“Leadership means making institutions worthy of people’s trust.”
When Jordyn Gray talks about leadership, she does not speak in abstractions. She speaks in systems — in the gaps between policy and practice, between what institutions promise and what survivors actually experience. A Menzies Global Voices Fellow and passionate advocate for reform, Jordyn’s work sits at the intersection of trauma, accountability and the kind of leadership that refuses to look away.
Her conviction is straightforward, even when the terrain is not: institutions that hold power over people’s lives must be held to a standard that reflects the humanity of those they serve. And right now, many are falling short.
The Gap Between Policy and People
Jordyn’s focus on trauma-informed leadership did not emerge in a vacuum. It grew from a clear-eyed examination of how institutions — particularly those entrusted with national service and public safety — respond when people are at their most vulnerable. The Australian Defence Force, like many large and hierarchical organisations, operates within structures where accountability can become procedural rather than meaningful, and where the experiences of survivors can be minimised or obscured entirely.
What Jordyn advocates for is a fundamental shift — not just in policy language, but in institutional culture. Trauma-informed leadership, in her view, is not a framework to be bolted onto existing systems. It is a different way of understanding power, responsibility and what it means to lead with integrity.
“When institutions design processes without centring the people most affected,” she reflects, “they are not just failing those individuals — they are eroding the trust that makes public institutions function at all.”
Accountability as a Practice, Not a Policy
At the heart of Jordyn’s advocacy is a belief that accountability must be lived rather than legislated. Data transparency, survivor-led policy design and ethical leadership are not optional additions to good governance — they are its foundation. Without them, reform remains surface-level, and the people who need protection most are left to navigate systems that were not built with their safety in mind.
Her experience through the Global Voices Fellowship and the Y20 process deepened this understanding. Engaging with decision-makers across government and civil society, Jordyn encountered both the limitations and the possibilities of systems in motion. She saw where political will exists and where it stalls. She also saw what becomes possible when people with lived proximity to a problem are given genuine access to the rooms where solutions are shaped.
“Being in those spaces reminded me that change is not inevitable,” she says. “It requires people who are willing to name what is not working and stay at the table long enough to build something better.”
Survivor-Led, Systems-Focused
What distinguishes Jordyn’s approach is her insistence that reform must be led by those with direct experience of institutional harm — not simply informed by their accounts after the fact. Survivor-led policy is not just a matter of equity; it is a matter of quality. Decisions made without this perspective are decisions made with incomplete information.
This is particularly urgent in contexts like the ADF, where cultural norms around silence, loyalty and hierarchy can compound the barriers survivors already face. Jordyn argues that data transparency is a critical enabler here — that when institutions are required to be honest about patterns of harm, it becomes harder to treat individual cases as anomalies rather than symptoms of systemic failure.
Leadership Worthy of Trust
Jordyn’s vision of leadership is demanding — and deliberately so. It asks institutions to do more than manage risk or maintain reputation. It asks them to be genuinely accountable to the people whose lives they shape.
At the Menzies Leadership Foundation, this kind of leadership is not aspirational language — it is the standard we seek to nurture in every Fellow. Investing in emerging leaders like Jordyn is an investment in a future where Australia’s institutions are led by people who understand that power carries responsibility, and that trust must be earned through action, not assumed through authority.
Her work is a reminder that the most important reforms are rarely the easiest ones — and that the leaders willing to pursue them are exactly the kind Australia needs.
Jordyn Gray is a Menzies Global Voices Fellow. Applications for the 2026 Global Voices Fellowship are now open. If you are committed to leadership that is ethical, community-connected and capable of driving meaningful change, we invite you to explore the Fellowship and stay connected with the Menzies Leadership Foundation’s broader emerging leadership community.
