Collaborative Leadership Program

Leadership isn't defined by your position—it's created through the way you show up.

Whatever role you play, there are always opportunities to influence, build trust, and help groups work more effectively together.

This immersive 3.5-day Collaborative Leadership Deep Dive explores practical approaches to shared leadership within group settings, supporting leaders, and changemakers to distribute power, foster collective ownership, and deepen group engagement.

Through experiential learning, reflection, and plenty of opportunities to practise, you'll build the confidence and skills to facilitate meaningful participation, navigate complexity and lead collaborative change.

Please complete the EOI form below to receive updates about this course.

Price from

TBD

Duration

3.5 days

Location

Face-to-face in Melbourne

Why Collaborative Leadership?

Many of the challenges we face in our organisations, communities and workplaces are too complex to be addressed by one person alone. Collaborative leadership recognises that knowledge, experience, ideas and leadership exist throughout a group - and that our role can be to create the conditions for those contributions to emerge.

But collaboration doesn't happen simply because we invite people into a room. It requires attention to how we participate, how we share responsibility, how we build trust and how we create genuine opportunities for people to influence what happens.

This program creates space to explore these questions through practice rather than theory alone. Across three consecutive face-to-face days, participants will learn through experience, reflection, discussion and practical application, with opportunities to connect the learning directly to the groups, teams and communities they work with.

The learning then continues beyond the room. During the half-day online Practice Circle, participants will reconnect after having had an opportunity to apply their learning in real situations. Together, the group can reflect on what happened, explore challenges and questions that emerged, learn from one another's experiences and deepen their collaborative leadership practice.

Together, the three-day intensive and Practice Circle provide the opportunity not simply to learn about collaborative leadership, but to begin putting it into practice.

Submit Your EOI

Who is this program for?

No previous Groupwork Centre training is required. This program is open to everyone.

Collaborative leadership isn't only for people with "leader" in their job title. This program is for anyone interested in strengthening how they work with others and contributing to more collaborative, inclusive and effective groups.

It may be particularly relevant for people working in:

  • Leadership and management roles

  • Teams and organisations

  • Community groups and networks

  • Social change and advocacy

  • Collaborative projects and partnerships

  • Government and not-for-profit organisations

  • Facilitation, engagement and community development

  • Project and program coordination

Whether you formally lead others or influence from within a team, project, organisation or community, the program offers an opportunity to strengthen your capacity to work collaboratively with others.

The skills and capabilities you will gain.

  • Develop a stronger understanding of collaborative leadership and what it can look like in practice.

  • Build greater awareness of how you show up in groups and the influence you can have.

  • Explore practical ways to share leadership, responsibility and ownership within groups.

  • Strengthen your ability to create conditions that support trust, inclusion and meaningful participation.

  • Build confidence in engaging people and drawing on the knowledge, perspectives and contributions within a group.

  • Develop practical approaches for working collaboratively in complex and changing environments.

  • Learning how to use your own presence to build trust and nurture a healthy group culture.

  • Moving away from a 'top-down' approach to one that truly empowers the whole group.