Sustainable Leadership Courses for a Better World
Learn how Sustainable Leadership drives high performance, resilience and enables a better future for people and the planet
Looking to make a bigger impact
in your organisation and the world?
Sustainable Leadership practices add proven value to your organisation. Being more ethical adds 7% to both profits and return on assets, as well as benefiting society. Training all employees can add 17% to your share price.
Learn how to use these and other evidence-based practices in our Foundations course. Or, if you’re looking for a change in direction, you can become a licensed Advanced Practitioner and promote Sustainable Leadership beyond your own organisation. Or become a member and keep up-to-date.
Each Sustainable Leadership practice adds value to your organisation – protecting your brand, motivating customers and employees, financially, as well as adding long-term value to all stakeholders.
Looking to make a bigger impact
in your organisation and the world?
Sustainable Leadership practices add proven value to your organisation. Being more ethical adds 7% to both profits and return on assets, as well as benefiting society. Training all employees can add 17% to your share price.
Learn how to use these and other evidence-based practices in our Foundations course. Or, if you’re looking for a change in direction, you can become a licensed Advanced Practitioner and promote Sustainable Leadership beyond your own organisation. Or become a member and keep up-to-date.
Each Sustainable Leadership practice adds value to your organisation – protecting your brand, motivating customers and employees, financially, as well as adding long-term value to all stakeholders.
Who are our courses for?
Executives from business, government or the non-profit sector.
Current business owners wanting to put their firm on a more sustainable path.
Experienced managers seeking a career shift into Sustainable Leadership.
Consultants seeking to expand into Sustainable Leadership.
Why Sustainable Leadership?
You want to produce exceptional, long-term financial, social and environmental outcomes.
You know that business-as-usual needs to change towards Sustainable Leadership that is proven to work.
You want to protect your brand and profits while behaving fairly and ethically.
You want your organisation to become part of a global movement towards a better future.
Features of ISL’s Virtual Classroom
Our courses in Sustainable Leadership are geared towards organisations of all sizes and from all sectors.
Case studies and examples make the learnings highly relevant to all learners.
Our courses are packed with in-depth, practical training and resources.
Experienced instructors bring you first-hand knowledge.
You'll join a community of like-minded people wanting to help each other improve the world.
Learn at your own pace through bite-sized sessions that fit in with your lifestyle.
Our courses are enjoyable and effective, and designed for different learners.
Our teaching methods facilitate deep learning and understanding.
Benefits & Outcomes of ISL’s Virtual Classroom
Sustainable Leadership
Learn about how and why Sustainable Leadership works so that you can improve the resilience and performance of your own team or organisation.
Licensed Practitioner
Become a Licensed Practitioner with a leading-edge skillset that will make you invaluable to your organisation or those you advise as a consultant.
Tools and support
Becoming licensed gives you access to a range of tools and support from the practice community, to enable you to grow and deliver real ‘value for money’.
Boast your credentials
Use our Licensed Practitioner badge to help market your business on your website, email signature, invoices and other business documents.
Our Founders
Dr Gayle Avery
Gayle Avery, co-founder of the Institute for Sustainable Leadership in 2007, is highly experienced in leadership development for executives globally, including in Australia, China, Europe, Laos, New Zealand and Thailand.
She is passionate about helping senior leaders develop a systematic approach to leadership to enable them to create long-lasting and resilient enterprises.
An honorary professor at various leading universities, she is fastidious in ensuring that course material is based on evidence from research and practice.
Dr Harald Bergsteiner
Harry Bergsteiner is a co-founder of the Institute for Sustainable Leadership, and is a long-established thought leader in Sustainable Leadership.
A former adjunct university professor, Harry specialises in developing tools and other resources to help managers implement Sustainable Leadership in their organisations. He has taught students and executives across Australasia and Europe, and led international study tours.
Harry’s other areas of expertise include accountability, ethics and country competitiveness.
Who we've taught for
Our instructors have designed and taught leadership for corporate clients in Australia and the Asia Pacific region, including:
Abbott, Allianz, AMP Capital Investors, ANZ National Bank of NZ, ASIC, NSW Attorney-General’s Department, Audit Office of NSW, Aussie Home Loans, Avant, Baxter Healthcare, B Braun, China Europe International Business School (CEIBS), Committee for Economic Development of Australia (CEDA), Covance, CSPC (China), CapGemini, Datacom, Delta Group, Deutsche Bank, Employers Mutual, G77, Khungfu (China), Landcom, Lumley, McDonald’s, Macquarie Graduate School of Management, Macquarie University Global Leadership Program, Munich Reinsurance Australia, NSW Sport & Recreation, Pfizer, ProVision, Qantas, Pernod Ricard, Premium Wine Brands, Rail Access Corporation, Reserve Bank of Australia, Shanghai General Motors, Shanghai hospital pharmacists, Siemens, Sun Microsystems, NSW TAFE, Tamworth TAFE, TMP, Thomson’s Publishers, Westpac, Woolworths.
Our Membership Area
Become a member of the ISL community working towards a better, more sustainable future.
As a member, you're entitled to a range of benefits. Keep up to date through our curated educational platform with our Be Inspired! Video Collection, Podcasts, and searchable Research Tidbits. Enjoy discounts on ISL's books, conferences, study tours and other events, and much more...while supporting our research.
$9.90 per month or $99.00 per year
Our Current Courses
Foundations in Sustainable Leadership
The Foundations course gets you started on the certification pathway. It enables you to introduce and manage Sustainable Leadership practices in your own team or group.
The Foundations course provides you with a practical understanding of Sustainable Leadership. We show you how to assess leadership in a wide range of organisations.
Those who complete the Foundations course will be able to diagnose and improve leadership issues within their own team.
Estimated course completion: 40 hours.
The Foundations course covers 6 modules that you can take at your own pace, with optional regular online meetings with facilitators and other participants:
1. Orientation: a short segment that introduces the course and how to get the most out of it.
2. What is leadership?: explains the complexity of leadership, followership and leadership systems.
3. Leadership culture: shows the importance of different leadership paradigms in creating positive cultures.
4. What is Sustainable Leadership?: discusses how to create high performing and resilient organisations.
5. Special topics: covers current issues in leadership that will help organisations become more sustainable, such as sharing a purpose and pursuing the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals.
6. Certification test: this module contains an online test covering all the material in the course.
When you successfully complete the test in Module 6, you will receive a Certificate in Sustainable Leadership, which you can display.
This makes you part of a community of practitioners and scholars who are committed to advancing Sustainable Leadership, particularly in your own sphere of influence.
Certified members of this community share common values and knowledge, which they are willing to share with clients and new members.
After successfully completing the Foundations course, you can build your capability further by applying for the Advanced Practitioner course mentored by senior practitioners, become a member or join one of our Sustainable Leadership Study Tours.
Advanced Practitioner in Sustainable Leadership
This course follows on from the Foundations course. It enables you to become a licensed Advanced Practitioner who advises others on Sustainable Leadership in both your own and other organisations.
The Advanced Practitioner course enables you to add Sustainable Leadership to your skillset as a consultant or change agent and to improve leadership in your own organisation directly.
Focused on practice, the Advanced Practitioner course deepens your understanding of Sustainable Leadership and enables you to apply our advanced tools and frameworks in organisations.
Estimated course completion: 100 hours.
This course covers 7 modules:
1. Orientation: explains the course and how to get the most out of it.
2. Sustainable Leadership advanced: deepens your understanding and practical experience with Sustainable Honeybee Leadership, which creates and perpetuates sustainable organisations.
3. Leadership paradigms: enables you to assess Leadership Culture, which is Honeybee practice #1, by applying four paradigms.
4. Deep dive into Honeybee practices: furthers your understanding of why and how the 23 Sustainable Honeybee Practices interact and reinforce one another using practical examples.
5. Applying the tools: learn how to apply and interpret results from ISL’s advanced tools and frameworks, based on a living case study.
6. Working with a client: apply and interpret results from ISL’s advanced tools for a client of your own choosing. One free Sustainable Leadership Questionnaire is included in the course fee.
7. Licensing test: After you successfully complete this course you will receive a practitioner’s license in Sustainable Leadership, a virtual badge and access to ISL tools and resources to use while you remain licensed. One year’s licensing fee is included in the course fee.
We ask people to apply to join the Licensed Practitioner course to ensure that people with the right experience, intentions and values become licensed with us. Completing the Foundations course is a prerequisite to entering the Advanced Practitioner course.
Micro courses
Our micro courses cover current topics in short, easy to complete sessions.
Facilitators: Our facilitators are renowned experts in their fields who have taught at leading universities and business schools
Evidence-based content: All micro courses are based on evidence from research and practice
Applied focus: Enables you to apply the learnings to improve outcomes in your own team or organisation
Live online sessions: Each micro course is accompanied by an online networking session with other participants and the expert facilitator
Self-paced: Work at your own pace
Presentations: Material is presented in short videos with lessons that you can complete in a lunch hour
Time required: 10 hours or less
Learning aids: Supplementary materials to aid understanding include expert videos, case studies, activities, podcasts and learning applications
Certificate: Complete the final quiz and earn a Certificate of Completion from the Institute for Sustainable Leadership
The Brain and Sustainable Leadership
Explore the brain and behaviour with the help of world-renowned neuroscientist, Dr Mark Williams.
Understanding how habits are formed and maintained is crucial to improving organisational culture achieving high performance and resilience at a holistic level.
Comprises 6 modules and a Q&A live session with Dr. Mark Williams.
After taking this course, you will have a better understanding of behavioural patterns to improve productivity, increase conscious communication and start reversing unwanted habits to focus more on those that align with sustainable leadership.
Essential Leadership Tools
This is a highly practical course with learnings that you can start applying from day one. It’s ideal for new managers and leaders as well as for experienced managers.
Having taught all over the world and consulted with large, medium and small businesses, Dr Gayle Avery has selected the crucial tools that will optimise your time and results.
Comprises 5 modules and a Q&A live session with experts from our Institute.
From this course, you will learn how to guide, develop and inspire your team members, and gain insight into complex organisational patterns and strategies to help improve team productivity and effectiveness.
Foundations in Sustainable Leadership
The Foundations course gets you started on the certification pathway. It enables you to introduce and manage Sustainable Leadership practices in your own team or group.
(Estimated course completion: 40 hours)
The Foundations in Sustainable Leadership course provides you with a practical understanding of Sustainable Leadership. We show you how to assess leadership in a wide range of organisations.
Those who complete the Foundations course will be able to diagnose and improve leadership issues within their own team.
The Foundations course covers 6 modules that you can take at your own pace, with optional regular online meetings with facilitators and other participants:
1. Orientation: a short segment that introduces the course and how to get the most out of it.
2. What is leadership?: explains the complexity of leadership, followership and leadership systems.
3. Leadership culture: shows the importance of different leadership paradigms in creating positive cultures.
4. What is Sustainable Leadership?: discusses how to create high performing and resilient organisations.
5. Special topics: covers current issues in leadership that will help organisations become more sustainable, such as sharing a purpose and pursuing the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals.
6. Certification test: this module contains an online test covering all the material in the course.
When you successfully complete the test in Module 6, you will receive a Certificate in Sustainable Leadership, which you can display.
This makes you part of a community of practitioners and scholars who are committed to advancing the field of Sustainable Leadership, particularly in their own sphere of influence.
Certified members of this community share common values and knowledge, which they are willing to share with clients and new members.
After successfully completing the Foundations course, you can build your capability further by applying for the Advanced Practitioner course mentored by senior practitioners, become a member or join one of our Sustainable Leadership Study Tours.
Advanced Practitioner in Sustainable Leadership
This course follows on from the Foundations course. It enables you to become a licensed Advanced Practitioner who advises others on Sustainable Leadership.
(Estimated course completion: 100 hours)
The Advanced Practitioner course enables you to add Sustainable Leadership to your skillset as a consultant or change agent or to improve your own organisation directly.
Focused on practice, the Advanced Practitioner course deepens your understanding of Sustainable Leadership and enables you to apply our advanced tools and frameworks in organisations.
This course covers 7 modules:
1. Orientation: explains the course and how to get the most out of it.
2. Sustainable Leadership advanced: deepens your understanding and practical experience with Sustainable Honeybee Leadership, which creates and perpetuates sustainable organisations.
3. Leadership paradigms: enables you to assess Leadership Culture, which is Honeybee practice #1, by applying four paradigms.
4. Deep dive into Honeybee practices: furthers your understanding of why and how the 23 Sustainable Honeybee Practices interact and reinforce one another using practical examples.
5. Applying the tools: learn how to apply and interpret results from ISL’s advanced tools and frameworks, based on a living case study.
6. Working with a client: apply and interpret results from ISL’s advanced tools for a client of your own choosing. One free Sustainable Leadership Questionnaire is included in the course fee.
7. Licensing test: After you successfully complete this course you will receive a practitioner’s license in Sustainable Leadership, a virtual badge and access to ISL tools and resources to use while you remain licensed. One year’s licensing fee is included in the course fee.
We ask people to apply to join the Licensed Practitioner course to ensure that people with the right experience, intentions and values become licensed with us. Completing the Foundations course is a prerequisite to entering the Advanced Practitioner course.
Frequently Asked Questions
We’re at the cusp of a global revolution in rethinking and taking up Sustainable Leadership. The world is moving rapidly towards Sustainable Leadership practices from greater ethics to accountability, from caring for all stakeholders to fostering innovation, the environment and society.
Joining now allows you to become an early adopter of this major shift.
You can join one of our courses or become a member of ISL and enjoy a range of benefits. Members can join on a monthly or annual basis. Participants in our courses are automatically members for the duration of their studies (up to 12 months).
Yes, the lecture and activity modules are presented in manageable segments. You can take modules at times that suit you.
The online Live Events are at scheduled times but attendance at the Live Events is optional.
We strongly recommend that you attend the Live Events to meet members of the ISL community.
Yes most of our courses have tests, particularly those leading to certification or licensing in Sustainable Leadership.
At the end of most modules, short quizzes allow you to test your knowledge. You can retake these quizzes until you achieve 80% correct. The quizzes are designed to help you learn and take the form of multiple choice and true/false questions.
In the last module of a certification or licensing course, the final test covers all the material in the course. This is the only module in a course that requires you to complete the quiz or other set activity successfully within two attempts. If this doesn’t happen, one of our dedicated community of facilitators will make direct contact with you to help you in meeting the requirements of this module.
You can find out more by following this link to our Licensing and Certification Pathway.
Basically the Foundations in Sustainable Leadership course leads to certification whereas the Advanced Practitioner in Sustainable Leadership course leads to licensing.
You cease being a member when your monthly or annual membership expires and you choose not to renew.
We understand that sometimes people can’t continue a course for a variety of reasons. As such we offer you a 50% refund if you have visited up to and including Module 2, Session 2 in the Foundations in Sustainable Leadership or Advanced Practitioner in Sustainable Leadership courses. If you have chosen to progress to the next session (Module 2, Session 3) no discount will apply.
The Australian government requires us to charge Australian residents the prevailing rate of Goods & Services Tax. This tax does not apply to residents of other countries.