48 Thought Leaders on Leadership Training in ANZ

Last updated: June 2026

If you are responsible for developing leaders and managers in Australia or New Zealand, the question you are really asking is not what training to buy. It is who to listen to. The practitioners, researchers, coaches, and facilitators genuinely shaping how ANZ organisations build leadership capability in 2026 are doing work that is practical, evidence-based, and grounded in the specific economic and cultural context of this region.

As of June 2026, leadership training is the number one career development priority for organisations worldwide, with the LinkedIn 2025 Workplace Learning Report finding that 71 percent of organisations rank it as their top development strategy. Yet the gap between investment and outcome remains striking. Research compiled from CMI data suggests that 82 percent of managers are promoted into leadership roles without any leadership development support, while more than 40 percent of Australian businesses are missing performance targets because leaders and managers have not mastered basic management fundamentals.

The 48 people on this list were selected on three criteria. First, each person has made a documented and substantive contribution to leadership development through their practice, research, writing, facilitation, or community leadership in or directly relevant to the Australian and New Zealand context. Second, each person is actively engaging in public conversations about leadership training and manager development in 2025 or 2026. Third, this list is deliberately built to surface leaders who deserve to be far better known in this space, rather than recycling the same handful of global names that appear on every list.

Jonno White, author of Step Up or Step Out (10,000+ copies sold) and Certified Working Genius Facilitator, is included in this list on the basis of his active practice facilitating leadership workshops, executive team offsites, and manager development programs for schools, corporates, and nonprofits around the world. To book Jonno for your next leadership workshop, Working Genius session, or executive offsite, email jonno@consultclarity.org. International travel is often far more affordable than organisations expect.

For a deeper look at the infrastructure behind effective leadership development programs, check out the comprehensive guide to training topics for managers at https://www.consultclarity.org/post/training-topics-managers.

Why Does Leadership Training in Australia and New Zealand Matter?

Leadership training matters in Australia and New Zealand because the cost of poor management is both measurable and preventable. Research compiled from the Institute of Managers and Leaders reports that 76 percent of Australians have left at least one of their last three organisations because of leadership failures, whether from the leadership team, the direct manager, or both. That figure alone quantifies the cost of underinvestment in manager development.

The ANZ context adds specific complexity. Both countries operate in relatively small markets with tight talent pools, meaning leadership capability is less about competing for talent from a deep bench and more about developing the people already in the room. The public sector, healthcare, education, and professional services sectors all face acute leadership challenges specific to the regulatory, cultural, and workforce expectations of this region. The voices on this list understand those constraints from the inside.

For practitioners interested in assessment tools and frameworks for developing leadership capability, the Working Genius implementation guide at https://www.consultclarity.org/post/working-genius-implementation-guide provides one of the most practical frameworks available for teams at any stage of development. If you want external facilitation to bring these frameworks to life, book Jonno White, author of Step Up or Step Out (10,000+ copies sold), at jonno@consultclarity.org.

How This List Was Compiled

Every person on this list was selected based on their documented contribution to leadership development and manager training in or directly relevant to Australia and New Zealand. Selection criteria prioritised people who are actively sharing their thinking in 2025 and 2026, who have a demonstrable body of work, and whose primary focus is developing leadership capability. Geographic diversity across both countries, disciplinary diversity across academic, practitioner, and consulting roles, and gender diversity were all considered throughout.

Category 1: Leadership Development Authors and Researchers

This category brings together the people who have built the intellectual foundation for how leaders and managers are trained in Australia and New Zealand. Their books, research, and frameworks are the starting points that practitioners reach for when designing programs, coaching conversations, or leadership curricula.

1. Dr Kirstin Ferguson AM

One of Australia's most decorated leadership authorities, Kirstin Ferguson has spent three decades developing a body of work that bridges academic rigour and practical application. A former Royal Australian Air Force officer, she went on to lead an international consulting firm, serve as acting chair and deputy chair of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and build a research practice culminating in a PhD in leadership and culture from QUT, where she is now an Adjunct Professor. Thinkers50 ranks her among the top 50 management thinkers in the world and awarded her the Distinguished Leadership Award in 2023.

Her specific contribution to leader training is the Head and Heart framework, which identifies eight attributes of effective modern leadership and gives organisations a practical structure for assessing and developing leadership at every level. Her most recent book, Blindspotting: How to See What Others Miss (Penguin Random House Australia, 2025), extends this into how leaders can recognise and work through the cognitive blind spots that limit their effectiveness. Both books are directly usable in leadership development programs.

2. Alicia McKay

A Wellington-based writer, speaker, and strategist, Alicia McKay is the author of three books on strategy, change, and leadership, including You Don't Need an MBA and From Strategy to Action. She is the founder of Not An MBA, an accelerated executive education program through which more than 500 senior leaders across New Zealand, Australia, Canada, and the UK have built strategic leadership capability. In 2025, she was named one of the Top 25 Global Thinkers in Local Government by the UK Local Government Information Unit.

McKay's distinctive contribution to leadership training is her insistence on stripping out the jargon and complexity that make most leadership frameworks inaccessible to working managers. She has trained thousands of people in strategy, decision-making, and leadership across more than 120 organisations, and her frameworks are specifically designed for the public sector and local government context where ANZ leadership development has historically struggled to find practical, context-specific tools.

3. Dr Michelle Gibbings

The founder of Change Meridian and author of three books including Step Up: How to Build Your Influence at Work, Career Leap, and Bad Boss, Michelle Gibbings is one of Australia's most active practitioner-researchers in leadership and workplace effectiveness. She holds a Master of International Trade and is a Certified Dare to Lead Facilitator, with 30 years of experience including senior executive roles at NAB and AMP before moving into consulting and speaking.

Her specific contribution to training leaders and managers is the practical, psychologically grounded framework she has built around influence, career progression, and manager effectiveness. Bad Boss in particular has become a reference document for organisations grappling with the reality that most leadership failures happen not from malicious intent but from a lack of self-awareness and practical skill.

4. Dr Stacey Ashley CSP

Based in Sydney, Dr Stacey Ashley is a leadership visionary, executive coaching master, and the author of seven books on leadership development including The New Leader, Big Leadership, and her 2026 release Confluence: Averting the Global Leadership Crisis. She has received nine international Stevie Awards and has been named twice in LinkedIn's Top Voices for her consistently substantive content on leadership competence and executive effectiveness.

Her primary contribution to the field is her focus on future-proofing leadership, preparing CEOs and their teams not just for current challenges but for the structural shifts in how organisations will need to be led over the next decade. Her New Leader program specifically addresses the most common failure point in leadership development: the gap between technical expertise and people leadership capability when high performers are promoted into management roles.

5. Dr Maree Roche

A full professor at the University of Auckland and director of the Dame Mira Szaszy Centre for Leading Maori Workforce Development, Maree Roche is one of New Zealand's leading academic researchers in leadership, employee wellbeing, and indigenous perspectives on workforce development. She affiliates to Ngati Raukawa and brings a Te Ao Maori lens to questions of leadership capability that most international frameworks overlook entirely.

Her research contribution is her work on leader wellbeing and self-determination theory, which provides a more nuanced foundation for understanding what sustains effective leadership over time than the performance-focused frameworks that dominate the commercial training market. Her work is particularly important for organisations in New Zealand navigating te Tiriti obligations and building leadership capability that reflects the bicultural context of Aotearoa New Zealand workplaces.

Category 2: Executive Coaches and Leadership Facilitators

The people in this category are doing the direct work of developing leaders through coaching, facilitation, and structured programs. They bring frameworks to life inside organisations, work one-on-one with executives and managers, and build the muscle that training programs alone cannot develop.

6. Shelley Flett

A Melbourne-based leadership development practitioner and author, Shelley Flett is the founder of Shelley Flett Pty Ltd and creator of the Dynamic Leader Pathway, a structured suite of programs addressing specific leadership challenges including new manager transitions, team performance, and executive effectiveness. She hosts The Dynamic Leader Podcast and has built a following through consistent, practical LinkedIn content published throughout 2025 and 2026.

Her distinctive contribution is her relentless focus on the practical gap between leadership theory and daily manager behaviour. Her programs are built around the observation that most leaders fail not because they lack intelligence or good intentions but because they have not been given concrete tools for the situations that actually matter: having performance conversations, making decisions under pressure, and building teams that do not require constant oversight.

7. Dr Michelle Pizer

An executive coach and organisational psychologist based in Australia, Michelle Pizer brings clinical depth to leadership development that few practitioners in the commercial training market can match. She holds a PhD and is a former lecturer in leadership at the Australian Graduate School of Management. Her work with senior executives in private and public sector organisations combines psychometric assessment, cognitive behavioural coaching, and evidence-based leadership development.

Her contribution to the field is the evidence-based rigour she brings to the often loose claims of executive coaching. She consistently grounds her interventions in research, and her commentary challenges the coaching profession to hold itself to higher standards of evidence and outcome measurement than it has historically applied to itself.

8. Donna McGeorge

A global authority on productivity and the author of the It's About Time book series, Donna McGeorge is a Melbourne-based speaker, author, and coach who works with leaders and organisations to rebuild how their managers actually spend their time. Her books cover meeting effectiveness, daily structures, and sustainable productivity for leaders, and she consistently posts original content on LinkedIn addressing the intersection of productivity and leadership effectiveness.

McGeorge's contribution to leadership training is her focus on the structural conditions that either enable or prevent managers from leading effectively. Her argument, supported by research and grounded in practical facilitation experience, is that most leadership training treats symptoms rather than causes. She helps organisations redesign the meeting cultures, reporting structures, and time allocation patterns that are making leadership development impossible regardless of how good the training is.

9. Margie Hartley

A Sydney-based leadership coach and consultant with 22 years of experience working with senior leaders in the private and public sector, Margie Hartley runs her own coaching and consulting practice focused on mid-career and senior leader development. She has worked across financial services, government, and professional services, and is a regular contributor to public conversations about leadership capability on LinkedIn.

Her specific focus is on the self-awareness and relational capability that determines whether a technically skilled leader can actually influence, retain, and develop their team. She works with leaders who are performing well by traditional metrics but are aware that something in their approach is not working as well as it could, and her coaching brings both psychological depth and practical frameworks needed to make lasting change.

10. Ryan Castle

The CEO of The Breakthrough Company and the founder of the Active Manager Program in New Zealand, Ryan Castle has built one of New Zealand's most practically focused manager training businesses from his base in Auckland. The Active Manager Program addresses the specific challenges of new and mid-career managers in manufacturing, logistics, construction, and technology sectors, and the business publishes a regular podcast and blog reaching thousands of New Zealand leaders each month.

Castle's contribution to the field is his sector-specific, no-nonsense approach to manager training that avoids the abstraction of most leadership programs in favour of what actually changes behaviour on the floor and in the boardroom. His deep familiarity with the New Zealand manufacturing and logistics context gives him a practical credibility that resonates with organisations that need leadership development to translate into operational outcomes.

Category 3: Leadership Training Practitioners and Program Designers

These are the practitioners who design and deliver leadership development programs for organisations, building the systems and structures that embed leadership capability rather than just imparting it in a single training event.

11. Melissa Williams

The CEO and Lead Instructional Designer of Learning Dimensions Network, a specialist leadership and WHS training provider operating across Australasia, Melissa Williams has built one of Australia's most recognised learning organisations over 18 years. In 2025 she received the Gold Stevie Award for Woman of the Year in Education and was recognised as a Silver Global Thought Leader of the Year for her innovation in leadership program design.

Her contribution to leadership training specifically is her work building safety leadership programs that integrate compliance requirements with genuine leadership development, serving some of Australia's largest infrastructure and construction projects. Her 2025 Gold Stevie for a Safety Leadership program delivered across 13 major Joint Venture infrastructure projects is one of the most concrete validations of what effective leadership training looks like at scale.

12. Sonia McDonald

The CEO and Founder of LeadershipHQ and Worksparks, and a former Senior HR Executive, Sonia McDonald has built an Australian leadership development business that combines keynote speaking, coaching, and online learning with a consistent content practice on LinkedIn. She has authored multiple books on leadership and is recognised internationally as an influential voice in the leadership development conversation.

McDonald's distinctive contribution is her focus on courageous, human-centred leadership and her commitment to making evidence from neuroscience and psychology accessible to practising managers who do not have time for academic research. Her approach consistently bridges the research-to-practice gap that makes so many leadership programs theoretically sound but operationally useless.

13. Claire Seeber

A Perth-based leadership and career development consultant, speaker, and author, Claire Seeber works with emerging and mid-career leaders who are navigating the transition from technical expertise to genuine leadership effectiveness. She is the author of a practical guide to leadership for early and mid-career professionals and builds her practice around helping leaders develop the self-awareness and professional confidence they need to lead with greater impact.

Her contribution to the field is her practical focus on the people who most leadership programs treat as an afterthought: the emerging leader and the mid-career professional who has been promoted but not developed. Her work with individuals and organisations in this segment addresses one of the most consistent failure points in ANZ talent pipelines.

14. Mark Wager

The founder and director of the Australasian Leadership Institute based in Auckland, Mark Wager has spent many years developing the emotional intelligence, people skills, and leadership confidence of managers across New Zealand and Australia. The Australasian Leadership Institute has delivered leadership workshops and coaching to organisations including Amnesty International, NZ Red Cross, Heartland Bank, NZ Rugby League, and Weta Workshops.

Wager's contribution is his practical focus on the mindset dimension of leadership development that is frequently neglected in skills-based programs. His work is grounded in the observation that most leadership training fails not because managers do not learn the frameworks but because they never change how they see themselves in the leadership role, and that self-perception change requires both coaching and repetition over time.

15. Leanne Holdsworth

A New Zealand-based leadership specialist, author, and Associate with Cultivating Leadership, Leanne Holdsworth works at the intersection of AI and human-centred leadership. She has spoken at Leadership New Zealand events on humanising workplaces in the age of AI, and her writing and speaking focus on how organisations can build leadership cultures where people genuinely thrive even as technology reshapes the conditions of work.

Her specific contribution to leadership training is her research into what makes workplaces genuinely human, and how leaders can develop the practical capabilities to build those conditions rather than simply being told that culture matters. Her approach is evidence-based and directly applicable to the challenges ANZ organisations face in 2025 and 2026 as AI integration accelerates.

Category 4: Leadership Academics and Researchers

The academic voices in this category are building the research base that effective leadership training draws on. Their work moves beyond popular management frameworks into the evidence and theory that practitioners and program designers need to ground their work in something more durable than trend.

16. Dr Carol Kulik

A Research Professor of Human Resource Management and a senior researcher within the Centre for Workplace Excellence at the University of South Australia, Carol Kulik specialises in line managers, human resources, and diversity and inclusion. She is the co-author of Human Resources for the Non-HR Manager (Routledge, 2023) and is a Fellow of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology and the Academy of Management.

Her specific contribution to the training of leaders and managers is her research on what line managers actually need to build effective team cultures, and why most HR training for managers fails to change behaviour. Her work consistently challenges the assumption that information transfer equals capability development and provides a more rigorous framework for understanding what actually produces lasting change in how managers lead.

17. Prof Chellie Spiller

A professor and leadership development facilitator at the University of Waikato and co-founder of Catalyst Leadership with her partner Dr Rodger Spiller, Chellie Spiller brings a rare combination of academic depth and practical facilitation to the field of ethical and sustainable leadership development. She has delivered leadership programs for the Asian Development Bank, IBM, Google, Spark, and the Harvard Kennedy School.

Her contribution is her integration of indigenous wisdom, sustainability thinking, and inner development into leadership programs that go beyond the tactical skills most corporate training focuses on. Her research is particularly relevant for ANZ organisations grappling with Maori and Pacific perspectives on leadership and with the sustainability obligations that are reshaping what effective leadership needs to look like.

18. Dr Michael Bunting

The co-author of Extraordinary Leadership in Australia and New Zealand (with Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner) and author of The Mindful Leader, Michael Bunting is an Australian leadership consultant, executive coach, and author who has built a substantial body of work on mindful leadership. He co-founded WorkSmart Global and has delivered leadership programs to thousands of ANZ leaders across the corporate, government, and not-for-profit sectors.

His contribution to the training conversation is his accessible but rigorous approach to mindfulness in leadership, grounded in his co-authored research with Kouzes and Posner on how the Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership play out specifically in the Australian and New Zealand context. The Extraordinary Leadership in Australia and New Zealand book is one of the few leadership development resources built from research specifically collected in this region.

19. Prof Jarrod Haar

A Professor at the Auckland University of Technology and one of New Zealand's most prolific researchers in organisational behaviour, human resource management, and Maori employee wellbeing, Jarrod Haar has published extensively on leadership, work-life balance, job satisfaction, and indigenous workforce development. His research provides one of the strongest empirical foundations for understanding what leadership actually does to employee wellbeing and performance in the New Zealand context.

His contribution to the field is the sheer volume and quality of evidence he has produced on what makes leadership effective in New Zealand organisations. For program designers and practitioners trying to ground their work in ANZ-specific evidence rather than US or UK research, Haar's work is an essential starting point.

Category 5: Women's Leadership Development Voices

This category surfaces the voices who are shaping how women in ANZ organisations develop their leadership capability, and who are building the infrastructure for more equitable leadership development across both countries.

20. Danielle Dobson

The founder of Code Switching and a researcher, author, and speaker focused on gender equity in leadership, Danielle Dobson has built her practice around the specific challenges women face in developing and exercising leadership in ANZ organisations. Her research on code switching, the performance adjustments women make to navigate male-dominated environments, has been featured in media across Australia and is directly relevant to the design of leadership development programs that are genuinely inclusive.

Her contribution to the field is the research base she has built around what actually happens when women try to use conventional leadership training frameworks designed for and by men. Her work gives organisations the evidence they need to redesign leadership development that works for all leaders.

21. Colleen Callander

The former CEO of Sportsgirl and Sussan, founder of the Mentor Me Women initiative, and author of The Power of Confidence (2026), Colleen Callander brings a combination of executive credibility and community building to the women's leadership conversation that is rare in the ANZ market. Her keynote at the National HR Summit Australia in 2026 reflects her standing as a thought leader whose insights span the executive, coaching, and culture dimensions of leadership development.

Her contribution to the field is her direct, experience-based approach to leadership development that starts from what she actually did to lead two major retail organisations effectively, rather than from theoretical frameworks. Her Mentor Me Women initiative has provided direct development support to thousands of women across Australia.

22. Michelle Redfern

A Melbourne-based advocate, consultant, and founder of Advancing Women focused on gender equity and women's career advancement, Michelle Redfern works with organisations across Australia to build the leadership development infrastructure that enables women to advance to senior roles and stay there. Her work combines advocacy with practical program design and has influenced how numerous large Australian organisations think about inclusive leadership development.

Her contribution is her consistent challenge to leadership development programs that claim to be inclusive while reproducing the conditions that make advancement difficult for women, and her practical work redesigning those programs from the ground up.

Category 6: Coaching Culture and Coaching Skills for Leaders

The voices in this category are focused on building the coaching capability of managers and leaders themselves, not just coaching leaders as clients. They are changing how organisations think about the relationship between good management and good coaching.

23. Tim Baker

A Brisbane-based consultant, author, and speaker focused on performance management, manager effectiveness, and the relationship between how managers give feedback and how teams perform, Tim Baker has published multiple books on management practice and is a regular presence in Australian corporate leadership development programs. His work on reconceiving performance management away from the annual review toward ongoing coaching conversations is directly aligned with where Australian organisations are trying to take their management capability.

His contribution to the field is his practical, research-grounded challenge to the feedback and performance management practices that most ANZ organisations still use, and his accessible frameworks for helping managers have the conversations that actually drive performance rather than just documenting it.

24. Gerard Penna

A Melbourne-based executive coach, podcast host of the Xtraordinary Leaders podcast, and leadership development consultant, Gerard Penna has spent years building a practice focused on helping senior leaders and their organisations develop genuine leadership capability. He has worked extensively in the ANZ corporate market and is a regular voice in leadership development circles through his podcast interviews with international leadership researchers and practitioners.

His contribution to the field is his work connecting ANZ practitioners with the global leadership development conversation, and his consistent focus on what the research says about what actually develops leaders effectively over time.

25. Jonno White

A Brisbane-based leadership consultant, Certified Working Genius Facilitator, and author of Step Up or Step Out (10,000+ copies sold globally), Jonno White works with schools, corporates, and nonprofits around the world to develop their leadership capability through Working Genius facilitation, executive team offsites, workshops, and coaching. He is the host of The Leadership Conversations Podcast, now more than 230 episodes with listeners in 150+ countries, and the founder of The 7 Questions Movement, through which more than 6,000 leaders have engaged in structured leadership development conversations.

White's specific contribution to leadership training in ANZ is his practical integration of the Working Genius framework (created by Patrick Lencioni and The Table Group) into ongoing leadership development for teams. Unlike trainers who run a single assessment event and move on, his approach builds the framework into how teams operate over time. His book Step Up or Step Out, focused on difficult conversations and conflict resolution in leadership contexts, is directly used by managers navigating the people challenges that most leadership programs fail to adequately prepare them for.

To work with Jonno directly, email jonno@consultclarity.org. International travel is often more affordable than organisations expect, and virtual delivery is available worldwide.

26. Dr Stacey Ashley CSP (coaching programs)

See full profile in Category 1, entry 4. Dr Ashley's coaching culture programs, including her Certificate IV in Workplace and Business Coaching and her Executive Forum for CEOs, represent one of the most comprehensive approaches to building coaching capability in ANZ leaders available in the market today. Her 30 years of practice give her programs a depth of tested application that newer coaching culture offerings cannot match.

Category 7: Emerging and Mid-Tier Voices

This category surfaces the practitioners who are building their impact and voice in the ANZ leadership development space in 2025 and 2026. These are people whose influence is still growing, and who represent the next generation of leadership development thought leaders in this region.

27. Katie O'Malley

The founder and leadership coach at Encourage Coaching in New Zealand, Katie O'Malley focuses on self-awareness as the foundation of effective leadership and has built a coaching practice that works with leaders at all levels to develop the internal capabilities that determine how effectively they can develop others. She appeared on The Breakthrough Company podcast in 2025 discussing self-awareness and manager training, reflecting her growing profile in the NZ leadership development community.

Her contribution is her focus on the internal, less visible dimensions of leadership development that most programs skip in favour of the behavioural and strategic skills that are easier to teach. Her clients include leaders who have completed substantial conventional leadership training but are still struggling because the self-awareness foundation was never built.

28. Prof Helena Nguyen

A Professor in Work and Organisational Studies and co-director of the Body, Heart and Mind in Business Research Group at the University of Sydney Business School, Helena Nguyen brings rigorous academic research to the leadership development conversation, particularly on the role of emotions and cognition in leader effectiveness. Her research interests span human performance, work engagement, and wellbeing, all of which are directly relevant to understanding why leadership development programs do or do not produce lasting behaviour change.

Her contribution to the field is the research she brings to questions about why leaders do not use what they learn in training, and what the conditions are for genuine transfer of learning into leadership practice.

29. Dr Rodger Spiller

The co-founder of Catalyst Leadership in New Zealand alongside Prof Chellie Spiller, Rodger Spiller is a PhD-qualified leadership development facilitator and ethical business researcher who has delivered programs for organisations including the Atlantic Fellows for Social Equity at Oxford and the Asian Development Bank. His work integrates inner development with outer leadership effectiveness in a way that most commercial leadership training does not attempt.

His contribution is the rigour and depth he brings to questions of ethical leadership development in the New Zealand context, and the practical programs he and Chellie Spiller have built to serve organisations that want something more substantial than a skills workshop.

30. Marie-Claire Ross

A Sydney-based leadership speaker, author, and trust researcher, Marie-Claire Ross is the author of Trusted to Thrive and Transform your Safety Communication, and has built her practice around the specific challenges of building trust in leadership relationships and safety-conscious work environments. Her books are grounded in research on what actually builds trust between leaders and teams, and her speaking and facilitation work bring this research directly into leadership development programs.

Her contribution to the field is her focus on trust as the foundational competency that all other leadership capabilities depend on, and her practical frameworks for helping leaders diagnose and rebuild trust in their teams.

31. Zoe Routh

A Canberra-based leadership author, speaker, and facilitator, Zoe Routh is the author of multiple books on leadership including Composure: How Centred Leaders Make the Biggest Impact and People Stuff: Beyond Personality Problems, a practical guide to leading teams more effectively. She hosts the People Stuff podcast and has built a consistent practice working with government, corporate, and not-for-profit organisations across Australia on leadership effectiveness.

Her contribution to leadership training is her focus on composure and equanimity as trainable leadership capabilities, and her practical writing and facilitation work that helps leaders develop the inner steadiness they need to lead under pressure.

32. Gabrielle Dolan

A Melbourne-based author, keynote speaker, and business storytelling expert, Gabrielle Dolan is the author of multiple books on authentic communication including Ignite: Real Leadership, Real Talk, Real Results, which focuses on how leaders can communicate with authenticity and impact. Her work is used extensively in leadership development programs across Australia as a practical tool for developing the communication capability that most frameworks treat as a given.

Her contribution to leadership training is her demonstration that authentic communication is a learnable skill and her practical frameworks for helping leaders develop it through deliberate practice rather than hoping they will somehow become more genuine over time.

33. David Penglase

A Sydney-based researcher, author, and speaker on trust, integrity, and intentional leadership, David Penglase has built a practice focused on the ethical dimensions of how leaders develop themselves and their teams. His books and speaking work address the gap between what leaders say they value and what their actual behaviour demonstrates, and his research provides a practical framework for closing that gap.

His contribution is his focus on intentionality and integrity as the foundational dimensions of effective leadership development, and his challenge to the assumption that leadership training alone can produce ethical, trust-building leaders without a deeper examination of the values and intentions that drive behaviour.

34. Craig Johns

A New Zealand-born high-performance leadership speaker, facilitator, and founder of nilo.health, Craig Johns brings an elite sport background to the leadership development conversation, having coached and worked with world champion athletes before building a practice focused on high-performance leadership in the corporate and government sectors. He hosts the Craig Johns High Performance Leadership podcast and has built a following through consistent, research-grounded content.

His contribution to the field is his integration of the performance science and psychology that drives elite athlete development into the manager and leader development context, bringing evidence and disciplines that the leadership training industry has historically borrowed from without rigour.

Category 8: Leadership Speakers and Culture Practitioners

The people in this category are shaping the broader conversation about what effective leadership development looks like through their speaking, writing, and culture change work, influencing how organisations invest in and think about developing their leaders.

35. Holly Ransom

The CEO of Emergent Global, a director of Port Adelaide Football Club, and one of Australia's most in-demand leadership speakers, Holly Ransom has built a global practice around the future of leadership and intergenerational influence. Named one of Australia's 100 Women of Influence by Westpac and the Australian Financial Review, she combines deep research with high-impact delivery on stages around the world.

Her contribution to the leadership development conversation is her focus on the generational and future-of-work dimensions of leadership that most training programs address inadequately. Her work challenges organisations to think about what leadership capability they will need in five years rather than just the skills that are missing today.

36. Dana Battersby

A New Zealand-based leadership coach, speaker, and facilitator focused on leadership presence and authentic communication for leaders, Dana Battersby has built a practice helping leaders develop the visible, behavioural dimensions of leadership that training programs often neglect in favour of strategy and frameworks. Her LinkedIn content is consistent and practical, and she works with leaders across sectors in New Zealand.

Her contribution is her focus on the performative dimensions of leadership: how leaders show up, how they communicate under pressure, how they build presence. These are often treated as personality traits rather than learnable skills, and her practical programs develop them as capabilities.

37. Warrick Layt

A Queensland-based leadership consultant, coach, and facilitator who works with organisations across the corporate, government, and community sectors, Warrick Layt has built a practice focused on developing leadership capability at the senior and executive level. His approach combines strengths-based leadership development with practical team effectiveness work.

His contribution is his work helping organisations understand that leadership development is not a once-a-year event but a continuous process that needs to be built into how their leaders work every day, and his practical programs for embedding that development into operational rhythms.

38. Kerrie Dobing

An enterprise-level learning and leadership development practitioner based in Australia with experience designing leadership development programs for large retail and services organisations, Kerrie Dobing has built expertise in the specific challenge of making leadership development consistent and accessible at scale across organisations with thousands of employees in hundreds of locations.

Her contribution is her expertise in the enterprise-scale leadership development problem that most leadership consultants do not work at: how do you develop leadership capability consistently when your organisation has hundreds of managers spread across dozens of sites?

39. Rebecca Houghton

The founder of BoldHR and author of Bold: The New Rules for Business Success in ANZ, Rebecca Houghton is a Melbourne-based leadership strategist and author who has built a practice focused on developing senior leaders and HR professionals who can build leadership capability at scale. Her work challenges the conventional wisdom about what leadership development requires and her writing addresses the organisational conditions that make leadership development either work or fail.

Her contribution is her strategic view of leadership development as an organisational capability building challenge rather than an individual training challenge, and her practical frameworks for how organisations can build the conditions that enable leaders to develop continuously rather than episodically.

40. Jennifer Frahm

A Melbourne-based author, change communication specialist, and leadership development practitioner, Jennifer Frahm focuses on the intersection of communication, change, and leadership capability. Her book Conversations of Change and her consistent writing and facilitation practice address what managers and leaders need to navigate the change-heavy environments that most ANZ organisations are operating in right now.

Her contribution is her focus on change leadership as a distinct and learnable capability, and her practical frameworks for helping managers develop the communication and engagement skills that change situations demand.

41. Nick Petrie

A New Zealand-born leadership development researcher, author, and senior fellow at the Center for Creative Leadership who has built a global practice focused on vertical leadership development, Nick Petrie has done more than perhaps any other practitioner to establish the evidence base for why most leadership training does not work. His research on future trends in leadership development, published through CCL, has been widely influential in how organisations in Australia, New Zealand, and globally think about what effective leadership development actually requires.

His contribution is his evidence-based challenge to the assumption that most leadership training does anything other than add new horizontal skills, and his frameworks for developing the deeper cognitive and psychological maturity that complex leadership roles actually require. His work is directly applicable to any ANZ organisation wrestling with why their leadership training is not producing the change they expected.

42. Prof Neal Ashkanasy

An Emeritus Professor at the University of Queensland Business School and one of Australia's most cited organisational behaviour researchers, Neal Ashkanasy has built a decades-long research career focused on emotions in leadership, leadership development, and organisational culture. His work provides some of the strongest Australian evidence base for understanding why leaders behave the way they do and what interventions actually change leadership behaviour.

His contribution to the field is the research depth he brings to questions about emotional intelligence and leadership development that the popular management market has often oversimplified, and his continued engagement with both academic and practitioner audiences to translate rigorous findings into usable insights.

43. Liz Skelton

An Adelaide-based leadership facilitator, organisational development specialist, and founding partner of Collaboration for Impact, Liz Skelton works with government, not-for-profit, and corporate organisations across Australia to build adaptive leadership capability. Her work is particularly focused on the complex leadership challenges that systems change requires: building leadership capability in contexts where the problems are not technical but adaptive.

Her contribution is her practical expertise in adaptive leadership development for organisations working in complex systems, and her facilitation work that builds the leadership capability to hold uncertainty, engage across difference, and lead change that does not have a predetermined answer.

44. Adam Ware

A Brisbane-based leadership consultant and facilitator focused on strengths-based leadership development and team effectiveness, Adam Ware works with organisations across Queensland and nationally to build leadership capability through structured development programs, executive coaching, and team facilitation. He has a consistent LinkedIn presence sharing practical leadership content and works with both public and private sector clients.

His contribution is his strengths-based approach to leadership development that builds on what people already do well rather than solely addressing deficits, and his practical programs for embedding strengths awareness into how teams and leaders operate day-to-day.

45. Alicia Raeburn

A New Zealand-based leadership coach, writer, and facilitator who publishes regularly on leadership development and manager effectiveness, Alicia Raeburn has built a practice focused on helping leaders at the mid-career stage develop the strategic and relational capabilities they need to move into senior leadership roles. Her writing reaches a consistent audience through LinkedIn and is grounded in her direct coaching work with leaders across the NZ market.

Her contribution is her focus on the often-neglected mid-career development gap: the leaders who have proven themselves as managers but need specific development to build the strategic, political, and relational capabilities of senior leadership.

46. Jenni Proctor

A New Zealand-based leadership and team development facilitator who works across the private, public, and not-for-profit sectors, Jenni Proctor has built a practice focused on team effectiveness, leadership communication, and the specific capability needs of new and emerging leaders in New Zealand organisations. She is actively engaged in the NZ leadership development conversation through LinkedIn and public speaking.

Her contribution is her practical focus on what actually happens when leadership development is embedded in teams rather than delivered to individuals in isolation, and her experience building programs that change how teams interact rather than just how individual leaders think.

47. Craig Lennox

A Brisbane-based leadership coach and facilitator who works with corporate and government clients across Australia on senior leadership capability and team effectiveness, Craig Lennox has built a practice that combines executive coaching with team facilitation and leadership program design. His LinkedIn content focuses consistently on practical leadership challenges and research-grounded approaches to developing manager capability.

His contribution is his work at the intersection of individual coaching and team development, helping organisations understand that leadership capability is not just an individual property but a collective one that needs to be built across whole leadership teams simultaneously.

48. Shelley McMurtrie

A New Zealand-based leadership coach and facilitator focused on frontline and emerging leader development, Shelley McMurtrie has built a practice working with ANZ organisations to develop the tier of leaders that most formal development programs underserve: the team leaders, supervisors, and first-time managers who are responsible for the daily experience of the majority of the workforce but who rarely receive the development investment that senior leaders do.

Her contribution is her consistent advocacy for investing in frontline leadership development and her practical experience building programs that reach leaders at this level in a format that works for them given their operational constraints.

Notable Voices We Almost Included

Designing this list required making choices about scope. Several voices who contribute meaningfully to leadership development in the ANZ region were not included because their primary contribution is to a more specific domain. Jennifer Liston-Smith (coaching supervision), several strong voices from the organisational psychology academic community whose primary research focus is not leadership training specifically, and a number of international practitioners with ANZ presence but primarily global work were all considered and excluded on scope grounds. Globally, figures like Amy Edmondson, Jennifer Garvey Berger, and Nick Craig make important contributions to the intellectual foundations of leadership development, but this list is deliberately focused on the ANZ context.

Common Mistakes to Avoid When Learning From These Thought Leaders

The most common mistake organisations make when engaging with leadership development thought leaders is treating exposure as development. Attending a keynote, reading a book, or following someone on LinkedIn builds awareness. Awareness is not the same as capability. The leaders on this list are valuable not because consuming their content will develop your managers but because applying their frameworks, engaging their programs, and testing their ideas against your own leadership practice will.

The second most common mistake is treating leadership development as an event rather than a process. Every practitioner on this list knows that a single training day, no matter how well designed, does not produce lasting behaviour change. The organisations that get the most from the voices on this list are the ones that build ongoing engagement with the ideas, frameworks, and tools into how their leaders work every day.

The third mistake is applying frameworks designed for one context to a different context without adaptation. The ANZ context is specific. Tim Baker's work on performance management is grounded in Australian corporate culture. Alicia McKay's strategy frameworks are built for New Zealand public sector organisations. Nick Petrie's vertical development research is designed for environments with genuinely complex leadership challenges. Applying any of these without understanding the context they are designed for produces at best mediocre results.

The fourth mistake is building leadership development exclusively around the most senior leaders while leaving frontline and middle managers underdeveloped. The research is unambiguous: most organisational performance is determined not by C-suite leadership but by how well middle managers and team leaders develop and deploy their teams. The voices on this list who focus on that tier of leadership, including Ryan Castle, Shelley Flett, and Stacey Ashley with her New Leader program, deserve particular attention from organisations struggling with execution and team performance.

Implementation Guide

To use this list effectively, start with a clear diagnosis of where your leadership development gaps actually sit. Is the challenge frontline manager capability? Senior leader effectiveness? Coaching culture? Strategic thinking? Each category on this list addresses a different dimension, and the voices who will add most value depend on what you are actually trying to develop.

For organisations at the beginning of building a leadership development strategy, the authors and researchers in Category 1 provide the intellectual foundation. Start with Kirstin Ferguson's Head and Heart framework for a practical structure for thinking about what modern leadership requires. Add Alicia McKay's From Strategy to Action for the specific challenge of translating leadership capability into organisational outcomes. Add Nick Petrie's research on vertical leadership development for an evidence-based understanding of what your development programs will need to do if they are going to produce lasting change.

For organisations with existing programs that are not producing the behaviour change they expected, the coaching and facilitation practitioners in Category 2 are the most valuable starting point. Shelley Flett's Dynamic Leader framework, Tim Baker's work on performance conversations, and Dr Michelle Gibbings' work on workplace effectiveness all address the structural reasons that training does not translate into changed leadership behaviour.

For organisations building or rebuilding their culture of leadership development, the coaching culture voices and the culture practitioners in Categories 6 and 8 are particularly relevant. Jonno White's Working Genius facilitation work, available through jonno@consultclarity.org, is one of the most practical tools for building shared language and shared understanding of how leadership contributions work across a team.

To engage Jonno White, author of Step Up or Step Out (10,000+ copies sold) and Certified Working Genius Facilitator, for a keynote, workshop, or executive team offsite, email jonno@consultclarity.org. Many organisations find that flying Jonno in from Brisbane is far more affordable than expected, and virtual options are always available.

Frequently Asked Questions

What makes someone a genuine thought leader in leadership training rather than just a speaker?

A genuine thought leader in leadership training has a documented body of work that organisations can use to develop their leaders, not just a motivating message that helps people feel good for an afternoon. The difference shows up in whether their ideas and frameworks produce lasting behaviour change in managers and leaders after the training event ends. The people on this list have built books, research, programs, and facilitation practices that give their thinking practical application. That combination of idea generation and practical implementation infrastructure distinguishes leadership development thought leaders from motivational speakers, however excellent those speakers may be.

How should I use this list to improve my organisation's leadership development?

Start by identifying which gap in your current leadership development this list might help you close. If your challenge is frontline manager capability, focus on Ryan Castle's Active Manager work, Shelley Flett's Dynamic Leader programs, and Stacey Ashley's New Leader framework. If your challenge is senior leadership effectiveness, Kirstin Ferguson's Head and Heart framework and Nick Petrie's vertical development research are the most directly applicable starting points. If your challenge is building a coaching culture, explore the work of Jonno White (jonno@consultclarity.org), Tim Baker, and Dr Michelle Gibbings.

Are there leadership development voices in New Zealand specifically worth following?

Yes, and the NZ context is importantly different from the Australian one in several ways that matter for leadership development. Te Ao Maori and bicultural obligations shape what effective leadership development looks like in NZ organisations in ways that purely Australian frameworks do not address. Alicia McKay, Maree Roche, Chellie and Rodger Spiller, Ryan Castle, and Mark Wager are all doing work specifically grounded in the New Zealand context. Their work is built for the specific cultural and organisational conditions of Aotearoa New Zealand.

What should I look for when choosing a leadership development practitioner for my organisation?

Look for someone who can articulate a clear theory of change: how will this training produce lasting behaviour change, and what mechanisms will support transfer back to the workplace? Look for evidence of outcomes from their previous work, not just testimonials about how enjoyable the training was. Look for someone who understands your specific context, sector, and the particular constraints your leaders operate under. And look for someone who is willing to invest time in understanding what you actually need before recommending a program.

Final Thoughts

The organisations that develop the best leaders in Australia and New Zealand in 2026 will not be the ones that spend the most on leadership training. They will be the ones that are most deliberate about what they are trying to develop, most consistent in how they support leaders to apply what they learn, and most honest about what their current leadership culture is actually producing. The 48 voices on this list are the best starting points available in this region for building that deliberateness, consistency, and honesty into how your organisation develops its leaders.

The research is unambiguous that leadership development is one of the highest-return investments any organisation can make. The implementation is where most organisations fall short. For practical support translating the frameworks and ideas from this list into actual leadership development programs for your organisation, email Jonno White at jonno@consultclarity.org. Jonno works with schools, corporates, and nonprofits around the world as a Certified Working Genius Facilitator, keynote speaker, and executive team facilitator.

For more on the learning and development infrastructure that supports effective leadership development programs, explore the list of 50 Best L&D Thought Leaders in Australia and New Zealand at https://www.consultclarity.org/post/learning-development-thought-leaders-australia-new-zealand.

The leaders on this list deserve to be far better known than they currently are. Start following them, engage with their work, and bring their best ideas into your organisation's leadership development practice.

About the Author

Jonno White is a Certified Working Genius Facilitator, author of Step Up or Step Out, and leadership consultant who has worked with schools, corporates, and nonprofits around the world. His book Step Up or Step Out has sold over 10,000 copies globally, and his podcast The Leadership Conversations has featured 230+ episodes reaching listeners in 150+ countries. Jonno founded The 7 Questions Movement with 6,000+ participating leaders and achieved a 93.75% satisfaction rating for his Working Genius masterclass at the ASBA 2025 National Conference. Based in Brisbane, Australia, Jonno works globally and regularly travels for speaking and facilitation engagements. Organisations consistently find that international travel is far more affordable than expected. To book Jonno for your next keynote, workshop, or facilitation session, email jonno@consultclarity.org.

Sources

LinkedIn 2025 Workplace Learning Report. Institute of Managers and Leaders (Australian leadership development research). CMI (data on managers promoted without training). Thinkers50 (Kirstin Ferguson rankings and awards, 2023 and 2025). UK Local Government Information Unit (Alicia McKay Top 25 Global Thinkers in Local Government, 2025).

Next Read

The work of developing leaders does not happen in isolation from the broader learning and development infrastructure of your organisation. The list of 50 Best L&D Thought Leaders in Australia and New Zealand profiles the practitioners, strategists, and innovators who are building that infrastructure across the region. Keep reading: https://www.consultclarity.org/post/learning-development-thought-leaders-australia-new-zealand.