It's instructive to consider the more spectacular and well-known falls from grace of leaders in the public eye... In the main, the issues behind these falls could be grouped under a lack of competence, a lack of support or loyalty from those they sought to lead, and a lack of failure of integrity. Of all these the last is the most egregious, the most fatal. We so much want our leaders to be unfailingly decent that an obvious or perceived flaw in integrity can be the toxin which kills them off.
We want our leaders to be fair dinkum, as much among us as above us.
We all of us have a reputation, something we are known for, and sometimes it may be different from what we would like to be known for. At the core of this is the simple but fragile heart - our integrity - which is always under challenge, under tests both trivial and profound every day of our lives.
Communication is the conduit of leadership from the Prime Minister down to the leading hand of a small group of council workers fixing the roads. Leadership uncommunicated is leadership unrequited!
Let's start therefore with a universal truth: leaders are fundamentally accountable.
Our vision is to look through the eyes of our kids. We are a lucky, peaceful nation. We are an unselfish people. That's one of our proudest national attributes.
Older people often mistakenly consider that the young people do not care about their country, but the reverse is actually true.
Leaders who fail to appreciate this fundamental precept of accountability must also fail to muster the profound commitment true leadership demands.
They (the youth of Australia) are out there clamouring in all forms of voice, and they are not so much hedging us older Australians aside as saying, 'For heaven's sake, listen to us and empower us to help drive this country towards a wonderful future.'
I must say that part of our national wealth is not only the nation's people but those people who lead them.
I saw one of my primary tasks was to do what I could to restore confidence, to ensure that people knew and cared about their predicament and that governments were committed to helping. Equally an optimism had to be engendered, a belief that not only would they recover but would emerge 'bigger, brighter and better than ever.'
In business, integrity is just as important as in any of the great public offices... but I believe one of the first and fundamental obligations of competent business leadership is above all to protect the reputation and integrity of the business - to that degree the integrity of the business is the integrity of the leader.
But the people of the disaster area fundamentally needed to understand that the rest of Australia had noticed their misery and their stoicism and their intense sense of community and determination to arise from the sodden wreckage of their homes, and that Australians would dig deep to help. I helped to describe the community ethos which quickly triumphed over incipient despair. It is this mobilisation of the unifying spirit that thrills us all, even as we mourn.
Oh, fatherhood has a very humanising effect on a bloke like me in the military. As a dad, you become absolutely aware of your own human frailty and a need to be nurturing and compassionate and fatherly
But it is my total conviction that all the trappings of good leadership are generic and widely applicable whether you are standing in a khaki queue with your mess tins or on an automobile production line.
