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E S SAY

The ADFA Scandal: lessons on

leadership and ethics

This is an edited version of an address given by the Principal at the
2014 CUAC Conference.
Just as a recent search of Google for the different view points. But this does
words ‘ADFA/ Skype/ Scandal’ threw up not mean that good leaders back down Australian Sex Discrimination
well over 10,000 ‘hits’, some university when confronted with poor behaviour or Commissioner Elizabeth Broderick:
colleges in Australia have received casual self-deceit. real leadership
unfavourable media treatment for similar
reasons. Most people haven’t yet joined At the Australian Defence Force spoken out about abusive behavior and
the dots between the two institutions – Academy, some understandably angry its effects upon them.
which is that this is really a story about cadets and staff made it clear that,
the kind of leadership that needs to be in in their mind, the military was being These were valuable steps, but it was
place when we have young women and unfairly targeted because of the actions her next act of leadership that I found
men in our care. of a young woman, who had shown the most impressive, and the most
disloyalty to the military by going to the powerful, in terms of transformative
Ethical leadership requires one, from media, and a Minister of Defence who practice. It was to invite some of these
time to time, to stand against the crowd had not stood by them as he should. The women, sometimes accompanied by
when there is enormous pressure to stay phrase they used again and again was their parents, to meet with the most
silent. I don’t really think it matters how that the whole organisation was being senior leaders of our Army, Navy and
large or small an organisation is: there unfairly judged by the actions of a ‘few Air Force, to talk openly about their
are always vested interests that make bad apples’. These ‘few bad apples’ treatment within the culture of Defence.
it difficult to challenge the status quo. were not, we were told, the symptom This allowed our national military
People never welcome the messenger of a wider cultural problem around the leaders to be confronted by the stories
who tells them there is something treatment of women. These ‘bad apples’ of women who had entered their service
fundamentally wrong with the things – not bad people, really, but not thinking full of pride and hope, and had seen
they have all been unwilling to challenge clearly about their actions – could easily their hopes dashed and degraded by the
themselves. So moral courage of the first be disciplined and the whole thing treatment of other service personnel –
order is part of the calling to leadership would go away. including sometimes by those in direct
– and in Australia I don’t think we take positions of power over them.
that calling at all seriously enough, either Liz Broderick could easily have
in praising those who call out unethical accommodated this line of argument. How many times have difficult issues of
behaviour, or in condemning those who As a strong leader, she did not accept organisational culture, often triggered
fail to seek a higher standard in those the argument without a proper and by public failings in leadership, resulted
they profess to lead. full interrogation. Instead, she and her in written reports, full of well-meaning
team spent hundreds of hours listening recommendations and admonitions?
To explore leadership and cultural to women and men from across every Redacted, re-interpreted and diluted,
change, I want to talk about someone branch of the Australian Defence Force, such articles of leadership serve the
who is from my perspective a hero in every conceivable location. Her team purpose of showing that serious thought
in forcing necessary cultural change: found, over time, that there were often has been given, and that things are being
Australia’s Sex Discrimination things that would not be said in a formal done. The life span of such reviews is
Commissioner, Elizabeth Broderick. setting. Some reflections could only be often as not as ephemeral as the lessons
given outside the formal setting, when that are learned. But good leadership
In taking on a Review into the treatment people felt safe enough to tell their brings people together in a way that is
of Women at ADFA, Commissioner stories in confidence. By committing truly life-changing.
Broderick’s first decision was to what time and energy to listening to men and
extent she could gain the trust and women in their own workplaces, stories Big organisations use endlessly
cooperation of the Defence Force and opening up the subtle and often hidden euphemistic language to fudge, to hide,
its senior leaders. In an environment in ways in which women are discriminated or soften the hard edges around poor
which six separate enquiries had been against, sometimes bullied, sometimes ethical practice and bad behaviour.
launched simultaneously, threatening harassed, and sadly sometimes assaulted They build rafts of policies on which
this proud organisation with disrepute, it – these stories were given time and to float a sense of security around their
would have been easy - or at least easier space to be heard. Commissioner behaviour and their public conscience.
- to work in superficial cooperation, Broderick made a point of listening to They construct mission statements telling
without the deeper engagement needed these stories in person in many, if not the world about their aspirations, as if
to build respect. Lesson two about most cases. Beyond this, she made a such statements somehow underwrite
leadership – in even the hardest times, point of ensuring practical support was a reality of experience, simply by
good leaders show respect and empathy available for women, and in some cases existing. In the end this ‘administration
for everyone, even those with vastly men, who felt deeply vulnerable, having
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