Building leadership capabilities through adequate training

At ExxonMobil Australia, we place great emphasis on leadership training, ensuring our employees are provided adequate training and resources to help them smoothly transition into supervisory or leadership roles.
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Recently, 27 employees from our Upstream, Low Carbon Solutions, Global Projects, Commercial, Product Solutions and Business Services teams attended a 4-day Supervisor Foundations Group course where they learnt vital skills needed to thrive in supervisory or leadership roles.

Nick Diaz, Commercial Negotiator, who participated in the course found it to be of immense value. “The course was a fantastic opportunity to collaborate with leaders throughout the organisation. Through the framework provided in the course, we were able to share ideas and challenge one another on what good leadership is. The course itself provided us the opportunity to practice our leadership strategies through scenario-based activities, helping to crystalise leadership concepts through practice. I see this course as having provided a fantastic foundation for future leadership experiences and I will no doubt draw on the content in the future,” he commented.

Led by Fae Campbell, a dedicated coach and facilitator with more than 20 years of experience in Leadership, Sales, and Customer Service, participants explored and role-played different topics including work prioritisation, delegating, managing conflict, decision making and delivering results.

Fae has plenty of experience working with a diverse range of organisations and shared useful strategies on how to become more effective leaders.

Melinda Fairbanks, Safety Coordinator, highlighted that the course has taught her new ways of conversing with people and understanding them better. “I’ve learnt how to handle difficult situations through conflict management and feel more confident in my ability to support the team in delivering the best outcomes. It was also great to be able to tap into the knowledge and experiences of leaders from across the business.”

Over the four days, participants were taught about several frameworks such as the credibility model, SMART performance goals and the ladder of inference. Upstream Production Manager, Geoff Humphreys, opened one of the days with valuable insights from his extensive leadership journey and provided sage advice on how to overcome challenges and work through difficult and complex issues as leaders.

“These are great tools that I will actively use moving forward to help build and ensure clarity, so that people can understand their impact and feel motivated and empowered to do great things and deliver on our business goals, commented Rose Pike, Mobil Card Business Manager.

“One of my key takeaways was how important it is to ensure your team and peers have clarity on their objectives and understand how those objectives tie into and have impact on our larger business goals,” she added. 

The Supervisor Foundations course is offered to employees who have been nominated by their managers as future leaders or who are preparing to transition into a supervisory or leadership role.