Guest post by Dr Kylie Heneker, Governor, The Wyatt Trust Board

When I think about the kind of leadership our future demands, one word keeps coming up: courage. We often hear the word ‘bold’ thrown around, but at the Philanthropy Australia Leadership Summit I attended recently, it was courage that resonated most strongly with me.

Courageous leadership is not about fearlessness - it’s about acting even when the risks are real. Guest speaker, former Prime Minister Julia Gillard, spoke about the very real possibility for philanthropy to get caught up in monitoring risk rather than taking it, and her message landed with me: courageous leadership is about stepping forward, not just measuring the ground beneath your feet.

For me, courage must be paired with empathy and compassion. In a world facing multiple complex, overlapping crises, referred to as a poly-crisis, speakers at the Philanthropy Summit emphasised how leaders can’t afford to feed the fear narrative.  We have to balance fear with hope, and that means connecting with the people and communities we’re here to serve by respecting lived experience, understanding local context, and listening deeply.

Another theme that came through strongly is the question of power: how we hold it, how we share it, and how we interrogate our own positioning.

At Wyatt, this interrogation is central to our work. We’re not shying away from confronting our own power, particularly in relation to First Nations people and the history of The Wyatt Trust. We’ve seen the value of community-led initiatives and recognising that leadership doesn’t belong solely to those at the top. As another conference speaker, Caroline Curtis, put it: we need more leaders en masse, not just fewer leaders at the top. That means building scaffolding so leadership can flourish everywhere.

At Wyatt, we see this in action through our lived experience work, media engagement, program design, and advocacy. Our role as a philanthropic organisation isn’t just to fund projects - it’s to convene, enable, and create the conditions for others to lead.

 

The responsibility and power of philanthropy

I believe philanthropy can play a unique role in creating change. We have levers and mechanisms others don’t, but with that comes real responsibility. While many funders I met at the conference have a tight focus supporting specific communities, sectors, or causes, Wyatt’s remit is broad: tackling poverty, which underpins so many other areas of disadvantage. This gives us a wide-ranging role, but also a unique challenge: hope must be practical.

Practical hope means working alongside people to co-create solutions, test and trial new approaches, and back ideas that might not be perfect on paper but could shift the dial. I love that as an organisation, Wyatt is willing to try new approaches, adapt, and evolve.

For me, good leadership means being honest and genuine. Leaders often have access to more information, and with that comes the responsibility to be open about constraints, shared dilemmas, and the realities of the work. It also means amplifying the expertise of others - whether that’s lived experience, frontline service delivery or deep community knowledge - and finding ways to connect that grassroots wisdom to systems-level change.

This approach requires humility and inclusivity, moving away from ego-driven leadership and towards leadership that inspires participation and co-creation. That’s how we can nurture not just good ideas, but collective ownership of solutions.

 

Never settling: Hope requires action

I’m relatively new to philanthropy, but I’ve been inspired by so many people I’ve met who are driving change in their communities. At Wyatt, one of the things I value most is that we don’t just settle. We could easily rely on tradition as Australia’s oldest philanthropic trust but instead we’ve embraced a fundamental shift in how we grant, how we understand our role, and how we share power.

The Valuing and Embedding Lived and Living Experience report is a great example - it’s raw and honest. Programs like the Linker Network and our work in financial wellbeing give people choice and agency, rather than imposing one-size-fits-all solutions that can create hurdles to support. Too often funders become gatekeepers. I’m proud that Wyatt is choosing stewardship over gatekeeping.

Building hope and creating new possibilities means asking uncomfortable questions, trying new approaches, and knowing that no framework or theory of change is the final answer. Relentless exploration and drive are what keep us from stagnating.

Philanthropy has the power to foster that hope as something tangible that people can experience in their daily lives. And that’s where leadership comes in. Courage to take risks. Compassion to truly listen and share power. And the determination to keep moving forward, never settling for ‘good enough’ when we can aim for better.

That’s the kind of leadership I believe will carry us through the poly-crisis we face today and towards the future we want to create.