This is my last column as chair of GippsDairy, as I will step down at the AGM in October having reached my term limit of nine years on the board.
When I first became a director in 2014, my youngest child was two years old and I was celebrating regained ‘independence’ after nearly six continuous years of being either pregnant, breastfeeding, or both.
It’s been quite a journey since then, and GippsDairy has supported farmers through tight times, dry times, and more recently, wet conditions, flooding, navigating a pandemic and labour shortages.
There’s been changes over the years in the size, leadership and staffing of our organisation, as well as what and how we deliver to farmers.
Nine years ago, having meetings or courses held online, watching webinars and listening to podcasts was rare.
Now, it’s made collaboration and learning across geographic boundaries possible, and opened up opportunities to those who can’t spare time to travel.
Events held in person offer a different experience, and we will continue to ensure a mix of both in our planning.
Some things haven’t changed, and one of these is the passion and enthusiasm of the GippsDairy team.
We have welcomed plenty of new faces in nine years, and I am proud that a majority of those who have moved on from GippsDairy are still working within the dairy industry.
It’s a great industry to be part of and I’d like to thank Karen and the team for delivering so many great programs to us.
Another constant has been the quality of the GippsDairy Board.
GippsDairy is committed to lifelong learning and continuous improvement, and we offer governance training to all our directors.
The result is a board which is skilled, professional and diverse, and over the years I have enjoyed many healthy and respectful debates in the boardroom which have resulted in good decisions made with the long-term sustainability of GippsDairy in mind.
I leave the board with confidence that this will continue, and gratitude for the support and commitment of my fellow directors over my term as chair.
I have been fortunate to have many opportunities to learn, experience and observe leadership over the past decade.
The Gardiner Foundation has generously supported me to undertake the Gippsland Community Leadership Program, and later the Australian Rural Leadership Program, and I would commend both those opportunities to anyone who is interested.
There has also been much to learn in my local community, and from parenting, which is perhaps the greatest leadership challenge of them all.
Leadership is a behaviour, not a title nor a position. Leadership is having the courage to speak up when something needs to be said, the discipline to turn up when something needs to be done, and the bravery to ask the question that everyone else is thinking.
One of my favourite quotes comes from Holocaust survivor Victor Frankl. “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.”
The most successful leadership I have observed comes from those who have the ability to first lead themselves.
They have the self-awareness to understand how their thoughts and behaviours impact others and the situation, the self-discipline to do what needs to be done, and the ability to regulate their emotions and actions.
These are all skills that are learned through practice.
I have no doubt that there will be more challenges ahead, for each of us personally, for GippsDairy and the dairy industry, and for society as a whole.
If each and every one of us shows leadership in our day-to-day lives, and practices gratitude and kindness, we will be a strong community to meet these challenges together.
I look forward to seeing you out and about in Gippsland.
Lauren Finger is the outgoing chair of GippsDairy.