Leading Like a Father: Bringing Care and Accountability to the Social Sector

Mark Jeffery is a senior executive, author, and leadership practitioner working across
the Australian social sector. He has held executive roles in not-for-profit, aged care,
and community services organisations, with a focus on operational leadership,
governance, and sustainable impact.

Mark is currently General Manager, Commercial Operations at Lifeline Harbour to
Hawkesbury Sydney, where he oversees retail, logistics, and revenue streams that
fund frontline crisis support services. His work centres on building systems and
cultures that support people doing emotionally demanding work.

He is the author of Lead Like a Father, a leadership framework that reframes
authority through presence, responsibility, and care. The model is not about gender,
but about the values that help leaders make good decisions under pressure. Mark is
particularly interested in how leaders regulate themselves, communicate clearly, and
build trust in complex, human-centred environments.

“Good leadership isn’t about working harder or caring less; it’s about creating
conditions where people can do meaningful work without burning out.”

Describe your career trajectory and how you got to your current position

My career hasn’t followed a straight line. I started in the telecommunications industry
as a project manager, focused on commercial and operational roles that built my
grounding in performance, systems, and accountability. From there, my work began
to align more closely with my education, leading me into human resource
management roles.

Over time, I found myself increasingly drawn to organisations where the work
mattered deeply to people — not just financially, but emotionally and socially. That
pull led me into the not-for-profit and community sector, including early childhood and
aged care, where I held senior leadership roles with responsibility not only for
outcomes, but for the environments people work in every day.

After 13 years in the aged care sector across Sydney and the Southern Highlands, I
moved into my current role as General Manager, Commercial Operations at Lifeline
Harbour to Hawkesbury Sydney. This role has been the culmination of my career to
date, bringing together commercial discipline, operational leadership, and a deep
respect for the human cost of the work being done. It’s a space where leadership
really matters, because the quality of decisions made behind the scenes directly
affects the support available to people at their most vulnerable.

What drives you to do the work that you do?

I’m driven by the gap between how leadership is often described and how it’s
actually experienced by people on the ground.

In many organisations, especially in the social sector, leaders are technically capable
and deeply committed — yet emotionally stretched, carrying pressure they rarely talk
about. When leadership breaks down, it’s rarely due to lack of intent. It’s usually
because people are operating beyond their capacity without adequate support.
Having worked in the aged care sector, I saw many of my colleagues in management
and the front lines, be overworked, overwhelmed and simply stressed out. It doesn’t
need to be that way.

What motivates me is helping leaders create conditions where people can do
meaningful work without burning out. That means better judgement under pressure,
clearer communication, and leadership that understands its impact on others. When
leaders are steady, thoughtful, and human, the ripple effects through an organisation
are profound.

If you could go back in time, what piece of advice would you give yourself
as you first embarked on your career?

Apart from buying up Bitcoin in 2009, I would tell myself that being capable is not the
same as being sustainable.

Early in my career, I believed that working harder, being more available, and saying
yes more often were signs of good leadership. In reality, that approach slowly erodes
clarity, judgement, and connection — the very things leaders are relied on for most.
I’d also remind myself that learning how to regulate emotion, sit with uncertainty, and
ask for support is not a weakness. It’s a leadership skill. The earlier you develop that
capacity, the better leader you become — for others and for yourself.

What does good social sector leadership look like to you?

Good social sector leadership is calm, grounded, and deeply aware of context.
It recognises that people are not just resources, and that exposure to trauma,
complexity, and urgency has a cumulative effect. Strong leaders don’t deny that
reality — they design for it. They communicate clearly, set realistic expectations, and
model emotional regulation rather than reactivity.

Importantly, good leadership in this sector balances care with accountability.
Compassion doesn’t mean lowering standards. It means holding them in a way that
is fair, transparent, and human. Leaders who do this well build trust, retain good
people, and create organisations that can keep serving their communities over the
long term.

What are you currently watching / reading / listening to?

In the last 12–18 months I’ve been heavily in research mode for my book, so I tend
to gravitate toward work that explores leadership, judgement, and human behaviour
under pressure.

I’m currently reading Amy Edmondson’s work on psychological safety, particularly
how it applies in high-stakes environments. I also revisit Margaret Heffernan’s
writing on uncertainty and organisational blind spots — a useful reminder that
confidence and certainty are not the same thing.

In terms of listening, I enjoy podcasts and long-form conversations that go beyond
performance tips and explore how leaders actually think, decide, and recover when
things don’t go to plan. I’m less interested in optimisation and more interested in
wisdom. But now and again, we all need classic ’90s rock.