150Square

Team Development Day

What they said.

We didn’t just want a generic leadership course. Zest listened to what we were trying to achieve, worked through the details with us, and designed a session built specifically for leading hands and supervisors in rural local government. They had a clear understanding of what our crews needed and delivered exactly that.

Darren Mollenoyux

Associate

The Need

150Square is a regionally focused consultancy supporting local governments, not-for-profits and communities across the Wheatbelt, Midwest, Great Southern and surrounding areas. Through its work with regional groupings, including RoeROC, WEROC and NEWROC, 150Square supports a network of 17 shires to strengthen workforce capability, strategic planning and operational effectiveness across regional Western Australia.

Discussions with local government CEOs identified frontline leadership as a shared development priority. Leading hands and supervisors play a critical role in day-to-day workforce performance but are often promoted because of their technical capability without receiving formal leadership development.

For many, the transition from workmate to leader introduced new challenges, including directing former peers, managing performance, navigating conflict and having difficult conversations.

150Square engaged Zest to design and facilitate a practical leadership workshop as part of the inaugural Eastern Wheatbelt Joint ROC Works and Services Development Day in Bruce Rock. The session needed to reflect the realities of outdoor crews and give participants tools they could apply immediately on site.

The Solution

Zest designed and delivered “Going from Workmate to Leader”, an interactive workshop for leading hands, supervisors and other frontline local government leaders.

Delivered across two sessions at Bruce Rock Town Hall, the workshop explored the critical shifts required when moving from being part of the crew to leading it, including:

Leading the work rather than doing all the work.
Giving clear, fair and consistent direction.
Delegating effectively and building team ownership.
Having respectful, direct performance conversations.
Managing conflict, resistance and changing priorities.
Balancing standards with appropriate flexibility.
Checking in on workload, wellbeing and development.
Providing constructive feedback and reinforcing accountability.

Participants worked in small teams through a realistic road maintenance scenario involving pothole repairs on the Bruce Rock–Merredin Road. As the scenario unfolded, they responded to changing circumstances, including poor timekeeping, safety considerations, conflict between team members, community expectations, and an end-of-shift debrief.

Zest developed a practical leadership toolkit to support the activities, introducing models including:

The BUILD team briefing model.
The Trust Equation.
The Fence-Post Model.
The Workload Check-In.
The Three Conversations Model.
The Ladder of Accountability.
The STAR/AR feedback model.
A practical reflection and debrief process.

Highlights

Learning grounded in the work: The workshop used scenarios, language and challenges drawn directly from regional local government operations, making the learning immediately relevant to participants and their crews.
Tools leaders could use straight away: Rather than relying on leadership theory alone, participants practised simple frameworks for briefing work, delegating tasks, managing conflict, giving feedback and checking in with their teams.
Capability built across the region: The session brought frontline leaders from multiple shires together to share perspectives, practise decision-making and build a more consistent approach to leadership across the regional network.

Challenges

Supporting employees to shift from being “one of the crew” to confidently leading former peers.
Building leadership capability among participants with strong technical knowledge but varying levels of formal leadership experience.
Designing development that felt practical and relevant across different shires, crews and operational environments.
Addressing sensitive topics such as poor performance, accountability and conflict in a constructive and accessible way.
Creating realistic scenarios that reflected the close personal and professional relationships common in regional communities.
Maintaining engagement across an extended workshop while balancing discussion, practical tools and group activities.

Wins

Delivered practical leadership development tailored specifically to regional local government frontline leaders.
Gave participants a shared toolkit for briefing work, delegating, providing feedback and managing team challenges.
Allowed participants to practise leadership decisions in a realistic, low-risk environment.
Strengthened understanding of the difference between technical expertise and effective leadership.
Created opportunities for leading hands and supervisors from different shires to learn from one another.
Connected leadership behaviours with safety, service quality, accountability and community expectations.
Established a practical foundation for future regional leadership and workforce development initiatives.

More Work.

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