Bruce Addison
ACEL QLD Branch President