Good leaders react to problems. Great leaders recognise risk before problems occur
25 Years' Developing Leaders | 500+ Leaders Trained by Orana Skills Centre | CPD Certified
Mining | Infrastructure | Government | Health | Energy and Resources | Construction
Designed for Leaders Responsible for Real Decisions
Most leadership programs teach communication, motivation and management theory. That's useful, but it's not enough for leaders operating in environments where the wrong decision can result in a serious incident, a project failure or an organisational crisis.
Many supervisors and operational leaders are promoted because they are technically strong. Few receive formal development in leadership, decision-making and risk-based thinking - the capabilities that matter most when things get complex.
That's the gap this program was built to close.
The Risk-Based Leadership™ Development Program was developed by risk and incident investigation professionals with experience across mining, infrastructure, government and other high-risk industries. It is built around a practical leadership framework drawn directly from the factors that repeatedly appear in incident investigations, operational failures and organisational breakdowns.
Through practical workshops, real-world scenarios and applied leadership tools, participants develop the capability to:
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Recognise the early warning signs of operational risk - before incidents occur
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Make confident, defensible decisions under pressure
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Lead teams effectively through uncertainty and change
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Understand how their everyday decisions influence safety, performance and organisational outcomes
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Manage contractors, critical risks and governance responsibilities with clarity
The program is built around four leadership capabilities that together form the Risk-Based Leadership™ Model:
Testimonials
Delivered to leaders across mining, construction, government and high-risk industries
Highly relevant to real-world leadership and decision-making.
Brendan, Supervisor
Engaging, practical and directly applicable to my role.
Jason, Operator (2IC)
Exceeded expectations - strong focus on real operational challenges.
George, Supervisor
Clear, practical and easy to apply in the workplace.
Greg, Superintendent
Program Overview
The Risk-Based Leadership™ Development Program runs over six months and is structured around six modules, each tackling the leadership and organisational factors that most commonly contribute to operational incidents and failures.
What the program looks like in practice:
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Six months, 12 training days - two days per module, designed to fit around operational work schedules without requiring extended time away from the job
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Small cohort sizes deliberately limited to maximise participation, peer discussion and real-world application of leadership tools
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Face-to-face delivery plus a dedicated global online cohort via Zoom for leaders who can't attend in person
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Built around real operational scenarios - not classroom theory. Every module draws on the kinds of leadership decisions and failures that appear in actual incident investigations
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CPD certified program - participants receive a CPD certificate upon completion, recognised across participating professional bodies
What the program covers:
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Risk-based decision-making - recognising emerging risks before they become incidents
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Operational supervision and high-performing team leadership
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Contractor management and project risk oversight
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Managing change and emerging operational technology
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Critical risk governance and control assurance
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Crisis leadership, incident response and organisational recovery
Aligned with ISO 31000, ISO 45001 and ICMM leadership and governance principles.
Who it's designed for:
Supervisors, team leaders, superintendents and operational managers responsible for real decisions in complex, high-risk environments.
Six Leadership Modules
The program is structured across six modules, each addressing the leadership and organisational factors that most commonly appear in operational incidents, failures and breakdowns. Every module combines practical workshops, real-world scenarios and leadership tools that participants can apply immediately in their own operational environment.
Module 1 - Leadership Foundations & Psychosocial Risk
Strong operational leadership starts with understanding accountability and the organisational factors that quietly undermine it. This module examines how psychosocial hazards, unclear responsibilities and cultural pressures shape the decisions leaders make and the safety and wellbeing outcomes that follow. Directly relevant to employer obligations under the Work Health and Safety Act regarding psychosocial hazards.
Module 2 - Operational Decision-Making, Supervision & High-Performing Teams
Most incidents don't happen because people don't care. They happen because leaders lack the tools to supervise effectively under pressure, make sound decisions in complex situations and build teams that catch problems before they escalate. This module develops exactly those capabilities.
Module 3 - Contractor Management & Project Risk
Contractor interfaces are one of the most consistent contributors to serious operational incidents. This module equips leaders to understand how their decisions, and their gaps in oversight, directly influence contractor safety, project risk and operational outcomes.
Module 4 - Management of Change & Emerging Operational Technology
Change is where control breaks down. New processes, organisational restructures and emerging technologies all introduce risk that established controls weren't designed for. This module develops the capability to identify, assess and manage that risk before it becomes a problem.
Module 5 - Critical Risk Leadership & Governance
Critical risks demand more than awareness. They require clear accountability, rigorous governance and leaders who understand what it means for a critical control to fail. This module examines the leadership responsibilities at the centre of critical risk management and what effective governance looks like in practice. Reflects the critical control management and governance principles of the ICMM Mining Principles and ISO 31000.
Module 6 - Crisis Leadership & Organisational Resilience
When an incident occurs, the quality of leadership in the first hours shapes everything that follows. The response, the recovery and the organisation's ability to learn and adapt. This module prepares leaders to perform under pressure, manage crisis situations with clarity and build the organisational resilience that prevents history from repeating.
Why the Leadership Gap Is Costing Organisations
Investigations into serious workplace incidents and operational failures consistently identify the same contributing factors: unclear accountabilities, weak risk recognition, poor supervision, ineffective contractor management and failure to manage organisational change.
These aren't technical failures. They're leadership failures and they're preventable.
The Risk-Based Leadership™ Development Program was built specifically to address these gaps, equipping operational leaders with the capabilities that matter most when the pressure is on and the decisions are real.
What You'll Be Able to Do Differently
Leaders who complete the program develop the capability to:
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Spot risk before it becomes an incident - recognise early warning signs in their team, their systems and their operational environment
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Make decisions that hold up under scrutiny - lead with confidence in high-pressure situations and make choices that are both sound and defensible when they're examined later
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Lead through complexity and change - guide teams through uncertainty, organisational restructures and the introduction of new technology without losing control of risk
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Own their contractor and project risk - understand how their oversight decisions directly influence safety and outcomes on complex projects
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Govern critical risks with clarity - know what their accountability actually means when critical controls are in place, and what to do when they're not
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Perform when it matters most - respond to incidents and crisis events with the clarity, structure and leadership presence that determines how well an organisation recovers
Why This Program is Different
Most leadership programs are built in boardrooms by organisational development consultants. They draw on management theory, behavioural frameworks and leadership research and they produce capable communicators and motivated managers.
But they don't produce leaders who can read an operational environment, spot the conditions that precede a serious incident or make sound decisions when the pressure is real and the consequences matter.
This program was built differently.
It was developed by professionals who investigate what goes wrong after serious workplace incidents. People who have spent years examining the decisions, the supervision failures, the governance gaps and the missed warning signs that sit behind operational breakdowns across mining, infrastructure, government and other high-risk industries.
That experience produced a different kind of leadership program. One built not from theory about what good leadership looks like, but from evidence about what its absence actually costs.
What that means for participants:
Every topic in the program connects directly to a pattern that appears in real incident investigations. The module on contractor management reflects how contractor interfaces consistently feature in serious incidents. The module on psychosocial risk reflects how organisational and cultural pressures shape the decisions leaders make under pressure. The module on critical risk governance reflects what happens when accountability for critical controls is unclear.
This isn't leadership development for its own sake. It's leadership development built around the specific gaps that cause things to go wrong and what capable leaders do instead.
The program's approach to risk-based leadership draws on and aligns with internationally recognised frameworks including ISO 31000 (Risk Management) and ISO 45001 (Occupational Health and Safety Management) and reflects the leadership and governance principles underpinning the ICMM Mining Principles. For Australian organisations, the program directly supports leaders in understanding and meeting their obligations under the Work Health and Safety Act, including the management of psychosocial hazards, which is addressed as a core leadership responsibility in Module 1.
About Orana Skills Centre
Orana Skills Centre is a specialist safety, risk, audit and training organisation working with organisations across mining, infrastructure, government, health and construction. Over more than 25 years we have delivered risk management, incident investigation and workplace safety programs to hundreds of leaders across Australia and internationally.
The Risk-Based Leadership™ Model emerged from that work. After years of investigating serious workplace incidents and examining the leadership decisions, supervision failures and organisational factors that contributed to them, a clear pattern emerged - the same leadership gaps appeared again and again across industries, organisations and geographies.
That insight became the foundation of the Risk-Based Leadership™ Model, developed by Jessica Urquhart with 26 years of experience in risk management and incident investigation across high-risk industries in Australia and internationally. The model was then built into the Risk-Based Leadership™ Development Program, a structured six-month program designed to develop exactly the capabilities that investigations repeatedly show are missing.
This is not a leadership program built from management theory or a human resources perspective. It is a leadership program built from an operational risk management perspective, developed by people who understand what happens when leadership fails in high-risk environments and what capable leadership looks like when it doesn't.
Who Should Attend
This program is designed for the leaders who operate in the space where decisions have immediate, real-world consequences, where a gap in supervision, a missed warning sign or an unclear accountability doesn't show up in a quarterly report, it shows up as an incident.
If you are responsible for a team, a site, a project or an operational function in a high-risk environment, this program was built for you.
Participants typically include:
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Frontline supervisors and team leaders managing day-to-day operational risk
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Superintendents and operational managers overseeing teams, contractors or complex projects
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Newly appointed managers who have been promoted from technical or trade roles and are building their leadership capability for the first time
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Safety and risk professionals who are moving into or supporting, operational leadership roles
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Government and public sector leaders responsible for managing operational risk and organisational outcomes in high-pressure environments
This program is particularly valuable if:
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You've been promoted because of your technical expertise but haven't had formal leadership development
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You manage contractors or complex projects where the risk sits partly outside your direct control
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You work in an environment where the consequences of poor decisions, or missed warning signs are serious
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Your organisation has experienced incidents or near-misses where leadership and supervision factors were identified as contributing causes
This program is not designed for senior executives or strategic leaders whose primary role is organisational governance at board or C-suite level. It is built for operational leaders who are close to the work, close to the risk and responsible for the decisions that happen before something goes wrong.
Particularly relevant for safety professionals, engineers, health practitioners and government leaders with mandatory CPD requirements.
How the Program is Delivered
The Risk-Based Leadership™ Development Program is delivered in two formats, structured face-to-face cohorts across Australia and a dedicated global online cohort designed for leaders who are based internationally or prefer remote participation.
Both formats deliver the same program, the same curriculum and the same cohort experience. The difference is location, not quality.
Global Online Cohort
The global online cohort is a dedicated program cohort. Not a recording, not a self-paced module, and not a live-stream of an Australian classroom. It runs as its own structured cohort with its own participants, its own scheduled sessions and the same facilitated workshops and real-world scenarios as the face-to-face program.
It is designed for:
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Leaders based outside Australia
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Australian leaders in regional or remote locations who cannot attend in person
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Organisations with teams across multiple locations or time zones
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Leaders whose operational schedules make face-to-face attendance impractical
Sessions are scheduled to accommodate participants across multiple time zones. Contact us to discuss session timing for your region.
Face-to-face cohorts - Australia
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Sydney NSW
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Brisbane QLD
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Melbourne VIC
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Perth WA
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Dubbo NSW (serving regional and remote NSW)
Additional locations are available for organisations seeking dedicated in-house delivery for their leadership teams. If your region isn't listed, contact us.
Download program delivery calendar
In-House Delivery
Organisations can request dedicated in-house delivery of the full program for their leadership team. This option is particularly suited to organisations wanting to develop a consistent leadership approach across multiple teams, sites or operational areas at the same time.
2026 Leadership Development Scholarships
Good leadership shouldn't be limited by geography, sector or career stage. These scholarships exist to make sure it isn't.
Each year, Orana Skills Centre offers a limited number of fully funded places in the Risk-Based Leadership™ Development Program, valued at $4,500, to emerging leaders in sectors and communities where the need is real but access to quality leadership development is often limited.
Four Scholarships Are Available for 2026
Health & Emergency Services Leadership Scholarship For leaders working in healthcare, emergency response, ambulance, fire or rescue services. Environments where high-pressure decisions, complex operational risks and team leadership are part of every shift.
Regional & Remote Leadership Scholarship For leaders working in regional or remote communities who carry significant operational responsibilities but face genuine barriers to accessing leadership development. Distance shouldn't determine the quality of leadership support available to you.
Care & Support Sector Scholarship For leaders working in aged care, disability services or community support organisations, responsible for protecting vulnerable people and managing risk in environments that are often under-resourced and under-recognised.
Young Operational Leader Scholarship (35 years and under) For supervisors, team leaders and operational managers early in their leadership journey who are already making real decisions with real consequences, and who deserve the development to match the responsibility they're carrying.
Scholarship places are limited and applications are assessed competitively. The application process is straightforward, we're looking for leaders with genuine need and genuine potential, not perfect paperwork.
How to Apply
Applications require five things:
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Your name, organisation and current leadership role
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The scholarship category you're applying for
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Your preferred cohort location and date (see the delivery calendar)
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A short personal statement of 200–300 words. Tell us about the leadership challenges you face, why this program matters to you, and how completing it will help you support your team or organisation
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Optionally, a supporting nomination from a colleague, manager or mentor who can speak to your potential
There's no formal selection panel or lengthy interview process. We read every application carefully and make decisions based on genuine need, leadership potential and the strength of your personal statement.
Applications close: 30 April 2026.
Successful scholarship recipients will be notified prior to the commencement of the next program cohort.
Organisational Leadership Development
For organisations operating in high-risk environments, leadership capability isn't a development program, it's a risk control. When supervisors and operational managers lack the skills to recognise emerging risk, make sound decisions under pressure and maintain effective oversight, the consequences show up in incident investigations, contractor failures and operational breakdowns.
This program gives organisations a structured, evidence-based way to build that capability, across teams, sites and operational levels, with a shared leadership language and a consistent approach to risk-based decision-making.
Three Ways to Engage
Individual and group enrolment
Enrol one leader or an entire cohort into a scheduled public program. Organisations that send multiple leaders from the same team consistently report stronger outcomes, participants return with a shared framework, a common vocabulary and the ability to reinforce each other's development back in the workplace.
Best for: organisations developing 1–10 leaders or testing the program before wider rollout.
Dedicated in-house delivery
Host a private, dedicated cohort of the full program for your leadership team, delivered at your site or a location of your choice. In-house delivery allows the program to be contextualised to your operational environment, your industry and the specific leadership challenges your organisation faces.
Best for: organisations with 10+ leaders to develop, or those wanting a program tailored to their operational context.
Facilitator licensing - scale across your organisation
License the Risk-Based Leadership™ Development Program and train your own internal facilitators to deliver it. This model allows organisations to embed the program permanently into their leadership development infrastructure, delivering it to new leaders as they're promoted, across multiple sites, and at a fraction of the cost of ongoing external delivery.
Licensed organisations receive the complete program delivery toolkit, facilitator certification, access to all program materials and frameworks and ongoing updates as the program evolves.
Best for: large organisations, multi-site operations, or those wanting to build internal leadership development capability at scale.
What Organisations Gain
Regardless of how they engage, organisations that develop leaders through this program build:
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A consistent leadership approach and shared risk vocabulary across teams and levels
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Supervisors and managers who can recognise operational risk earlier and respond more effectively
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Stronger accountability structures and clearer governance over critical risks
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Leadership teams better equipped to manage contractors, organisational change and high-pressure situations
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A documented, structured approach to leadership development that supports regulatory and due diligence requirements
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CPD certified - supports your organisation's professional development reporting and compliance obligations
Talk to Us About Your Organisation
Whether you're looking to enrol a small group, host a dedicated program or explore the facilitator licensing model, we're happy to discuss the right approach for your organisation's size, structure and operational context.
Trainers and Facilitators
The Risk-Based Leadership™ Development Program is available for delivery by licensed external facilitators, experienced trainers, safety professionals and organisational development practitioners who want to add a structured, credentialed leadership program to their practice.
If you work with organisations in high-risk industries and want to deliver a program built from real incident investigation evidence, rather than generic leadership theory, the facilitator licensing pathway gives you everything you need to do that.
What the Licensing Model Offers
Becoming a licensed facilitator means you can deliver the full Risk-Based Leadership™ Development Program to your own clients, under your own practice, with the full support of Orana Skills Centre behind you.
You don't need to develop the content, build the materials or design the framework. That work is done. What you bring is your industry credibility, your client relationships and your facilitation capability. We provide the rest.
Licensed facilitators receive:
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Complete program delivery toolkit - facilitator guides, participant workbooks, workshop materials and leadership tools, ready to deliver from day one
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Facilitator certification - formal training in the program methodology, the Risk-Based Leadership™ Model and how to facilitate each of the six modules effectively
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Full framework access - all program materials, teaching resources and assessment tools
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Ongoing program updates - as the program evolves, licensed facilitators receive updated materials automatically
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Authorisation to deliver - permission to deliver the program to organisations and leadership cohorts within your practice or region
Who This Is Designed For
The facilitator pathway is designed for experienced practitioners who already work in the leadership, safety or organisational development space and want to add a specialist, operationally-grounded program to what they offer.
This includes leadership and organisational development trainers, safety and risk professionals who deliver leadership training, consultants supporting operational leadership in high-risk industries, training organisations seeking a structured and credentialed program, and internal learning professionals whose organisation wants to build in-house delivery capability.
This is not an entry-level pathway. Facilitators are expected to bring existing experience working with operational leaders in complex environments. The certification builds on that foundation, it doesn't replace it.
How the Certification Works
Before delivering the program, all facilitators complete the full Risk-Based Leadership™ Development Program as a participant. This isn't a formality, it's how we ensure that every licensed facilitator has experienced the program from the inside, understands the framework at depth and can facilitate the real-world scenarios and leadership tools with genuine credibility.
Facilitator certification follows program completion and covers the methodology, delivery approach and quality standards required to maintain program integrity.
Licensing Terms and Availability
Licensing fees, regional arrangements and delivery authorisations are discussed as part of the application process. We're selective about who we license, not to create unnecessary barriers, but because the program's credibility depends on it being delivered well.
If you're interested in exploring the facilitator pathway, the first step is to apply. We'll review your background and experience and arrange a conversation to discuss whether it's the right fit.
Payment options include credit card, Afterpay, Apple Pay, PayPal and bank transfer
Scholarship Application
0
Fully Funded Leadership Development Program
6 Monthly Payments
750
Every month
Full 6-Month Leadership Development Program
3 Equal Payments
1,500
Every 2 months
Full 6-Month Leadership Development Program
One-Off Payment
4,500
Full 6-Month Leadership Development Program
Secure Your Place in the Next Cohort
Need an invoice or prefer to pay by bank transfer? Email purchase order to accounts@oranaskillscentre.com
CPD certificate included with all enrolment options