Gill South: Everybody needs a shoulder to lean on - even when you're the boss

You'd have to be a hard-hearted soul not to have felt some pity for Marac's chief risk officer, Grant Atkinson, when he went AWOL this month.

Although the company hasn't revealed all the details, it doesn't take much imagination to figure out the executive felt under great pressure and couldn't see a way out.

There are several leadership courses in New Zealand where managers can bare their souls and talk with full confidentiality to their peers. The Leadership Institute's Hillary leadership programme is one.

Peter Blyde, who runs the 18-month course, says leaders should never find themselves in a place where they have not got good sounding boards. The Hillary programme can provide a place for leaders to talk - somewhere they can let down their guard.

Leaders have to have the ability to take a step back, and should be actively seeking out different points of view, says Blyde. "Too often we talk to people who reinforce our beliefs," he says. Because the Hillary leadership programme is spread over 18 months, the groups meeting learn to trust each other during the course and afterwards. If these senior managers are going to develop a different mindset to solve problems, it will require ongoing support, says Blyde.

The selection process for the leadership programme aims to bring together a cross-section of people, so peer learning is truly useful, says the leadership expert.

Members of the current group include a school principal, bankers, scientists and a fashion retailer. The course is well-suited to people who are running into changes in the working environment, or who are having to make big changes, says Blyde.

A current student of the course, four months in, is Craig Wallace, who says he has been "monopolising" his Hillary leadership group with his recent promotion and its implications. He became general manager of Aegis Tech Australia and New Zealand last month and is moving to Melbourne this month.

Until September Wallace was GM of UCMS Solutions, a specialist in complex solutions for the contact centre industry, until its Australian parent UCMS Group was bought by Aegis, a global leader in business process outsourcing.

Things have moved quickly for Wallace. Two and a half years ago he returned from the States where he had worked in technology management for hedge funds. Then he started as account manager at UCMS Solutions NZ. He discovered he was being groomed for the GM role in New Zealand and was in that role when the takeover happened.

Wallace is grateful he was already on the Hillary leadership course to help him with the changes of the past few months. "They call it the leadership MBA without exams and assignments," he says. He enjoys the mix of people. One of the leaders in his group is also expanding in Australia so they have bonded over that.

The course has taught him to understand more about leadership, says Wallace, and the delineation between management and leadership. With management you push, he says, but with leadership you lead from the front.

In his new role he will be running the business in New Zealand, a relatively mature business, and two divisions in Australia whose two GMs were made redundant in the handover.

His focus in the next year is to get the Australian team on board, he says, while maintaining the success of the New Zealand business, whose clients include ASB, Vodafone and Air New Zealand, and which provides 30 per cent of the company's income.

One aspect of leadership, taught by the Leadership Institute, is how to re-frame opportunities and challenges, which allows you to take actions that others may not see. As well as the former UCMS Solutions Australia business, Wallace has inherited the UCMS Group's technological division.

The latter was always perceived as a cost centre, and one of the manager's first steps will be to change that. "We are a profit centre now," he says. "The guys in IT have always seen themselves as a $4 million cost to the business," says Wallace. "This is just a label," he is going to be telling them: "You are revenue. Let's be positive, let's look at it a different way."

While the two Australian operations have physically sat on the same floor at head office in Melbourne, there has always been a psychological wall between the two, says the GM. He says he has insisted that they talk to each other, despite resistance.

Meanwhile, what do the Aussies think of this Kiwi upstart coming to run the business in Melbourne? "They were expecting someone to be shipped in," (Aegis, part of the Essar Group, is Indian.) "They weren't expecting a little old Kiwi coming in."

Wallace has been keeping a check on expectations in the Melbourne office. He realises he has to manage expectations. "The Aegis Tech staff want to know what are the tangible benefits?"

"The challenge is to manage those expectations. Nothing is going to change in the short term - they are not going to get a salary rise, or a bigger desk, they are not going to go to India for a trip."

Wallace says he has been taking baby steps building a relationship with the Australian team. "I'm not a dictator, I'd much rather sit and listen, and encourage people to talk."

Among other moves, he is encouraging his NZ and Australian teams to meet through video conferencing.

Wallace says he realises Australia is a different business environment. Meanwhile he intends doing the easy stuff well. Drinks on Friday nights, cakes on birthdays. It's all about trying to get everybody to talk, he says.