We’re excited to feature Jason Trethowan, CEO of headspace, in our latest Leadership Spotlight.
In this episode, Jason reflects on his leadership journey, the evolution of headspace, and the importance of keeping young people at the centre of every decision.
Q. What shaped your leadership journey and approach, and how has your leadership style evolved?
I did a degree, worked in hospitals and quickly became a manager of people, realising leading programs and services was hard because you had to understand where everyone was at, not just in their work life, but in their personal life as well. From an early age I would've made a lot of mistakes in leading people and learning from failures. As I grew up through the hospital system, I thought the progression was to become a hospital CEO, then decided to do a master's in business and stepped out into community organisations and not-for-profits.
At the age of 33 I became a CEO, joining headspace in 2017. I have a natural thing around people and working with teams who are passionate and committed to the cause. I’m calmer than what I was in my earlier days. Organisations get dealt with shocks, and I used to sweat the small stuff too much. Now I hold back and recognise it’s part of being in a leadership role. I don’t try to solve everything. The team solve things together.
Q. How has headspace evolved since you joined & where have you seen meaningful growth?
We’re now at 175 services, and I think we were at 94 when I started. They’re the headspace services local communities see, mainly known as centres, and we also have a large range of national programs, including online services where young people can reach out and have web chats as a soft and somewhat anonymous entry point. We also do a lot of work in schools and have a Work and Study program to help young people work out what’s next.
We’ve evolved a lot in rural and remote Australia, with more than half of our services now in rural, regional and remote areas. Often it’s the first time young people have something designed with them. We have youth reference groups at every centre, and the voices of young people are essential.
Q. How do you maintain local connection while scaling nationally?
Having young people’s voices central to everything headspace is doing. We have young people advising our board, working with leadership, and over 170 youth reference groups informing locally. We had over 100,000 young people access services last year. Young people are choosing us, and we are really lucky they do.
Q. What are young people presenting with most right now & biggest pressures facing the system?
Young people come to us feeling sad, feeling angry, feeling incredibly lonely, questioning their future, questioning their identity, unsure about what’s next. Something is getting in the way of day to day life, and we respond by not judging, but listening and working with them at their pace.
Young people rarely present with one thing, and we don’t always have all the services needed to meet all those needs. Sometimes some needs are met, but others aren’t, and that “missing middle” has always been there. Workforce is a challenge, funding is always a challenge, and we continue to adapt based on the resources we have. Sometimes the funding envelope only allows so many positions, so it’s not a shortage of people wanting to work at headspace, but a limitation of how many we can have. Housing is also a major barrier, particularly in rural and regional areas where people want to relocate but there’s nowhere to live or it’s too expensive.
Q. What does meaningful youth participation look like in practice?
It requires a structured approach. Young people are involved across the organisation, and often share lived experience, so we need strong supports around them.
The only way to understand young people is to ask them and give them power to inform us. Headspace would be an incredible failure if it was just up to me.
We are constantly making incremental shifts and improving based on what young people tell us.
Q. What kind of leadership does the sector need right now?
Transparency, leadership that celebrates wins, and a leadership style that is incredibly inclusive. We need diversity in our workforce, unity, and collaboration. We are no good on our own.
Q. Our previous leader from the podcast, Andrea Christie-David asked you ...What does social impact mean to you?
Communities benefiting from a collective, not just one organisation. If you’re only celebrating your own wins, you might be missing the point.
Q. Can you leave our next guest a question?
What do you think a safe work environment looks like to have a more diverse workforce profile. And included in that, how can you employ more young people?