The Future Leaders Program:
The Pacific Leadership and Governance Precinct

The Future Leaders Program (FLP) was a foundational program of the Pacific Leadership and Governance Precinct (The Precinct), a joint initiative of the Papua New Guinea (PNG) and Australian Governments. The FLP was a key part of the Precinct’s goal to develop more ethical and capable public sector leaders to enable more effective government service delivery in PNG. The program was designed to comprehensively address the needs of future leaders in PNG, taking into consideration current capacity gaps, succession planning and future implications of an aging workforce.

In line with the priorities of the Department of Personnel Management, the Program was based on the Ethics and Values-Based Executive Leadership and Management Capability Framework (LCF) and the Gender Equity and Social Inclusion (GESI) policy of the National Public Service. The FLP was a combination of skills-based training, peer-to-peer learning, participatory exercises, class discussions, academic coursework and workplace projects. A key feature of these teaching and learning methods was to further embed gender and social inclusion for more effective and ethical leadership in PNG.

In 2019 Square Circle was sub-contracted by The University of Queensland to provide key support to the Future Leaders Program. Dr Tim Grice was engaged to lead the leadership components of the program and Dr Kamil Shah served as the Program Advisor (Academic) and the Public Policy Lead.  Through their involvement with the Future Leaders Program, Dr Grice (whose involvement with the FLP began in 2017 through Leapfrog International) and Dr Shah have worked closely with over 200 emerging leaders from across PNG, working in various national and subnational government agencies/departments. In their respective roles, Dr Grice and Dr Shah supported participants in the development and implementation of ‘Workplace Application Projects’ in areas of relevance for their workplaces and communities. These projects targeted improvements in areas such as transparency, local level democracy, better government outreach and inclusive service delivery, typically in key priority sectors such as health, education, agriculture, fisheries and extractives. Workplace projects often also supported income generating activities for local communities, developed through improved community engagement and connectivity.