 So when you hear the words military, pilot, and leader, are their faces that you picture? Are there people that you imagine? I wonder how many of you, prior to that lovely introduction, would have pictured somebody like me. Because I stand before you as all of those things, and yet in many of our societies, and in our cultures, and in our organizations, I would represent none of them. Imagine if you will, the story of a little eight-year-old girl in her school class when a pilot came to talk to the school about their job. They were in the military. They had these green, flying suit coveralls on, and they had these very impressive patches. And they told the class that they would fly really low and really fast, and they had travelled the world. And because they were in the military, they were an officer, and that made them a leader. And being a leader was really important. And the pilot asked the class, who here wants to be a pilot? And a number of hands were immediately raised. And the pilot looked at the class and thought, oh, there's lots of boys here. Do any girls want to be a pilot? And eventually, one very brave little eight-year-old girl raised her hand. And the pilot asked her, would you like to be a pilot? And she replied, no, it's too dangerous, and girls can't do it. And I wonder how many of you had made some assumptions, perhaps, about that little eight-year-old girl and about that pilot. That was actually only a few years ago, and I was the pilot. And I look at this little eight-year-old girl who's growing up in an Australian society, and I just marvel that my upbringing had none of those limitations. I had an incredibly supportive family. I went to a school that encouraged women to be whatever they wanted to be. And this little eight-year-old girl wanted to be a pilot. And I had that dream, and I was allowed to realize my dream. So I joined the military, and I joined the military to be a pilot because they had the fastest aircraft. And I have learned a number of lessons on leadership. And the way I've navigated my leadership journey has been through flying in the highlands of Papua New Guinea, where my crew tried to sell me off as a bride. I was offered two pigs. I've learned my leadership lessons playing the crash victim for a helicopter paramedic search and rescue exercise, where I was covered in prosthetic theater makeup to make it look as though I had real injuries. I've learned my lessons on leadership by flying into combat, flying in and out of hostile environments. And I've even learned my lessons on leadership, flying missions to Antarctica, where we landed on a runway made of ice. And I was once told that a mile of highway can take you one mile down the road. But a mile of runway, well, that can take you anywhere. And it has. It hasn't always been smooth air. It has had some turbulence. I could fly a plane when I was 16 before I was even allowed to drive a car in Australia. And that was me with my dream. I had a dream as a little girl. I worked hard for that dream. And ultimately, I achieved my dream. But it did come at a price. In the early years of my career, I found myself as a young woman in a very male-dominated environment. And I stuck out. And the lessons of communication, the lessons of diversity and inclusion, and the lessons of decision-making were really about to begin for me. The first one happened when I was under training and we flew a tactical mission in the C-130. It was a low-level tactical mission. And we flew quite aggressively and very low. And in the debrief, the load master pulled me aside. And he said to me, ma'am, you can fly the hell out of that plane. It just doesn't sound like you can. And I was a little dumbfounded at the start. And I asked him to please explain further. And he explained to me that, well, he's a load master. He's down the back of the aircraft in the cargo compartment. He can't see what is happening up the front. All he can do with his helmet on is hear and listen the way I'm running and commanding the crew. And he recited my crew brief to me. And then he recited it again. And this time his voice was lower, slower, and louder. It just didn't sound like I knew what I was doing. And he was right. In that environment, my style of communication was ineffective. I was the captain of an aircraft. And my crew needed to know that not just what I was saying was good, but when it comes to communication, it's how you say it. It's where you say it. It's when you say it. And it's who you're saying it to. So I changed. And then I kept trying to change and fit in. Has anyone else ever felt like this? Where you know deep down who you are and what you want to be, but your environment doesn't really let you shine. And that all changed for me in October 2002, when I was one of the first crews to fly the humanitarian evacuation mission from the Bali bombing in Indonesia. As a crew, we were called into work. And we didn't know why. We chatted quite excitedly about this mysterious mission that we were going to go on. And then the news broke. And the news broke to say that there had been terrorist attacks and terrorist bombs had gone off in Bali. And as a crew, we fell silent. Our mission brief had very displeasing answers to questions like, will there be more attacks? Possibly. Will we be attacked? Possibly. Will we carry weapons for self-defense? Negative. This is a humanitarian evacuation mission. And so we took off. And we landed safely in Denpasar. And the sight on arrival was really confronting. If you can imagine, these people were on a beach holiday. They were wearing shorts. They were wearing singlets. They were wearing summer dresses. And a bomb had gone off that was filled with things to pierce through their bodies. The ensuing fire, it melted their hair. It melted their clothes. And it melted their skin. And it took a while for us to be able to evacuate them back to safety. But eventually, we were able to take off. And during the take off, my navigator lent over, and he held my hand. First up, I thought, oh, that's a bit weird. But I looked at his eyes. And just he was shocked. He was confused. He was sad. So we just held hands for the majority of that flight home. During our mission debrief, we sat in a circle. And our executive commander conducted the debrief. And at the end, he asked the crew, would anybody here like psychological support or perhaps speak to a chaplain to overcome what you've done today? And I looked around the crew. And no one did or said anything. Not the navigator, who had clearly been affected by that mission. Not the captain, who was the leader of the crew. I was literally the most junior person on that crew. And I knew I needed a lot of therapy to process what I'd just seen. So I raised my hand. And we all received the psychological support, whether we wanted it or not. But that debriefing technique that our supervisor employed to not fill the silence, it allowed me to raise my hand. And it allowed that the difference that I could bring could actually be a value that I could add. And there are lots of techniques like this that the military have. Another one is decision making. I was always taught that it doesn't matter what decision you make, it will be wrong a minute later. Because time moves forward, information changes, and a decision is only as good as the moment with which you can make it. And because of that, in my environment, where time effective and efficient decision making is no more important than when you are airborne with a time critical, high pressure dynamic environment, decision making can't be left a chance. So we're taught it. It's a process. And we use a framework. The framework that I like to use, I'll share with you, it's a combination of a couple, but it works well for me. And it's called Grady. You have to gather the information. And you have to gather the information from as many people as you can. And in hierarchical organizations, in my experience, you need to start from the most junior person before you move to the most senior person. And that's because without even meaning to, the more senior person will inevitably influence an outcome or set a tone. When you review the information, have you gathered it from as many avenues as possible? Are you making a decision on behalf of a demographic that you don't represent? Have you heard their voice? Review where you're sourced your information from. You have to analyze. And a good technique in analyzing to prevent group think is to appoint somebody to be the devil's advocate, who is the only job in the decision making process is to pick holes in everybody else's ideas. But then somebody has to decide. And that is the role of the leader, the decision maker. And my technique with my crew to ensure they understood the decision had been made is to simply say, crew, the decision is what? You then have to set the wheels in motion to implement the decision. But one of the most important aspects because a decision is only as good as the time with which it is made is you have to evaluate it. And if the person who makes the decision can also initiate the evaluation of the decision, whether that's a minute later, a month later, a year later, then it's very powerful and humbling that you start by saying, well, this is what we did. How did it go? And if you are working in an environment like I am, where there's critical time pressures, or perhaps there's routine and mundane process, then you can even take decision making further by making checklists. And as a pilot, I love checklists. I live by checklists. And the beauty of a checklist is that it will make sure that in the heat of the moment, at the time when you most need that information, you aren't able to forget it. You have a checklist for that. And it means that when I find myself airborne with an engine on fire, it's actually no big deal. I can make it safe in quick time, follow my checklist. When this happens, do that. And then as a team in slower time, we can decide the better course of action using Grady. So the aspects in leadership that I've really learned from my military experience have been communication, it's been decision making, and it's been the vital importance of diversity and inclusion. And I envisage a world where all children can have a dream, they can progress their dream, and everyone can actually reach their leadership potential. So please, as Dr. Souff said, why fit in when you were born to stick out? And let's all make sure that we raise our hands. Thank you. Thank you.