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Dr Travis Kemp started his career as a secondary physical education teacher.
Thirty years and six more university degrees later, after working in Human Resources with major global companies such as Mobil and Faulding Pharmaceuticals and in academia heading up the MBA program at the University of SA, Dr Kemp is an organisational psychologist running his own consultancy and advising ASX Top 50 company executives.
He's also an angel investor with a portfolio of tech start-ups and an adjunct professor at the University of South Australia, teaching at the university's Australian Centre for Business Growth helping small to medium enterprises around Australia scale and grow.
As well, he's a company director, a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and a Fellow of that organisation, and a published author on the subjects of management, leadership and human behaviour.
But with all of his experience and expertise Dr Kemp remains a passionate believer in never thinking you know it all.
"I think there is a lot of danger in starting to think you know stuff just because you've been doing it for a long time," he said. "You always need to have a process of auditing where you are at and challenging your view of the world."
This was one of the reasons Dr Travis has recently also added the letters CMgr - Chartered Manager - to the many he is able to include after his name.
He was among the first Australian managers and leaders to seek and achieve the new Chartered Manager professional accreditation launched here recently by one of Australia's oldest and most respected peak bodies, the Institute of Managers and Leaders Australia and New Zealand (IML ANZ).
The accreditation is key to IML ANZ's vision to raise the professional standard of managers and leaders in Australia. It believes that better managers create a better society.
Already more than 1000 Australian managers have applied for the accreditation that's being offered here as part of long term agreement with the Chartered Management Institute in the UK.
The accreditation process requires managers to reflect in detail on their management experiences and approach, and then be assessed on their competency in a wide-ranging interview with an assessor. The accreditation includes a Code of Conduct that accredited Chartered Managers are required to follow.
Dr Kemp said he saw the accreditation as an "audit" of his management practices and an opportunity to learn and develop his skills as a manager of people.
"For me it was an external validation, almost like a peer review from an academic perspective, putting yourself out there and having someone critique what you do," he said.
"The process really forced me to be introspective and reflect on my management style of practice and the impact my behaviour and my leadership has had on situations I have led."
Dr Kemp said that while in his other professions he was required to be accredited, there was no such barrier to entry for the thousands of managers who are in charge of leading the valuable employees of Australian organisations.
"I come from two professions - education and psychology - that are regulated, there are barriers to entry,' he said.
"They have legislative frameworks holding practitioners to account in a very public way, and with that comes expectations, ethics and other constraints that doesn't exist for managers."
The Chartered Manager process requires managers to reflect in detail on their management experiences and approach, and then be assessed on their competency in a wide-ranging interview with an assessor. The accreditation includes a Code of Conduct that accredited Chartered Managers are required to follow.
Dr Kemp said there will be increasing pressure on organisations to ensure their managers have the competencies needed to effectively and successfully manage and lead people and avoid the problems that can flow from bad management practices and a "toxic" company culture.
"That pressure from stakeholders, shareholders and government is heating up, as it should be," he said.
"The expectation is for directors to assure that executive and leadership capability and competency is at the right level and they are executing their role in a moral, ethical and sound way.
"In the worst case scenario [poor management] has a massive effect on people's health and wellbeing and we can see that in absentee rates, stress levels, and anxiety that's emerging in our organisations.
"Managers are the perpetuators and custodians of an organisation's culture. It's a big job and we need to be taking it more seriously."
This is sponsored content for the Institute of Managers and Leaders.
