Future Institute of Australia Partners with RJV to Deliver Leadership Training
Client: RJ Vincent
Industry Sector: Engineering
Project: Leadership Essentials Program
High-performing engineers are often promoted into Project Engineer and Project Manager roles because of their technical expertise. However, technical capability alone doesn’t prepare someone to lead people.
Engineering decisions are often based on facts, data and clear processes. Leading people is different. It requires communication, emotional intelligence, influencing others, coaching, difficult conversations and understanding that every person is motivated differently.
As the business continued to grow and develop its future leaders, RJV recognised that succeeding as a leader requires more than technical expertise. It requires the ability to build relationships, influence behaviour, manage performance, develop others and create psychologically safe teams – skills that are rarely taught as part of an engineering qualification. To address this challenge, RJV partnered with Future Institute of Australia to develop a customised seven-month Leadership Essentials Program for its Project Engineers and Project Managers.
Rather than delivering leadership through a traditional short course, the program was intentionally designed to run over seven months. Participants attend one workshop each month, allowing time to apply new skills in the workplace before returning to reflect on successes and challenges. This approach reinforces behavioural change rather than simply transferring knowledge.
Every workshop was customised using RJV’s policies, procedures, workplace scenarios, terminology and operational context, ensuring participants could immediately relate the learning to their day-to-day roles and challenges.
Across the seven-month program, participants complete a series of self-assessment diagnostic tools before each workshop, exploring areas such as emotional intelligence, default leadership style, communication style, and response to conflict. Each diagnostic aligns with the upcoming workshop, encouraging participants to reflect on their behaviours and leadership approach before attending.
Prior to each workshop, participants complete online eLearning designed to provide the underpinning theory. This allows face-to-face workshops to focus on discussion, workplace scenarios, practical activities and applying leadership skills rather than presenting theory.
A defining feature of the program is that learning doesn’t stop when participants leave the classroom. Following each workshop, participants complete customised workplace application activities designed specifically for RJV’s operating environment. This enables participants to apply new skills in real workplace situations before returning to the next workshop to reflect on their experiences, discuss challenges, share successes and continue building their leadership capability.
Leadership Beyond the Classroom
One of the unique elements of the program is the inclusion of customised Leaders Guides for each participant’s manager. These guides provide discussion prompts, summaries of workshop content and practical coaching questions, enabling line managers to reinforce learning between workshops and embed leadership conversations into everyday work. Rather than leadership development being confined to the classroom, learning is reinforced in the workplace through ongoing coaching, discussion and accountability.
Bringing Leadership to the Workplace
Program facilitator Craig Watson has played an important role in the success of the program. Using practical activities, discussion and real workplace examples from the civil construction industry, Craig creates an engaging learning environment where participants openly share experiences, challenge ideas and learn from one another. Craig’s ability to relate leadership concepts to real civil construction projects helped participants immediately connect the learning to their day-to-day roles.
What RJV Had to Say
Matt Fentiman, People and Culture Manager at RJV, said the level of customisation and partnership throughout the program exceeded expectations.
“I was genuinely impressed with Future Institute of Australia. They promised a customised program, but I was blown away by the level they went to. Everything was tailored to our business, they continually checked they were meeting our needs and hitting the mark, and Craig Watson’s delivery has been outstanding.
After every workshop we debriefed together, reviewed participant feedback and looked at what we could refine before the next session. It wasn’t a set-and-forget program; it evolved as our people developed.
. Leadership conversations are happening, performance management has improved, and I can genuinely see our Project Engineers breaking out of the engineer mould and becoming leaders. That’s exactly what we wanted this program to achieve.”
