The Australian Leadership Project 

The mission of the Australian Leadership Project is to "Celebrate, Understand and Improve Australian leadership."

Our core belief is "The leader looks like the person in your mirror."

The Project was founded in 2015 when our founder Victor Perton returned to Australia after working as a Trade Commisisoner in the Americas and then as a senior adviser to the G20 presidency.  He was confounded by the negativity of language around leadership in Australia.

The interviews and research shared by global leadership centres identified three attributes which form the unique Australian leadership style: Egalitarianism; Self-Effacing Humour; and, no Bullshit Plain Speaking.  It concluded the leadership is pretty good in relative terms (could be better) and the lead researchers were still mystified by the negativity of everyday Australian conversation and media-coverage. 

Our Eureka moment in late 2017, it's not the leadership, it was the fog of pessimism.  After almost two years of additional research, the project spawned The Centre for Optimism which globally fosters realistic and infectiously optimistic leadership.

The Centre for Optimism maintains the Australian Leadership Project and is rejuvenating the research.  Today the core of the enterprise is a creative commons treasure trove with hundreds of interviews on Australian Leadership, analyses and profiles of Australian Leaders.