close
Develop, support, promote disability leaders
Mobile Menu Menu

Author Archives: Christina Ryan

  1. DLI Deputy CEO

    Leave a Comment

    Position Description

    Deputy CEO

    Hours: 15 to 20 per week

    Rate: $55.00 per hour

    Location: virtual within Australia

     

    The Disability Leadership Institute is owned and run by disabled people, and works to develop, support, and promote disability leaders. The DLI provides professional development, leadership development programs, a community of practice, a large professional network, and coaching for disability leaders. The DLI is a groundbreaking organisation at the global forefront of the new field of disability leadership.

    The DLI is also the home of the Disability Leadership Oration and the National Awards for Disability Leadership.

    The DLI operates within a human rights framework, particularly disability rights. We value the highly intersectional nature of the disability community. We maintain strong connections with Disabled Peoples Organisations and the disability rights movement. The Institute is not an advocacy or lobbying organisation.

    The DLI is moving into a growth phase as it matures. We value innovation, good practice, and new ways of doing things. The Deputy CEO will take the lead on the growth path that the DLI is on, and on building a larger portfolio of stakeholders engaged across all of our programs and events.

    The Deputy CEO is a new position working alongside the DLI CEO and ultimately reporting to her. However, while they will work closely together, the Deputy CEO will work autonomously to achieve the strategic goals of the DLI, determining their workload and priorities to suit their outcomes. The Deputy CEO will be responsible for the outward facing work of the DLI, while the CEO takes responsibility for design and delivery of the DLI’s leadership and coaching programs, and providers oversight to the DLI coaching panel.

    The CEO maintains responsibility for financial systems and monitoring.

    The Deputy CEO is responsible for the following outcomes:

    1. Grow the DLI, particularly focussing on all areas of operations including membership, leadership programs, coaching, and sponsorship
    2. A well run DLI – managing the DLI’s day to day operations (consultants, communications, membership)
    3. Client liaison and stakeholder engagement, including sourcing and onboarding potential new stakeholders, partners and clients, both organisational and individual
    4. A safe and welcoming membership community
    5. Contribute to strategic oversight of the organisation, including identifying new areas of operation and goals.
    6. An effective impact reporting framework

    Selection criteria:

    To be a strong contender for this position you will have:

    1. A high degree of autonomy and an entrepreneurial outlook
    2. Good government and corporate networks, and familiarity with working in those spaces
    3. Experience in stakeholder engagement at a high level, including establishing and supporting partnerships. This position will be regularly engaging with CEOs, executive leadership of organisations, and senior government stakeholders.
    4. Experience in organisation management, with a focus on marketing, communications and implementing strategic vision
    5. A high degree of comfort in using various platforms and technology
    6. A highly collaborative style of working
    7. Excellent communications
    8. A good understanding of the disability community and the diverse intersectional nature of disabled people

     

    The DLI considers that having a disability is a genuine occupational requirement for this position under section 48 of the Discrimination Act 1991 (ACT).

    *The DLI understands and supports flexible employment. Please discuss your personal requirements with us.

     

    To express interest:

    Send your response to the selection criteria to Christina Ryan, CEO Disability Leadership Institute. Please also include the names of 3 referees who know your work.

    Expressions of interest close COB Friday 14 February.

     

     

     

  2. DLI Members in the news – December 2024

    Leave a Comment

    Caroline Bowditch – 2024 Sidney Myer Creative Fellows Announced

    Megan Spindler Smith – PWDA Welcomes National Action Plan For LGBTIQA+ Health And Wellbeing, Calls For Strong Implementation

    Shane Hryhorec – Video Podcast: The fight for disability rights on flights

    Shane Hryhorec – ‘Sky is the limit’: the untapped potential of accessible tourism in Australia

    Katie Kelly – Parker’s Paralympic Gold Leads Aussie Triathlon’s Night of Nights

    Katie Kelly – Historic Champions Jacobs and Kelly Join Triathlon’s Greatest

    Matt Warren – Awards Celebrate Victorian Work On Disability Inclusion

    Shane Hryhorec – ‘Enough is enough’, say aviation disability advocates

    Kat Reed – Our Lives,Our Voices – shaping the future through voice, power, identity and self-direction.

    Shane Hryhorec – Govt Must Ensure Disabled Airline Access, Not Airlines

    Shane Hryhorec – ‘Enough is enough’: Disability advocates call for air travel to be more accessible

    Kat Reed – DISABILITY FOUNDATIONAL WORK NEEDS COMMUNITY FUNDING

    Alastair McEwin, Megan Spindler Smith – Voice Of Our Own Online National Conference

    Megan Spindler Smith – Outback beekeeper looks to hire NDIS clients

    Emma Bennison – Meet the recipient of the Lesley Hall Lifetime Achievement Award

    Morwenna Collett – Musically able: music from composers and performers with disability connected to Sydney

    Simon Darcy – Are airlines failing in their duty of care to people with disabilities?

    Christina Ryan – Why aren’t there more disabled people in leadership roles?

    Disability Leadership Institute – Breaking barriers: Elevating disability leadership for a more inclusive future

    Kat Reed – COMMUNITY TAKES DISABILITY DAY LEAD

    Carly Findlay – “Resilience and strength”: IDPwD highlights value disabilities

    Emma Bennison, Disability Leadership Institute – SBS midday news bulletin

    Disability Leadership Institute – ABC features stories by, for, and about Australians living with disability

    Disability Leadership Institute – Enhancing disability representation in leadership

    Emma Olivier – Why we need more people with disability in leadership

    Gemma Smart – International Day of Persons with Disabilities: community and action

    Carly Findlay – Sensitivity readers: why do we need them?

    Sarah Langton – What does the future hold for the NDIS – and its participants?

    Disability Leadership Institute – Deaf defying: disability leadership as an act of resistance — with Dr Scott Avery
    The Disability Leadership Oration

    Megan Spindler Smith – PWDA Urges Gov’t to End ADEs After Rapporteur Call

    Shane Hryhorec – Traumatic reason Aussie passenger ‘will never cruise’ with MSC again

  4. DLI Members in the news – November 2024

    Leave a Comment

    Samantha Jenkinson – Newman History 6753 (podcast)

    Megan Spindler Smith – Would you benefit from the nine cost-of-living report recommendations?

    Fiona Yeang – Standing meeting lacks insight

    Gemma Smart – SUPRA officers elected to CAPA

    Dan Stubbs, Christina Ryan – SDAC24 Interviews (videos)

    Carly Findlay – Hear from a lived experience

    Megan Spindler Smith – PWDA Responds To NDIA STA And Respite Changes

    Yenn Purkis, Disability Leadership Institute – Ways to celebrate I-Day in Canberra

    Disability Leadership Institute – Australians with disability tell their stories for International Day of People with Disability 2024

    Megan Spindler Smith – ‘Paying the price’ Final Report a missed opportunity to alleviate cost of living crisis for people with disability

    Lisa Cox – Unstereotype Alliance Australia to present Disability in Advertising panel at Bus Stop Film’s Driving Change Disability Employment Summit

    Lisa Cox – Unstereotype Alliance Australia to unveil Unilever, Mars Wrigley-backed research at disability employment summit

    Christina Ryan – Here are the Australians of the Year for the ACT for 2025

    Christina Ryan – Office for Women turns 50

    Christina Ryan – ACT nominees for 2025 Australian of the Year awards named

    Christina Ryan – Rugby legend in the running for ACT Australian of the Year

    Shane Hryhorec – Escooters blocking footpaths at centre of disability discrimination case

    Caroline Bowditch – The art of landing in your skin, TEDxCastlemaine

    Christina Ryan – Revealed: who’s in line to be the ACT’s Australian of the Year for 2025

    Christina Ryan – 2025 ACT Australian of the Year Nominee

    Carly Findlay – New Powerd podcast Access Granted explores the intersection between disability and change politics

    Christina Ryan – Revealed: who’s in line to be the ACT’s Australian of the Year for 2025

    Carly Findlay – On Why Using Facial Disfigurement As A Halloween Costume Causes ‘Hurt & Harm’

    Megan Spindler Smith – Death of 26yo woman who lived with ‘significant’ disabilities prompts call for safeguards

    Claudia Forsberg – Costumes and trick or treating draw bulk of Halloween retail spending

    Matt Warren, Megan Spindler Smith, Vicki Winfield, Shevonne Joyce, Disability Leadership Institute – Executive internship program nominated for Victorian Disability Award!

  5. DLI members in the news – October 2024

    Leave a Comment

    Shane Hryhorec – Top cop nominated for Australian of the Year after family tragedy

    Jodie Haigh – They want to feel supported: why so many women feel buying a home is crucial

    Laura Pettenuzzo – Ableist language has no place in parliament (or anywhere)

    Claudia Forsberg – Authorities warn against feeding kangaroos after bin-diving wildlife rescues

    Megan Spindler Smith – Voting access for Queenslanders with a disability ‘not sufficient’, advocates say

    Kat Reed – Disability IS an election issue: Gender, anti-violence and families

    Kat Reed – Disability IS an election issue: Housing

    Carly Findlay – Vote Your Fave Aussie Into The National Portrait Gallery

    Christina Ryan – SDAC 2024 keynote

    Dwayne Fernandes – Australian Space Diversity Alliance announces inaugural National Committee

    Kelly Schulz – New Consumer Group To Shape Future Of Eye Research

    Claudia Forsberg – Aussies saving money by cycling

    Claudia Forsberg – Australian families switching to cycling as car-running costs rise

    Megan Spindler Smith – From tarot cards to gaming therapy: The treatments no longer covered by the NDIS

    Megan Spindler Smith – Flawed Process Undermines Transitional Support Lists

    Alastair McEwin – Australian Disability Enterprises can pay workers a fraction of the minimum wage. What place do they have in today’s society?

    Shane Hryhorec – Urgent call for strata regulation reform in South Australia: Homeowners face massive repairs and legal battles amid rising apartment issues

    Ebe Ganon – Are universities doing enough to support neurodivergent students?

  6. Meaning well doesn’t equal inclusion

    Leave a Comment

    This month we are revisiting an article from February 2020:

    Meaning well doesn’t equal inclusion

    Real inclusion takes action as well as good intentions.

    by Christina Ryan DLI CEO

    A group of disabled people in a circle at a conference. Some are in wheelchairs, they are talking together.

    It’s unusual to meet someone who doesn’t think it’s a good idea to employ disabled people, or to be working towards an inclusive workplace.

    So, why is it still so hard to find good workplaces that are inclusive where disabled people feel comfortable and stay for the long haul? Why have the statistics on disability employment stagnated for decades, or gone backwards?

    Because everybody thinks they’re doing something, and very few are.

    Disability Leadership Institute (DLI) members recently shared their experiences of workplace inclusion. They identified that workplaces still aren’t getting inclusion right, with a continuing lack of real action, and despite many workplaces claiming they are inclusive.

    There is no doubt employers mean well, but is meaning well enough to get inclusion over the line? Unfortunately not. Meaning well doesn’t equate to action, and it is real action that is needed.

    DLI members had several comments and suggestions for getting inclusion right across a range of workplace touch points. Many of these suggestions come from managers of teams, CEOs, and highly qualified disabled people struggling to find work. All the suggestions are from disabled people as both practitioners of inclusion and participants in inclusive processes.

    Inclusion needs to start at the beginning, during recruitment, and continue as an ongoing focus for management and leadership every day. Complacency is not an option. Never assume your organisation is fully inclusive, nor that you have no further work to do. There is always more to be done, just as there are always more ways of being inclusive, because diverse people are diverse and each person must be treated as an individual.

    Recruitment:

    • Contacting people before their recruitment interview, or appraisal process, to ask what adjustments need to be made and then making those adjustments
    • Making sure interviewers can respond to questions about workplace adjustments at interview
    • Ensuring interviews are accessible so that people can focus on their interview and not their disability needs
    • Ensuring people are confident and comfortable asking for adjustment during the recruitment phase, this means having an accessible recruitment process
    • Providing questions before interview, meeting interview panel members beforehand, or not even having a formal interview process
    • Openly seeking disabled people for your workforce

    Human Resources:

    • Ensuring there are disabled people working in human resources, and valuing the expert contribution of those staff
    • Asking all staff how they like to work/communicate and then creating shared profiles with that information, so everyone knows that everyone one else has particular strengths and preferences
    • Collecting data on diversity numbers and length of employment, including how many people openly identify as disabled

    Management:

    • Taking organisation level policies and applying them at team level
    • Ongoing conversations amongst team members which may lead to flexible work arrangements on where and how work is done
    • Doing regular things like staff meetings and team gatherings in open reflective ways

    Leadership:

    • Leadership leading by example, making sure all team members are checked on as part of daily routines to avoid exclusion and cliques developing
    • Maintaining an open conversation about gaps in inclusion and openly working to address those gaps
    • Workplaces claiming to be diverse should be planning, providing funding and seeking counsel for success in diversity, just as they would any other part of their business mission

    Finally, and rather obviously: having more than good intentions by actually employing disabled people. Many organisations say that employing disabled people is a good thing to do, yet half of all disabled people remain unemployed.

    Clearly good intentions are not good enough. Workplaces need to mean it and that means action.

    Action starts from recruitment and continues throughout the organisation as part of daily operations. Action means policies, processes and an ongoing conversation about what inclusion looks like for this team.

    Action also means management openly taking responsibility for addressing inclusion gaps as a leadership example.

    Inclusion will look different for every team, because every team is different; however, there are some structural underpinnings that can be considered for any organisation that wishes to be inclusive, as well as being seen to be inclusive.

     

    Thanks to the many DLI members who shared thoughts and experiences for this article.

    Sign up for regular updates from the Disability Leadership Institute. 

    Christina Ryan is the CEO of the Disability Leadership Institute, which provides professional development and support for disability leaders. She identifies as a disabled person