AGSL’s mission is enhancing global leadership capability and practice in all fields of endeavour, by:

• Advancing knowledge and understanding of leadership;
• Promoting and enabling a lifelong learning approach among leaders;
• Providing leadership education of high quality to meet market needs;
• Actively incorporating insights from and for community leaders in leadership learning;
• Contributing to more equitable, civil, and democratic societies; and
• Improving national economies through high levels of skills, knowledge and research.

AGSL lives out its mission through the achievement of these goals:

Advancing knowledge and understanding of leadership
AGSL’s long-standing research collaborations with universities and the thematic analysis of the growing and unique repertoire of longitudinal leadership case studies developed by doctoral candidates and graduates are advancing knowledge and understanding of leadership.

Promoting and enabling a lifelong learning approach among leaders
Over the past five decades, thousands of middle and senior managers in Australian businesses and government departments have benefited from AGSL programs, in terms of their personal growth and fulfilment, effective participation in the workforce, and constructive contributions to society. Among the many examples of these programs is a series of 12-week, intensive on-job strategic leadership programs for a major Australian bank.

Providing leadership education of high quality to meet market needs
AGSL aims to bridge the gap between theory and practice more effectively and to provide a much stronger values base informing both. We recognise and incorporate into our courses as much as possible the trend towards “course personalisation”. Drawing on the valuable insights and feedback from small group discussion sessions and individual in-depth interviews with past participants and Advisory Council members, AGSL has introduced a number of course delivery and content innovations designed to improve the quality of development provided to course participants.

Actively incorporating insights from and for community leaders in leadership learning
Economic activity, whether in the public or private sector, whether for profit or for purpose, does not take place in a vacuum. AGSL enables business, government, and community leaders to achieve a greater impact by equipping them with the multiple perspectives given by differing social, cultural and international knowledge, skills and attitudes that assist them do a better job of improving the quality of life for all citizens.

Contributing to more equitable, civil, and democratic societies
The multiple contexts of leadership that participants come to understand on their learning journey with AGSL typically highlight the transitions that are occurring in organisational leadership, from an autocratic focus on generating short-term outcomes primarily to the advantage of a limited set of stakeholders, towards a collaboratively distributed leadership that adopts a holistic, multi-stakeholder, equitable and inclusive service approach in regard to all stakeholders, irrespective of their relative power and influence.

Improving national economies through high levels of skills, knowledge and research
AGSL’s initial raison d’être over 50 years ago was to create a bridge between the business community and leading world class academics, including collaborative research with business, industry and government. AGSL’s continuing intensive collaboration and our commitment to linking theory to practice over the past five decades has been expanded to include community organisations and the civil society sector, cementing AGSL’s place as a richly connected node in a multilateral set of relationships between the academic world and leadership at senior levels in all areas of endeavour.