Adam Weir Is on a Mission to Turn the Tide on Coastal Drownings
The Surf Life Saving CEO is on a mission to build trust, attract diversity and, above all else, stop drownings.
Current role: CEO, Surf Life Saving Australia
Tenure: Six-and-a-half years
Previous roles: Chief operating officer, Surf Life Saving Australia; operations manager, acting chief executive officer and chief operating officer, Surf Life Saving NSW
How do you define great leadership?
With the right people, the right support and the right resources, we’ve been able to achieve some wonderful things at Surf Life Saving. So a lot of the time it’s knowing when to get in and be the front person and when to make room for others. It’s less about what I do and more about how I support the team.
You’ve spent more than 20 years working in surf lifesaving and you’ve been a competitor and volunteer. What is it about surf lifesaving for you?
I feel really lucky that I get to work in a paid role for an organisation I love and would freely volunteer for. It becomes a way of life. I came in as an eight-year-old kid but there’s something for you to do in surf lifesaving across all stages of your life. It’s your connection with the organisation and its values, which then become part of your identity.
How do you think the skills you learnt as a volunteer have set you up for leadership?
Coming through Nippers, you’re exposed to a broad cross-section of the community in the surf club. When you volunteer, you get the opportunity to take on different positions in the club and you learn softer skills, communication skills, that you may not get at school or in your early working career. Having to be on the beach and talk to members of the public, give advice or respond to an emergency gives you a head start as a young person. Combine that with the training and I think it sets you up very well.
What’s the biggest opportunity for SLSA?
We’re about to launch our next strategic plan. We’ve been working on it for 18 months and it’s been a fantastic exercise to talk to members, the chairman, the president and really listen and get an idea of what they want from the organisation and where they see it going. Our members are really proud of being a part of Surf Life Saving, as you’d hope they would be, and we want to put a lot more work into bringing not just new people into the organisation but people who might not see themselves in surf lifesaving.
What are the barriers for people who don’t think that surf lifesaving is for them?
Traditionally, when you think of surf lifesaving, you think of the bronzed Aussie with the bathers and the red-and-yellow cap. It’s perhaps a stereotype of what we may have been many, many years ago – and I don’t think that’s what we are now – but there’s still work for us to do to change perceptions. We need to understand the communities that we’re trying to tap into and also the way we promote ourselves, from the imagery we use to how we talk to people.
Your vision is to have zero preventable deaths in Australian waters. Is that even feasible?
That’s a question my members ask me a lot. It’s a vision and we think it’s important to have this aspiration for the future. Is it achievable? It would take a lot of resources to get to zero. Does that mean we shouldn’t strive for it, as a drowning-prevention water-safety organisation? We may never get to zero deaths but we’re going to try. Our mission is to turn the tide on coastal drownings.
The latest National Coastal Safety Report showed there were 150 coastal drownings in a year. Why are there so many?
A number of factors come into play. As the population increases, the chance of some of those people getting into trouble on the coast is going to rise simply by weight of numbers. The other thing I’ve seen, especially coming out of the COVID pandemic, is that the way people use the coastline has changed. The number of individual visitations to the Australian coast in 2023 was crazy – 650 million – and people are looking for different places to go, which may be locations they’re not familiar with and that aren’t patrolled. The length of seasonal warm periods also seems to be increasing and there are more swimmable days than there might have been 10 or 20 years ago. So we need to adjust our surf lifesaving service in the future. How do we use different equipment, technology, drones and alert systems? And how do we communicate better? We’ve just launched the Stop, Look, Stay Alive campaign with Qantas. It’s designed to not only tell people to swim between the flags – even though that’s the best message for you and your family to stay safe – but also to give them advice if they’re not able to get to a place where there are flags. In reality, only five per cent of beaches around the country have a set of flags on them.
Why are men aged 40 to 49 most likely to drown?
Well, I’m in that category. For a long time, it was 18- to 24-year-olds and that category’s still high because of the risk-taking element with young males. Men in my demographic probably haven’t learnt that our bodies can’t do the things they used to be able to do, which can get us into difficult situations from time to time. So our messaging about knowing what you’re capable of is really important.
SLSA is a not-for-profit organisation. There are so many charitable organisations fighting for donation dollars right now. How do you cut through?
We’re fortunate to have a very strong cause and a long history with the Australian community. We have an ambitious hope of becoming the most trusted charity brand in the country. Currently, on reputational tracking, our brand sits about number five on average. We’re really proud of that but we want to do more, which means that we need to grow awareness of what we do, not just around the coastal fringe but also inland Australia. We support emergency services when they respond to disasters, whether they’re floods or bushfires. We support communities around the country.
Are you noticing a shift in communities’ willingness to become involved?
A lot of sport volunteering is struggling at the moment but we haven’t seen the same impact on Surf Life Saving. There’s some regional variation but as a whole, we see in the vicinity of two to three per cent year-on-year growth in volunteer numbers. We had a meeting with a group of members and one of them stood up and said, “You know, I’m not time-poor, I just don’t have time to waste.” So it’s about how we provide the systems and the roles that people want to do – and are passionate about – without wasting their time with unnecessary complexity, red tape, that sort of thing. How can we make it easier for people to be lifesavers? We’re an organisation that’s been around since 1907 so there’s a lot of in-built complexity to some of the rules and the frameworks. We’re a safety organisation and that’s important but there’s a lot of stuff you look at and ask, “Why are we doing it that way?”
You have nearly 200,000 members. That’s a huge workforce of volunteers. As CEO, how do you build a culture with them or do the volunteers build their own culture?
There are 315 Surf Life Saving clubs and each one has its own variation of the codes. They’re the experts in their local area – they know their beaches, they know their communities – so there’s a fair degree of autonomy given to clubs to bring the community together. Where we play a role is at a higher level, aligning where the organisation is heading and working with our state branches to make sure that marries up. We’re a big federation and that’s not always the most efficient way to get things done because there are many different positions we can take on things. But it provides lots of opportunities for volunteers to get involved in how Surf Life Saving is run and feel ownership of where it’s going. It’s been really important for us to make sure that there’s a connection between the national office all the way through to the grassroots.
Working with volunteers can be very rewarding but also quite challenging. What have you learnt from that over the years?
Not everybody responds to the same style. Being able to listen to people and change the way that you’re communicating with an individual or a group can help to get the outcome you’re looking for. When I see us achieve the best outcome, it’s because we’ve taken a longer approach to change. When we start hearing other people trying to convince us about something that we were hoping to achieve, that’s when we know we’re ready to go.
A lot of leaders want to go like a bull at a gate but perhaps, in your organisation, it’s better to be patient.
It’s probably also picking your battles. There are times when you do need to push things through. I don’t think that’s most effective for an organisation like Surf Life Saving because it’s so large. We have the greatest success when we actually take the time to explain and talk and listen. We’re not set up like a corporation, where head office makes a decision and everybody just has to fall in line.
What would you say is your biggest gap when it comes to leadership?
My natural personality is to be in the details of things – I love information and data. As I’ve got into more senior roles, I’ve had to consume information differently, move a bit quicker and not get bogged down. It’s still important to have the right information but having the right level of information is vital as well. That’s something that I’m working on.
How do you manage your stress levels?
I don’t do it as well as I should, which is probably another shortcoming. But I’ve worked hard on being able to let go of things faster and be more present in each day. There’s no point holding on to things that happened yesterday because we can’t change them. Being able to let go, move on and focus on the future – and delivering on what you say you’re going to – is very important to me.
And what’s the one piece of advice that you’d give a brand-new CEO?
The most important relationship you have in work is with your chairperson. Make sure you put the right amount of effort into that. I’ve had some very good relationships with chairpeople in this role. I’ve been really fortunate. In other roles, I’ve had the alternative experience and it can make or break what you’re able to achieve as CEO.
On the fly
Personal motto
When you commit to something, follow through and deliver it.
Motivation tactic
In Surf Life Saving, everybody’s a lifesaver, whether they’re working for the organisation, volunteering or donating money. We’re all saving lives. It’s a pretty easy motivator.
Email approach
If there isn’t a question mark in your email, you’re probably going to struggle to get a response.
Productivity hack
Sometimes it’s better just to pick up the phone and talk to people, especially when they’re passionate about what they do.
A rule you don’t break?
I don’t drink anymore – that’s one rule. The way you turn up to people is really important. I want to ensure that I’m representing myself and the organisation in the best way I can.
Favourite piece of advice
When [former champion surf lifesaver] Trevor Hendy was competing, he went to a surf carnival with his mum. It was a two-metre surf and she said, “Trev, what do you think about these conditions?” He said they were perfect conditions for him. At another event, it was dead flat. He goes, “Just the way I love it.” It’s about mindset and knowing that no matter what is put in front of you, you can get through it.
