The Heart of a Leader: “Creating a Cadre of Competent Leaders”

One morning, Nelson Salangsang from QUT visited me at my office offering a capacity building opportunity for the Department of Trade and Industry in the Philippines. I was a regional director  (Region XI) then. The program went ahead, building the leadership capacity of my whole senior management team.

I later became the Undersecretary for Trade and Industry, and QUT continued to work with The Department of Trade and Industry through various programs, mainly geared towards enabling the micro, small and medium enterprises, and improve trade links between Philippines and Australia. Australia has become Philippines’ valued trading partner.

But at a personal level, the best impact for me out of all my engagements in Australia, is that most of my senior management team, who went through the program have become key players in industry development. They have become fine regional directors, taking with them the lessons they learned from their Australian experience. It’s amazing that a program like the Public Sector Linkages Program and Australia Awards can have such a meaningful impact by creating a cadre of competent leaders.