COURSE CATEGORY
Practice management and business skills
Cultural Competence and Modern Workplace Leadership
Published 3 August 2026.
Effective lawyers don’t just understand the law. They understand people. As workplaces and client communities become increasingly diverse, cultural competence has become a critical professional skill that strengthens leadership, improves client relationships and supports better decision-making.
By recognising how culture, bias and communication shape our interactions, legal professionals can build trust, foster inclusion and create environments where colleagues and clients feel heard and respected.
In this practical session, Dr Rachael Jacobs, Western Sydney University, explores the foundations of cultural competence and provides practical strategies for developing inclusive leadership behaviours, enhancing client engagement and creating psychologically safe workplaces.
By watching, you will:
- Understand cultural competence and its role in effective leadership and client relationships.
- Recognise how individual and organisational culture influence communication, collaboration and decision-making.
- Identify unconscious bias and apply practical strategies to reduce its impact.
- Develop culturally competent leadership behaviours that strengthen inclusion, trust and engagement.
- Foster psychological safety by recognising workplace microaggressions and implementing practical actions to build belonging.
Completion of this course will earn you 1 CPD unit
TARGET AUDIENCE
All practitioners
CPD POINTS
1
TYPE
Video-based interactive module
Course Author: Dr Rachael Jacobs
Senior Lecturer, Western Sydney University
Rachael Jacobs (PhD) is a Senior Lecturer in Creative Arts Education at Western Sydney University and a former secondary teacher (Dance, Drama and Music). Her research interests include assessment in the arts, language acquisition through the arts and decolonised approaches to embodied learning. In 2014 she completed her PhD on assessment in the arts, which she subsequently turned into a piece of performed research presented to an audience of teachers and policy makers. She has since authored over 20 peer-reviewed research papers and academic book chapters on arts education, creativity and teacher education, and edited two textbooks on arts and creativity in schools.
Rachael’s research has attracted funding for research projects that partner with arts companies and Education departments all over Australia. In 2016 she contributed to the arts education component of the OECD report on the Sustainable Development Goals for 2030 and she is currently assisting in the analysis for UNESCO’s International Commission on Futures of Learning. She has received finding to conduct research projects from the Tasmanian Department of Education, the NSW Department of Education, Asylum Seekers Centre, ITAC (the International Teaching Artists Collaborative), and other bodies. In 2021 she received a grant from the Australia Council for the Arts to develop anti-racist education programs in NSW schools, taught through the arts. Working with Hannah Grant from Collective Impact Arts, she has been awarded multi-year funding for IEC Transitions, a program researching the effectiveness of Drama for assisting migrant and refugee students’ language, literacy and transition skills.
Rachael has delivered keynote presentations on her research to the World Alliance for Arts Education, ASME, (Australian Society of Music Educators), Drama Queensland, Drama Victoria, the World Alliance for Arts Education, the Tasmanian Department of Education’s Dance and Drama conference, Brisbane Catholic Education and Adult Learning Australia. She has partnered with Western Sydney community organisation and social enterprise, Creative Think+Do, to develop a creative multilingual professional learning program for teachers. She is currently the Academic-in-Residence at Creative Think+Do, evaluating programs for social change in Western Sydney.
Rachael has facilitated arts projects in community settings in Australia and internationally, including in refugee communities, prisons and women’s refuges. She has achieved two ATLC (Australian Teaching and Learning Council) citations for outstanding contributions to teaching and learning in higher education. Rachael is an Honorary Key Recipient of the Golden Key Society for services to education and community and was the University of Southern Queensland Faculty of Education’s Alumni of the Year in 2013. In 2019 Rachael received the Vice Chancellor’s Citation for teaching excellence from Western Sydney University.
Rachael’s educational and community work extends well beyond universities and schools. She is a community activist, a freelance writer, aerial artist, South Asian dancer and choreographer. She is a founding member of the community activism group Teachers for Refugees, is a board director of children’s arts organisation Wide Eyed Wonder and climate activism organisation, Sweltering Cities. She also runs her own intercultural dance company specialising in Indian dance forms.
