Dr Hal Oxley O.B.E. Doctor of Divinity (Hon)

After some seventy years in various forms of leadership, I have felt a prompting to produce this study on leadership practice. It did not seem right to produce leadership practice without giving some information that gives me the qualification to carry out this task. I have the good fortune of experiencing leadership in four major areas of my life: These areas of my life were broken up as follows.

Army

In 1934 at the age of 17, I entered the Royal Military College in Duntroon, Australia, and graduated after a 4 year course as a lieutenant in Australia’s permanent army. When war broke out in 1939, I enlisted with the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) and in 1940 was despatched to the western desert of Egypt.   During the early stages of the Desert War and in the battle for Greece, I served as an infantry officer, and after that I was on the battle headquarters of various generals during the siege of Tobruk and the capture of Lebanon and Syria. On our return to Australia, after the Japanese attacked, I was appointed to the battle headquarters of our commander, General Blamey. When General MacArthur arrived to be Commander in Chief over the Navy, Army and Air Force of the South Pacific, I went to his battle headquarters as the Australian Planning Co-ordinator.   During this period, I rose to the position of Colonel.

Industry

After the war, due to my first wife’s illness from which she eventually died, I left the Army and became an industrialist for the next 24 years. Over the latter years I ended up as the executive director of a major public company with eight diversified manufacturing factories. Through this period I also served as Deputy Director of Military Intelligence at Army Headquarters, was chairman in Melbourne to The Call to the Nation (set up to counter the spread of communism in Australia), and served as secretary of a Legacy Home.

Ministry

During this time I became a Christian, and a small meeting of 7 in my home grew into what is now Life Ministry Centre in Melbourne, Australia. As this grew to over 1000 members, we planted 22 churches, developed a 2-year-term Bible college for training ministers, I founded ACMI (Associated Christian Ministers International), which is a fellowship of ministers having several thousand members across many nations. I also established a denomination now known as ACM (Associated Christian Ministers). I retired from my church at the age of 73 and at the time of writing, aged 98, I have retired from all other positions of responsibility, but still continue in ministry. It is from these varied experiences that I have gleaned the process of inspirational leadership practice outlined in the contents.

Education

In 1979, I founded Oxley College with two key objectives: to achieve the highest academic standards for children 5 to 18 years old, and to do so within a non-denominational, distinctively Christian environment. Still deeply committed to its founding principles, Oxley College is widely recognised both for the excellence of its teaching and for the outstanding academic performance of its Year 12 students, of whom the majority gain entry each year into the university programmes of their choice.   The College now has a Performing Arts Centre, a state of the art indoor sports facility and a major investment in a medical and care centre.