| One of the latest innovative initiatives of the Australian Multicultural Community Services (previously known as the Australian Polish Community Services), based in Melbourne, was a launch of a leadership survey that aimed to determine to what extent AMCS has been a leading organisation in the field of multicultural community services. The project was undertaken in partnership with Leadership Victoria with whom AMCS has worked with for a number of years. On this occasion, four participants of the Williams Community Leadership Program: Marcus Dripps, Thane Joske, Debby Maziarz and Steve Strang, embarked on the process of assessing leadership within AMCS and how effective it has been over its almost 30 years of existence.
In consultation with Elizabeth Drozd, long-term CEO of AMCS, it was decided to develop a survey which could be completed by a range of stakeholders including Board Directors, Staff, Volunteers, Representatives of Government Departments and relevant Service Providers.
Survey questions were grouped into six organizational leadership capabilities i.e. vision, strategy, organisational culture, innovation, stakeholder engagement and future focus.
The survey results confirmed that AMCS has a very strong future, due to its strategic focus and ongoing evaluation eg. thru initiatives such as this. An equally important reason for this project was to enable other ethnic and multicultural community organisations to utilise the leadership assessment survey. As can be expected, the project also identified areas of improvement, in particular further clarification and communication of the AMCS organisational strategy; a more systemised and inclusive approach to innovation; and development of a marketing and communication strategy.
The project report was officially launched on 8th November by Mr Richard Dent, Executive Director of Leadership Direct. The audience also included the Hon. Marsha Thompson MP, Member for Footscray and Mr Jude Perea MP, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Multicultural Affairs in Victoria. During a brief address, Marsha and Jude acknowledged AMCS commitment to supporting smaller and newly - arrived ethnic communities and praised its long term generosity of sharing of resources and expertise.
At the end of her address the Hon Marsha Thompson MP stated:
“…Elizabeth has been an absolute leader, in everything that she does and this report indicates how professional this organisation (AMCS) is…”
Monika Wiench
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