What are the leadership lessons that stay with us long after the books have been read and the courses have finished? In this series, we sit down with some of Australia’s most influential NFP leaders to explore the defining moments and insights that have shaped how they lead.

For our third post in this series, we spoke with Mat Tinkler, CEO of Save the Children Australia. Mat has spent almost a decade with Save the Children, championing child rights in Australia and helping grow its work around the world. Before that, his career took him from commercial law into public interest law – including as Executive Director of the organisation now known as Justice Connect – and then into the thick of federal politics as an adviser to Senator Natasha Stott Despoja and Chief of Staff to Bill Shorten in the Rudd and Gillard governments. Today, he brings that mix of law, politics and policy to his role at Save the Children, where he also sits on the organisation’s global management committee, helping shape its work across 120 countries. 

Along the way, Mat’s learned that becoming a better leader isn’t always about learning more – sometimes it’s about unlearning what you thought leadership was supposed to look like. Here, he explains why learning to be more vulnerable has made him a better leader.

I’ve had the benefit of working with a range of leaders over my career, and one thing I’ve observed, particularly in making the transition from politics into the not-for-profit sector, is that when you’re a political leader, you have to almost appear infallible.

It’s hard to show vulnerability in politics because it’s seen as a sign of weakness and something for your opponents to attack. So you have to portray yourself almost as this kind of font of all wisdom, with the strategic direction the country needs to take, and be really confident in your judgement and your abilities. And I think that’s not just in the most senior ranks of government – it’s pervasive across politics, and other industries for that matter.

So coming into a leadership role in the NFP sector, I feel like I almost had to unlearn that behaviour and really value vulnerability as a strength in leadership. Some of that has been about understanding myself a little better, and seeing how that veneer of being across everything and knowing all the answers isn’t something I have to carry to be respected.

In fact, from what I’ve observed, leadership works best when you show humility, create an environment of trust and honesty, and then draw the best out of the team around you. I think that’s probably the most important lesson I’ve learned: there’s huge strength in vulnerability. It builds the trust and connection that’s most important to shaping good organisational culture.

Build a team that’s better than you

An organisation like Save the Children is vast. It’s been around for 107 years, it’s in 120 countries and it operates across some of the most difficult contexts on earth – on some of the most important issues. There’s no way you can understand all of those contexts or issues deeply as a leader. You have to rely on the people around you to be experts in their field and bring their best judgement and experience to the table.

A big part of unlearning that kind of command-and-control style of leadership has been about enabling the strengths in my team, and acknowledging that they might be strengths I don’t have as a leader.

As leaders, we certainly shouldn’t be intimidated by people who are super capable and smart, or who have better experience and capabilities. We should lean into that and understand that it’s good for the organisation and good for us, too.

I think you’ve also got to create the systems to support the culture of trust and honesty you’re wanting in your team. One of the ways we’ve tried to do that is through something I call a CEO open door. Every other Friday, I block out time in my diary where anyone in the organisation can make a 15-minute appointment with me and catch up online and talk about anything that’s on their mind.

It might be an idea, an experience, a concern or a question – or it might just be to get to know each other a bit more. But I’ve found that really grounds me with the individuals who are part of the organisation – not just the leadership team that I spend more time with. It gives me a better understanding of the hopes and dreams and concerns of people throughout the organisation.

Do the inner work

Another part of leaning into vulnerability is making the time and space to understand yourself and who you are as a leader – including what drives you and what can get in your way. For me, that’s meant paying much closer attention to my own wellbeing and understanding how I operate.

When I came out of politics, which is a very fast-paced and intense environment where you have to be on 24/7, I had a bit of a break before starting at Save the Children and found myself struggling with anxiety for the first time in my life. I got some support through counselling, and one of the things I came to understand was that I’d always pushed myself pretty hard – I was captain of the footy team, dux at school, pushed myself hard at university and then went 24/7 in politics. My career had been one of the things giving me a sense of achievement and progress, and then suddenly I’d stopped.

So I really had to understand that about myself. How do you learn to spot anxiety, what drives it and how to live with it? There are aspects of anxiety that are positive because it keeps you motivated and accountable and drives performance, but it can tip over into a point where it’s unhealthy, where you don’t relax very well and you can’t be in the moment or present with your family. That was a really important acknowledgement for me.

Lead for what comes next

I read a lot, and one of my favourite books is Belonging: The Ancient Code of Togetherness by Owen Eastwood. I really like his idea that if you imagine an organisation like ours, which is 107 years old, as a set of people holding hands over a timeline, the torch beam of leadership is travelling along that timeline. The torch is on you now, but you’re inextricably linked to all those who came before you and all those who come after you.

That means understanding the history and origin of your organisation, but also thinking about the legacy you’ll pass on to those who come after you. It’s again about driving out of the typical leadership ego and seeing that you’re a custodian, not the owner, of the organisation’s culture. I think those are really important concepts for leaders to think about – that you’re part of something bigger than yourself and you have a responsibility to help shape what comes next.

Balance trust with accountability

Vulnerability doesn’t mean letting go of accountability. This kind of leadership can risk over-indexing on what might be described as ‘soft skills’ at the expense of harder measures of accountability and performance. In reality, you’ve got to have both.

Making accountability part of your regular conversations with your team is important – not just leaving it as something that comes up when performance is off track. As leaders we need to create space for people to talk about what they’re trying to achieve and what support they need, and give them the opportunity to tell us what’s getting in the way.

I’ve also noticed that some line managers can feel threatened by the access their teams have to the CEO, particularly if they’re used to managing their teams closely. For me, it’s about building mutual transparency by being clear with managers about how that access works. I’m accessible to our teams if they feel they need to come to me, but I also keep their managers in the loop on those conversations where appropriate. That means people have a direct line to the CEO without undermining the role of their own manager.

Be open to feedback

The other part of being more vulnerable in leadership is creating an environment where people feel comfortable challenging you, or giving you feedback. Of course, that needs to be balanced with times when you need to show direction and confidence – again, it’s about getting that balance right.

I’m currently doing a series of skip-level meetings with the direct reports of my executive leadership team, with a pretty informal agenda: How are you going? How do you think the organisation’s going? And do you have any feedback for me? I find those conversations really valuable – they’re a good way to test the temperature.

Employee engagement surveys are another useful tool, but you need to ask the right questions, use the data intelligently and be accountable for what you do with the feedback. If you ask people for their views, you need to be prepared to act on what you hear. I’m not perfect at this – there’s plenty of opportunity to improve. But I think creating those channels for challenge and feedback is really important.

For me, learning to see vulnerability as a strength in leadership has had a huge impact. I’ve realised how much the culture of an organisation can change when you take that approach, and how much more comfortable people feel being themselves, speaking up, trying things and even getting things wrong. There’s always more to learn about being a good leader, but ultimately, it’s about creating the conditions for people to do their best work.

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