Professor Amanda Sinclair B.A. (Hons), PhD. (Melb)

Amanda started professional life as a social planner working in government and consulting before undertaking a PhD study of leadership teams entitled ‘The Tyranny of Teams.’ She found that although teams are touted as the best way to get work done, behind the hype they can be hierarchical and excluding, full of unspoken alliances and politicking beneath a veneer of politeness. The remedy is to understand and work with these dynamics, not pretend they don’t exist.  

When Amanda moved to Melbourne Business School, she again drew on her own experience of working in traditional male-dominated environments to pioneer a focus on promoting women and diversity in leadership. A focus of subsequent research was how to move organisational cultures from expecting women to conform – a ‘fix the women’ approach – to a ‘fix the leadership’ approach, that is, to help organisations foster more open, innovative and inclusive leadership cultures in which all people can thrive and contribute.

In 2004 Amanda took a year’s leave of absence to complete yoga teacher training with Dharma Yoga and then further training in meditation teaching including with Ian Gawler, Craig Hassed and colleagues at The Gawler Foundation. Everything changed after this! Amanda transformed the way she worked and taught in leadership and what she teaches, with a new focus on supporting people to work with their whole selves in leadership and to seek sustaining and enjoyable leadership opportunities. 

Amanda is a big fan of collaborative research and teaching, and has worked closely with long-time colleague and friend Christine Nixon, former Victorian Police Commissioner. Amanda continues to deliver a variety of leadership programs and research with Christine.  

A further area of research and passion for Amanda has been learning from and supporting First Nations’ leaders and leadership. Australian and Torres Strait Indigenous leaders provide us with powerful models of leading, especially in caring for land and culture. Partnering with Indigenous leaders, such as colleague Associate Professor Michelle Evans, Amanda has researched, profiled and fostered learning from cross-generational First Nations leadership.

Amanda has just completed her first – as yet unpublished - novel about a Prime Minister who seeks to do leadership differently. Her four adult children, partner, grandchildren and assorted other animals help her focus on what matters.

Read more in Five movements in an embodied feminism: A memoir

See Amanda’s biography on the Encyclopedia of Women & Leadership in Twentieth-Century Australia.