CASE STUDY 1

Critical friend to the Queensland Government (2015–21)

Providing candid and constructive advice and support to a state government leadership team to foster professional growth, critical reflection and positive governance outcomes

Background: The Queensland Government’s Chief Executive Leadership Board comprises Director-Generals and Commissioners who oversee the state’s large, diverse and geographically dispersed public sector. From 2015 to 2021, Dr Tiernan served as a ‘critical friend’ to this Board, offering her insights and expertise to its members at both an individual and collective level. 

To our knowledge, Dr Tiernan’s critical friend role is unique in the Australian context. The Leadership Board’s decision to work with her in this capacity signifies the high esteem in which she’s held by senior practitioners at all levels of governance.

What we did: Being a critical friend is an inherently dynamic role—it requires not just depth of knowledge and experience but qualities such as integrity, trustworthiness, flexibility, responsiveness and sound professional judgement. 

In this capacity, Dr Tiernan offered constructive and confidential support and advice to the Chief Executive Leadership Board, informed by her understanding of the complexities unique to the work of public service leaders. Her role involved defining problems and forging networks in the research and wider policy communities and beyond. Her aim was always to facilitate professional learning through structured discussion, guided reading and critical reflection in a safe, supportive environment. 

Key outcomes: In her six years as critical friend, Dr Tiernan canvassed a broad range of governance, public policy and public administration issues. Her key projects on behalf of the Board included:

• Lessons Learned from COVID-19: Strengthening Our Disaster Resilience

• Strengthening Partnerships with Queensland’s Tertiary Sector

• a long-term focus on collaborative governance.

TESTAMONIALS

‘Your experience as a political scientist, policy analyst, commentator and educator has always brought valuable insight and contribution as a critical friend to the Queensland Government. Your ability to bring unique insights, personal anecdotes and remarkable experiences always provided engaging and topical discussion on many governance, public policy and governance matters. Your exceptional written and presentation skills were again demonstrated recently on an outstanding piece of work you undertook and presented to the Board on Lessons Learned from COVID-19: Strengthening Our Disaster Resilience.’

Dave Stewart, Director-General of the Department of Premier and Cabinet and Chair of the Chief Executive Leadership Board

“The esteem and respect in which you are held by people in leadership positions across Australia is distinctive. You have firm ideas, but always find ways to remedy/improve the system … Your capacity to translate research into policy; that translational capacity worked both ways. A boundary-spanner with unique capacity to bridge that intersection, you helped to build a common language across sectors. 

The Leadership Board valued your acumen—strong and proven capacity to listen, empathy, purposefulness in delivering outcomes, and demonstrating and nurturing value.”

Rob Setter, Queensland Public Service Commissioner: