Leadership for New Managers in Government: Building Trust, Avoiding Micromanagement, and Leading with Practical Confidence

Benji Crooks, Marketing Director at Public Sector Network, sits down with Malcolm Dawes, Managing Director, dta Worldwide, to discuss who the Leadership for New Managers in Government course is designed for, the core skills new leaders need to succeed, and the practical tools participants will take back into the workplace, ahead of the next intake on 28 and 29 April 2026, 10:00 AM to 2:30 PM AEST. The course is positioned as an online training program designed to help participants transition from specialist team member to team leader, with a focus on trust, motivation, feedback, accountability, and leadership style.

Benji Crooks: To start with, could you introduce yourself, your role, and the organisation you work for?

Malcolm Dawes: My name is Malcolm Dawes, and I am the Managing Director of a company called dta Worldwide.

dta Worldwide has been operating since 1982 and was established in Brisbane. I have worked with the business for many years and bought it in 2008. We specialise in three main areas, and the one we are focused on today is leadership.

I will be delivering the Leadership for New Managers in Government course in April, and potentially again in August later in 2026.

Benji Crooks: Drilling straight into that course, who would you say is the ideal audience for it?

Malcolm Dawes: I would say it is ideal for anyone currently in a management role, as well as those aspiring to step into management in the near future.

Management and leadership are often treated as if they mean the same thing, but they are actually quite different. This course is particularly relevant for people with responsibility for others, even if they do not carry the formal title of manager. That could include team leaders, supervisors, acting managers, or anyone with one or more direct reports.

So really, if you are responsible for leading people, this course is for you.

Benji Crooks: Once participants are on the course, what are some of the key learning outcomes you would like them to take away?

Malcolm Dawes: There are several, but one of the most important is understanding the difference between management and leadership.

My view is that anybody with people reporting to them needs both sets of skills. So we spend time covering both, and clearly differentiating between the two. I think that is a crucial foundation for any new manager.

From there, we look at how people behave and how they interact. A big part of the course is helping new leaders understand what they need to do to get the best from the people in their team.

We look at motivation, for example, because people often try to motivate others in the way that motivates them personally. In reality, that only works some of the time. We also explore common workplace challenges, such as how to deal with people who do not get along, or how to support someone who does not seem to be performing as productively as others.

Those are some of the key areas we work through.

Benji Crooks: That point around people not getting along is such an important one. How do you build trust and credibility as a new manager?

Malcolm Dawes: Trust is the key word.

One of the things we explore in the course is what trust actually means. Trust is a belief you have in somebody to do something or to deliver. So a manager needs to think about how they demonstrate trust in the people on their team, and how they recognise and build trust within the team more broadly.

In order to get performance from people, trust has to exist. Where there is no trust, there is no real relationship. So it is critical that a manager builds relationships by building trust.

We also look at behaviours. I mentioned earlier that teams do not always get along, and I wrote a book some time ago called Why Can’t We All Get Along? That idea feeds into this part of the course. Managers need to look at the people in their team and, instead of seeing them as difficult, see them as different.

Once you recognise that people behave differently and approach work differently, the role of the manager is to make sure outcomes are achieved in a way that works for each individual.

Benji Crooks: We have all had managers who slip into micromanagement. How do new managers avoid doing that?

Malcolm Dawes: It is definitely a trap for young players.

A lot of managers are promoted because they are very good technically at what they do, and then suddenly they are dropped into the management pool. One of the hardest parts of that transition is stepping back from the technical work you know well and shifting your focus to leading people.

A lot of micromanagement comes from the fact that the manager used to do the role themselves, so they want to say, “No, do it like this. This is how I did it. Let me show you.” That can be useful with somebody who is completely new, but it quickly falls apart when you are dealing with someone experienced.

So the first step is catching yourself and resisting that instinct to over-direct. The next step is asking: what should I do instead? Maybe I coach. Maybe I train. Maybe I trust people to do their job.

By setting up regular, frequent check-ins, managers do not need to micromanage. Instead of hovering over someone’s shoulder, they create a rhythm where team members can explain how they are progressing and what support they need.

Benji Crooks: That makes sense. And building on that, what is your approach to giving constructive feedback?

Malcolm Dawes: One of the philosophies I have is that organisations and teams should aim to build a culture of feedback.

Feedback needs to be seen as a two-way process. Too often people think of feedback as either positive or critical, but if you treat it simply as a mechanism for understanding how someone is progressing, that takes away a lot of the emotional weight that can come with it.

That also means leaders need to be open to receiving feedback themselves.

When it comes to giving feedback, the key is to be objective, focus on the facts, not the person, and remove as much subjectivity as possible. We also explore a common trap called the horns and halo effect.

The halo effect is where a manager sees one person positively no matter what they do, so feedback becomes overly generous or biased. The horns effect is the opposite, where a manager has formed a negative view of someone and gives feedback through that lens, even when the person is performing well.

So the best approach is to stay objective, focus on the facts, and take personal feelings out of it. That is a key part of the second half of the workshop.

Benji Crooks: Finally, the course is on 28 and 29 April. What practical tools and frameworks will participants walk away with?

Malcolm Dawes: They will walk away with a lot of practical tips, techniques, and ideas that they can apply immediately.

We explore a wide range of topics during the workshop, and my expectation is that everyone leaves with at least two or three things they can put into practice the very next day. That might be how to build trust, how to run an effective one-to-one review, how to motivate people more effectively, or how to handle difficult conversations.

I like to make the course as practical and applicable as possible. While the content is grounded in solid research, it is not an academic exercise. It is a very practical workshop.

That is important to me, because participants need to leave feeling they have tools they can actually use, not just ideas to think about.

Learn with Malcolm Dawes

Join Malcolm Dawes for Leadership for New Managers in Government, an online Public Sector Network training course running on 28 and 29 April 2026. The course is aimed at new and aspiring managers, including acting leaders and project managers, and covers leadership versus management, trust and credibility, motivation, constructive feedback, accountability, and avoiding common traps such as micromanagement.

The course page highlights learning outcomes including identifying the obstacles faced by new managers, building trust through clear communication, motivating teams with collaborative goal setting, delivering constructive feedback, and creating a positive work environment that drives productivity and wellbeing