"Leadership is at the centre of and is responsible for all the activities of an organ-isation". This assertion is at the core to the approach taken by ALAust to consultancies, coaching and training.

Management is a part of Leadership, not the other way round, in ACL concepts. Thus when we use the term, 'leadership', we are talking about every aspect of the business or enterprise, not just the people management aspects of the business or enterprise.

ALAust consultants assist organisations to appreciate what the organisation 'needs' to be doing to achieve its goals. We use surveys, meetings, interviews, industry and community factors and / or organisational records and results to identify what an organisation 'needs' to be doing next - opportunities to be taken, problems to be resolved, improvements to be put into effect, changes to be implemented.

We assist organisations then in devising strategies or business plans or arrangements so as to get the organisations actioning efforts to meet these priority 'needs'.

Sometimes the things that need to be done are internal, like stretching planning, improving communications, and developing evaluation skills. Sometimes the things that need to be done are external, like joint venturing, going into different markets, slowing the rate of expansion.

These 'needs' for strategies, for business plans, and for arrangements will have non-training solutions and training solutions. ALAust accredited consultants facilitate leader action with respect to the non-training solutions, and accredited coachers and trainers provide coaching and development programs where training solutions are required.

ALAust does this for all levels of leaders within an organisation, from the CEO to the frontline supervisor. ALAust has programs and instruments devised at three levels –
    For the Chief Executive, the Board of Directors and the Executive team
    For Senior and Middle Managers and their business teams
    For Frontline Managers and Supervisors and their operational teams

For the project management environment, ALAust has packages for project directors, program managers and project managers.

In this way, the organisation, through the actions of its managers at all levels, are led to do what the organisation 'needs' to do to survive, to stabilise or to grow. The ‘needs’ at different levels can be different

In practice, ALAust may not do all of these things for individual firms - this is the model within which we frame our approach to whatever aspects firms seek assistance from us.

In some instances, firms get us to do the initial 'needs' analysis – their managers take on any response to the results of the 'needs' analysis. In other cases, organisations ask us to provide the 'action centred' leadership development of their managers, with workshops and action learning programs.

In some circumstances, the organisation already has seen the 'needs' of its business, and we are brought in to advise on, say, the developmental needs of the organisation's project management systems and to train its project managers and program managers in leading (and managing) projects.

The approach in overview is important, because many times we are asked to provide a 'training solution' for a set of problems in a firm that cannot be resolved by training alone.

Needs can be in competition: a group of businesses may want to go into a joint arrangement. The needs of participants, say, and the intentions of some in the group, can be to benefit their own separate businesses first. The needs of the joint business can be in conflict with the needs of the separate businesses contemplating joint operations. This means simply that the joint business has to resolve this conflict in needs if it is to succeed – the joint business and the business relationships (teamwork) may be doomed without adjustment.

The ACL ‘needs-based’ consultancy approach focuses all efforts onto leadership objectives that will navigate leaders to achieve those needs.