About Justine
I’ve spent my career trying to understand what makes leadership development work.
For more than 20 years, I've partnered with organisations to design leadership strategies, frameworks, and programs.
Across different industries, organisational contexts and leadership levels, I've had the opportunity to see leadership development from many angles.
Some programs created lasting change. Others generated plenty of enthusiasm but shifted little once people returned to work.
Like many practitioners, I initially looked to the quality of the program for the answer: the content, the facilitation, the participant experience.
Those things do matter. But over time, I realised the difference wasn't always in the program.
It was often in the organisation surrounding it.
Looking beyond the program.
Leadership development doesn’t happen in isolation.
It happens within an organisation that is constantly shaping leadership behaviour.
Through the expectations leaders are held to. The opportunities they have to practise. The conversations they have with their line managers. The feedback they receive. The behaviours that are recognised and rewarded.
And the processes and practices that either reinforce new ways of leading or quietly pull people back towards old habits.
The more I observed this, the more I kept coming back to the same idea:
Leadership development creates its greatest value when it becomes something an organisation does, not simply something it buys.
A broader ambition for leadership development.
Today, I believe every investment in leadership development should achieve two things: develop better leaders today and strengthen the organisation's capacity to develop leaders tomorrow.
Many organisations invest successfully in the first. Fewer deliberately invest in the second.
Yet it's the interaction between the two that creates the greatest long-term value.
When each investment leaves behind stronger organisational capacity, the next starts from a stronger foundation. Over time, that growing capacity becomes an organisational capability.
Leadership development stops being a series of disconnected initiatives and becomes something the organisation gets better at doing.
That’s the work I love.
As my thinking about leadership development has broadened, so has my ambition for the contribution I want to make - bringing together what I've learned about behaviour change, leadership development and organisational systems to help organisations develop better leaders and become better at developing them.
From observation to methodology.
Over time, these observations evolved into two interconnected organising principles that now guide my work.
The Knowing-to-Doing Pathway™ grew from my interest in what it actually takes to move from knowing how to do something to actually doing it. It helps design the participant journey around the way behaviour change is most likely to occur.
The LDS Wheel™ grew from recognising that behaviour change doesn't happen in isolation. It helps organisations understand and intentionally strengthen the conditions that allow new leadership behaviours to take hold and endure.
One designs for behaviour change. The other designs the conditions that allow that behaviour change to last.
Together, they inform how I help organisations design, build and deliver leadership programs, and understand and strengthen the leadership development systems that surround them.
Different challenges require different starting points, but the ambition remains the same: to help organisations get more from leadership development.
The way I like to work.
I believe the best leadership development solutions are co-designed, not prescribed.
That means thoughtful conversations, healthy challenge and close collaboration with the people who know the organisation best.
I bring research, experience, and seasoned judgement. My clients bring their own expertise, organisational knowledge and understanding of what will and won't work in their context.
The best solutions emerge when we put those things together.
Sometimes that means designing and delivering a custom leadership program. Sometimes it's understanding and strengthening the leadership development system that surrounds your leaders. And sometimes it's simply helping an HR Director work through an important leadership development decision.
Whatever the engagement, my role is the same: to broaden how organisations think about leadership development so they can make better decisions and act on them with confidence.
A little about me.
I'm a registered psychologist with two Master’s degrees - one in Organisational Psychology and another in Applied Positive Psychology.
Over more than 20 years, I've partnered with organisations across the public and private sectors to strengthen leadership capability through strategies, frameworks and custom programs.
The point where good thinking meets useful action energises me. My background in psychology means I care deeply about evidence; more than two decades in practice have taught me to care just as much about whether an idea works in the reality of organisational life.
I enjoy making complicated things simpler, exploring ideas with people and translating research into practical approaches that make sense for the organisation in front of me, not someone else's.
While some principles of leadership development may travel well, every organisation brings its own context, culture and possibilities. That’s why I'm still fascinated by how organisations become better at developing leaders; I now just have a much clearer view of what it takes.
Let’s work out what will create the greatest impact.
Whether you're designing a leadership program, strengthening how your organisation develops leaders or simply working through where to invest next, I'd love to hear what you're trying to achieve.
Together, we'll work out what will create the greatest impact for your leaders and your organisation.