Leadership Beyond the System
What happens when leadership no longer comes with a title, position or institutional protection?
In Episode 5 of Purpose: Leading into the Future, former diplomat and Chief of Staff to Australia’s Deputy Prime Minister, Jo Tarnawsky, reflects on one of leadership’s most difficult tests: what it means to act with integrity when systems become unsafe, political or resistant to change.
This conversation marks a significant turning point in the series.
Until now, the episodes have explored leadership within institutions — organisations attempting to navigate complexity while sustaining trust and purpose.
Jo’s story shifts the lens. It asks a more confronting question:
What happens when the institution itself becomes the challenge?
From insider to outsider
For nearly two decades, Tarnawsky worked at the highest levels of Australian public life:
- as a diplomat
- inside Government House
- and ultimately as Chief of Staff to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence.
She describes herself as being “in the room where it happened” — close to power, major decisions and national leadership.
Then suddenly, she wasn’t.
After raising concerns about workplace culture within Parliament House, she found herself isolated, excluded and progressively pushed outside the system she had long served.
What followed was not only a legal and institutional battle. It became a profound test of identity, courage and purpose.
When silence becomes its own harm
A defining theme throughout the episode is the cost of silence.
Tarnawsky explains that speaking publicly was not an impulsive act, but the result of months of internal conflict, deteriorating wellbeing and growing recognition that remaining silent was causing its own damage.
“Speaking up has a cost,” she reflects, “but so does silence.”
This reframes leadership courage in important ways. The conversation moves beyond simplistic narratives of bravery and instead acknowledges something more complex: Sometimes every available option is difficult.
Leadership therefore becomes less about avoiding hardship and more about deciding which consequence can ultimately be lived with.
Choosing the harder road
One of the most powerful ideas emerging from the episode is Tarnawsky’s phrase:
“Choose your hard.”
It captures a reality many leaders encounter but rarely articulate openly:
- staying silent is hard
- speaking up is hard
- confronting systems is hard
- living against your values is hard
The question becomes not whether leadership will involve cost — but which cost aligns with integrity. This is where purpose becomes essential. Purpose provides clarity when no option feels safe.
Leadership beyond title and authority
A central insight from the conversation is the distinction between position and leadership.
Tarnawsky argues that titles are temporary.
True leadership is expressed through:
- values
- behaviour
- moral courage
- and the willingness to act when consequences are personal.
This matters because modern institutions often condition leadership around hierarchy and authority. But some of the most consequential leadership occurs precisely when formal authority has been removed.
In this sense, the episode explores leadership beyond the system — how influence, courage and purpose can continue even after institutional exclusion.
The hidden mechanics of power
The conversation also offers a rare insight into how power operates inside institutions.
Tarnawsky describes how systems often respond defensively when challenged:
- isolating individuals
- prioritising legal risk
- protecting reputation
- and treating those who speak up as the problem itself.
This reflects a broader institutional tendency: systems frequently misidentify risk.
Rather than seeing the person raising concerns as someone surfacing a deeper issue, organisations often treat them as the threat to stability.
This is where ethical leadership becomes critical. Because the true measure of culture is not whether organisations encourage people to speak up. It is how they respond when someone actually does.
Psychological safety and the failure of systems
The episode challenges simplistic understandings of psychological safety.
Tarnawsky makes a powerful observation:
Employees judge whether it is safe to speak not by policy statements, but by watching what happens to others who raise concerns.
Do they progress? Are issues addressed? Or do they disappear?
Culture is shaped less by what organisations say — and more by what people observe. This insight extends far beyond politics.
The dynamics described in Parliament House mirror patterns seen across:
- corporate environments
- defence organisations
- public institutions
- and professional workplaces globally
The role of the bystander
Another defining theme of the episode is the responsibility of bystanders.
Tarnawsky rejects the idea that silence is neutral.
When people witness harmful behaviour and choose not to act, they shape the environment in which that behaviour continues.
This is why she distinguishes between:
- bystanders
- and “upstanders” — those willing to stand beside others, even quietly.
Sometimes leadership begins not with dramatic intervention, but with a single act of solidarity:
- a message of support
- a conversation
- a refusal to look away
The conversation’s metaphor of the “first follower” captures this beautifully:
real movements begin when someone else chooses to stand alongside the lone person on the hill.
Ethical influence from outside the institution
Perhaps the most distinctive contribution of the episode is Tarnawsky’s concept of ethical influence. Drawing from humanitarian and diplomatic experience, she explores how people can shape systems without formally controlling them.
This involves understanding:
- how power actually works
- what pressures decision-makers face
- how momentum for change is created
- and how influence can be exercised ethically rather than coercively.
Importantly, she argues that logic alone rarely changes systems.
Real change often requires:
- collective pressure
- coordinated advocacy
- media attention
- public momentum
- and strategic persistence
Purpose therefore becomes not only a source of personal resilience, but a mechanism for collective influence.
The personal cost of courage
The episode does not romanticise courage.
Tarnawsky speaks openly about:
- isolation
- trauma
- physical stress
- career loss
- and the emotional cost of sustained conflict.
Yet she also reflects on what emerged afterward:
clarity about who her real supporters were, a stronger sense of purpose, and the ability to now help others navigating similar experiences.
This reveals an important leadership truth:
Courage rarely feels heroic in the moment.
Often, it feels frightening, lonely and uncertain.
What this means for leadership
This episode broadens the series’ exploration of purpose into one of leadership’s most confronting territories: institutional courage.
It asks:
- What happens when systems fail?
- How do people act when power becomes unsafe?
- And how do leaders maintain integrity when consequences are personal?
The answers offered are not simplistic. But they are deeply human. Leadership, the episode suggests, is ultimately less about status and more about alignment between values and action.
Looking ahead
As Purpose: Leading into the Future continues, this conversation highlights a critical challenge for modern institutions:
Can systems genuinely change if people remain unsafe to tell the truth? Because trust is not rebuilt through statements alone.
It is rebuilt when:
- people are heard
- power is held accountable
- bystanders become upstanders
- and leaders choose integrity even when it carries cost
And sometimes, leadership begins not inside the institution — but in the moment someone decides they can no longer stay silent.
At the Menzies Leadership Foundation, we believe the most consequential leadership often occurs not inside systems — but in the moment someone decides they can no longer stay silent. Jo Tarnawsky’s story is a confronting reminder that purpose matters most when it costs something: when titles are gone, when institutions push back, and when every available option is difficult. Her phrase — “choose your hard” — distils something the series has been building toward: leadership is not about avoiding hardship, but about which consequence you can ultimately live with.
As trust in institutions erodes and the gap between stated values and lived culture widens, the question is no longer whether organisations encourage people to speak up — it is how they respond when someone actually does. Listen to Episode 5 of Purpose: Leading into the Future, explore the work of the Menzies Leadership Foundation, and consider how you can help build the conditions where integrity is protected, not punished.
