The Management Acceleration Programme gives you a new perspective on leadership. But it’s not just that. The programme gives you the space and the time to step back and look at your own leadership style, and to challenge your ingrained assumptions.
Stepping up from functional leadership into executive-level decision-making can be a quantum leap. All the more so, if your organisation is simultaneously experiencing intense change.
So says Henrietta Rowe, Group General Counsel & Company Secretary at Ramsay Health Care, a global healthcare company operating in 10 countries and one of Australia’s foremost private healthcare organisations. Hers is an industry that has been prone to enormous shocks and changes in recent years, she says; from the unprecedented exigencies of Covid-19 to more recent inflationary squeezes that are seeing costs spiral - all of this against a backdrop of quicksilver digital transformation. It’s challenging to be in healthcare.
Rowe was appointed to her position in 2019 - a step-change in a career dedicated almost exclusively to legal practice.
“Making the step up into executive leadership meant that I had to broaden my perspective and my thinking. I need to deeply embed business considerations - commercial, strategic, people and cultural - into my decision-making, while supporting change management processes in the context of a significant digital transformation for the company.”
Making this shift brought Rowe to INSEAD, and to the Management Acceleration Programme (MAP) - a chance, she says, to interchange experience and learn from other leaders navigating change in a diversity of organisations and industries.
“I chose the MAP to access the experience of other decision-makers in similar circumstances, which was illuminating. INSEAD offered a global reach and access to diverse perspectives which is quite unique.”
Gaining this kind of exposure and access to “valuable experiences and learnings” from transformation leaders gave Rowe a new confidence, she says; and a sense of legitimacy: “the experience made me realise that I too had something valuable to bring to the table.”
Just as powerful was the understanding that leadership at this level denotes scanning a changing environment continuously for external perspectives, best practices, risks and opportunities; and converting insights into learning across the organisation - skills and leadership aptitudes that sit particularly well in the context of healthcare, says Rowe.
“The MAP gives you a new perspective on leadership. But it’s not just that. The programme gives you the space and the time to step back and look at your own leadership style, and to challenge your ingrained assumptions - the subconscious thinking that drives your behaviours and can influence your relationships with your team, for better or for worse.”
This kind of learning, she says, engendered a practice of self-reflection that has enhanced her leadership of others in challenging and changing times. The coaching element of the programme too has helped open up greater self-knowledge as a leader.
“It has fundamentally changed my perspective and the way in which I interact with the people I lead and work with.”
One of the greatest takeaways of the programme has also been the network built between participants, says Rowe. The feelings of deep collaboration—of “being in the trenches together,” as she puts it - have built strong ties and bonds that have endured long after the programme ended.
“I had an amazing group. We are diverse in age, in background and in attitudes, but we’re connected by our shared desire to learn. The programme took place over three months in a blended format which was great because it gave me the necessary flexibility to juggle children, work and other commitments. But also because we were able to really deepen the relationships and the friendships between us.”
Coming out of the programme and applying its learnings has been immeasurably enhanced by follow up with INSEAD, Rowe says.
"What I learned was valuable, and I want to keep driving forward, putting that learning into action and keeping the momentum going as much as possible. Day in and day out in this role, you navigate and advise on complex and consequential situations and interact with various stakeholders - internal and external - with diverse ways of working. So I believe it’s key to keep working on the practice of leadership; and to constantly reinforce what you’ve learned to avoid falling back into old habits.”
Self-awareness - understanding why you respond the way you do under pressure - is a core leadership aptitude, says Rowe. And the MAP has given her a raft of insights, tools and practices to convert self-awareness into a habit.
“The programme has challenged me to reimagine my role and the value I can add. In my role I’m constantly analysing things that may have gone wrong in some way (or pre-empting what might go wrong!), across a range of issues from cyber resilience and privacy issues to clinical matters - all against the background of rapid regulatory change. The programme has given me the wherewithal to measure my responses and ensure I am synthesising my business and legal perspectives,” she says.
“I’m better equipped to listen, reflect, analyse and address issues in a way that is more constructive.”
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