Turbulant 2020’s
2025 has been a tumultuous year that has built on a traumatic 2024 and a hyper turbulent 2020’s, in many ways, the world is still emerging from the shock of Covid-19 and associated exponential digitalisation of the social, political and economic context.
Lineality
The Asia Pacific region in general and the rise of BRICS economies (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) in particular have created a vortical environment that heralds a transition in the ways that we live and lead. The text in the online brochure for this conference, for many, was experienced as confused and “poorly written”. We have all been well trained to construct linear argumentation that draws on theory and evidence mobilised as rational formulations. But we know, deep down, that the world is not like that. It is a maelstrom of fragments, oblique and apparently often unconnected counterpoints and intimations. Like the unpunctuated narrative of James Joyce, or the aesthetic style of Cormac McCarthy in his novel, “The Road”, I wanted to evoke the underlying invitation in Eimear McBride’s novel “A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing”. But what has all this got to do with leading and following the Australian way?
John Sutherland in his review of Eimear McBride’s book for the Guardian Newspaper in England said,
“The day after A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing won the Bailey’s prize, it was reported that a Galway “mother and baby home” run by the Bon Secours Sisters, had, for 40 years, been tossing 800 or so of their conveniently dead offspring down the home’s septic tank, to avoid the awkwardness of death certificates. So much for the motherliness of mother church.”
Trust and legitimacy
This analysis fits the context of many of our leadership discourses, where the age-old
question of “why do good people do bad things?” still stands. Whether we look at Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan, Congo or countless other crises, we are all unscathed, or are we? Our leaders face scrutiny and our institutions face a crumbling of trust and legitimacy.
It is this question, “why do good people do bad things?” that calls Australia to answer. What can Australia show to the world about leading and following that might usher in a new realm of possibilities of what organisations stand for and how leaders can create change for the better.
I invite you to read and re-read the online brochure. Contemplate the blogs, and see if you are provoked or called to engage in the conversation. It is a type of Sand Talk in a group, where we wonder together, “How indigenous thinking can save the world” – perhaps what Tyson Yunkaporta was touching on in his book, can be further worked in this upcoming Group Relations Conference in Woodend, near Melbourne: Task Authority Organisation: What might Regenerating and Leading the Australian way mean?.
See you there.
Dr Leslie Brissett
August 2025
Related insights
Group Relations and Leadership in Australia today
Group relations and leadership are shaped by a confluence of cultural diversity, egalitarian values, and evolving workplace expectations.
What is a Group Relations Conference and why is it important?
A Group Relations Conference is a unique opportunity to learn from experience about yourself, groups, and organisational dynamics. Our days are so filled with the pressures of work that there is no time to stop and consider fundamental questions, such as, what’s really going on here? How am I showing up as a leader and follower? Are we working to purpose and, if not, what’s getting in the way? The Group Relations Conference is an opportunity to pause and explore these questions in depth.
