Unlocking and Illuminating Human Potential through Leadership Development

How do we unlock potential? How do we tap into a person’s capability and inner passions? Finding the answers takes time. It certainly did for me. As a child, I was always interested in people, particularly how people behave and triumph over adversity. Why then did I ultimately study accountancy at university? Like a lot of people, I did it because it made sense – I was good at it, so I began a career in finance. Naturally, my early work focused on business assets, but I increasingly found myself talking about people.

Managers would say ‘our people are our most valuable asset’. Yet when I asked what drives this asset, they couldn’t say. They could tell me how a piece of equipment works, but not the people using it. There was no understanding of human nature. This seemed untenable to me. I needed to have these conversations. People think it’s a big shift from finance to psychology but, for me, it isn’t.

Organisational Psychology is about getting the best value from people. It’s about understanding how people and organisations interact, knowing that it can be a constructive, mutually beneficial relationship. It’s like a chemical interaction that can create something amazing - or not.

Understanding both of these worlds led to our central belief at Kaya that organisational psychology is both science and art: The science of analysis and interpretation; The art of creating new journeys for individuals and organisations, shifting both to new ways of viewing the world of work – new mental models. These journeys are unpredictable. And in 99.999% of cases, they produce wonderful surprises. This is my passion. How can we better understand people and create value by unlocking their potential? How do we raise the consciousness of this understanding in leaders? How do we make organisations, communities, and society better?

SIOPA looks forward to inviting Organisational Psychologist Jan Sipsma to present at SIOPA’s next event titled “Unlocking and Illuminating Human Potential through Leadership Development” at FLUX, Perth on 6 June 2017.

During this seminar, the following themes will be explored:
- Everyone must be a leader
- Everyone gets leadership but does not know how to get there
- How do we grow “bigger” minds?

Jan Sipsma is the Founder and Managing Director of Kaya, an organisational effectiveness practice with offices in Australia, South Africa and New Zealand. Jan is an Endorsed Organisational Psychologist with more than 20 years of experience as an organisational effectiveness professional.