"HAVING THAT ASSURANCE GAVE ME CONFIDENCE"

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You don’t always need to be struggling to ask for help. When it comes to building your professional confidence, Luke Galley subscribes to the theory that even when you’re going well, there’s always room for improvement. “My outlook is if you don’t ask for support, it’s not going to come knock on your front door.” 

 

Into his fourth year as the Taranaki Regional Manager for Zeal - an organisation that provides safe, creative and inclusive spaces for rangatahi across the North Island and online - Galley has a huge impact on his local community.  

 

His passion for Aotearoa’s youth is matched by his desire to grow as a leader. “My kids and the teenagers I work with will tell you I’m not young,” he smiles, “but in managerial terms, I’m only 35, so that’s relatively young."  

 

“Any chance I get to shoulder tap someone who has been in situations I’m going through, has built something from scratch or has overseen staff for many years, I’m grateful. I’ve got a lot to learn.” 

 

After being offered a spot in his local Mentoring Foundation of New Zealand programme in 2020, Galley leapt at the chance.  In fact, the timing couldn’t have worked out any better. Zeal were in the process of shifting into the well-known Mayfair building and there were some big decisions on his plate.  “At that point, the project was really starting to take off so I was just pumped to have the opportunity to have someone much wiser and more experienced to help steer me through that period of growth.” 

 

He got that in the form of his mentor Andrew Brock, a seasoned leader with management and governance experience across a range of sectors - most helpfully in Galley’s case - community development and sustainability. 

 

Galley describes his mentor as “an absolute legend. He’s been a CEO, he’s been in many challenging positions over the years. He was supurb with me, gave me permission from the off to ask him anything -  there are no stupid questions and nothing’s off the table.” 

 

One of the greatest assets, in Galley’s eyes, was having someone one step removed to consider the wider context - a set of eyes from the outside looking in. “He was so good with me. Andrew gave me pointers like ‘if I was in your shoes, this is what I’d suggest’.  

 

“He’s a sounding board, he was able to point out a few things that I didn’t see - being in the day-to-day - and help me think big picture and longer term.  

 

“He’d ask ‘OK, if you make this decision now, how is it going to affect you in the next 2-5 years? Does it align with your strategic plan?’ Just really useful questions that help us think of the future rather than just the here and now.” 

 

The results of those insights have been impressive. “At the time when we started to meet, we had a small team,” Galley says of Zeal’s Mayfair building project, “but now we have the staff we need to do the job justice. "

  

Within that, there were lots of funding applications and proposals to get the budget to increase the team to that size. We’ve taken on alternative education as well, which is a huge contract for us - it’s a first for Zeal nationally - so he steered me through some pretty big decisions. “He also put me in touch with people that were able to support me with various projects we were working on. I can’t thank him enough, if I’m being honest.” 

 

Galley has always backed himself in his role, and his Mentoring Foundation programme experience has served to underline - rather than redefine - his leadership journey. “I don’t think my outlook on leadership has changed but I think it provided me with a lot more tools to add to my tool kit, to make me a more open-minded leader. I certainly gleaned a lot of wisdom from him. "

 

“I don’t think there was a single session where I didn’t run the situations I was navigating past him and asking for his advice. Sometimes he’d help me pivot in terms of my thinking but other times, he’d just reinforce we were on the right track. Just having that assurance from someone that much more experienced really did give me confidence.” 

 

Galley adds that he’d put any off his team with leadership aspirations through the Mentoring Foundation programme “without hesitation.” 

 

“The level of generosity shown really stood out to me. We were scheduled to meet once a month but he made himself available on the regular. We still keep in touch now, we just had coffee recently.  

 

“Giving not only your time but your knowledge and expertise - free of charge - I just think it’s outstanding and it speaks to the scale of the community we live in here in New Plymouth.”