Christie Bailey (ILF2021)

Institution: 
University of Adelaide

Course:
Transformative Leadership Program in Adelaide & Texas

Investing time in professional and continuing education was initially something I didn’t feel I had time for. Fast forward joining the ILF network and TLP program I now realise it was exactly what was needed to accelerate my network and leadership development. An ILF scholar put my name forward to Geoff Vogt, encouraging me to explore the idea and at least meet with Geoff to discuss. Geoff was generous with his time and firm in his belief to the extensive benefits of applying and moving through the staged process. During the preparation for the ILF panel interview I began to recognise how I now wanted the opportunity and could see the immense benefit it would bring to my business and beyond.

The year of 2022 was still impacted by the uncertainty of covid and the program I had selected was responding to the complexities of travel and balance of online and face to face learning. Interestingly the complexity of the constantly changing environment was a perfect illustration of what the Transformative Leadership Program was all about – developing adaptive capacity for addressing increasingly complex issues. It is impossible to describe what actually happens in a TLP learning environment. The experiential learning style is powerful, personal, at times non-verbal and connects the cohort in ways I have never experienced before. We learned from each other as much as we did from the exceptional facilitators. The learning was deep and rich and planted many seeds for returning to the fertile ground of our individual work (and home) environments to really put it into action.

More than a year later our TLP group still meets to ‘check-in’ every 6 weeks and a group of the alumni from the preceding decade of TLP, so motivated and wanting more, created a TLP2 which I attended in 2023. My network and connections continue to grow and the learning has a life of its own. I have changed, my leadership style has changed and I am still learning.

ILF has provided a wonderful gift of realisation, that shifting out of our familiar environment to connect more broadly with industry and supercharge growth is, quite simply, powerful and incredibly important in the ambition to grow South Australian Leaders and Industry.