System Change Leadership: A ConCOVE Tūhura Legacy Framework

As ConCOVE Tūhura nears the end of its funding in 2025, this paper offers a legacy contribution: a system change leadership framework for the vocational education and training (VET) ecosystem within construction and infrastructure. ConCOVE was established in 2020 as one of Aotearoa’s first Centres of Vocational Excellence, with a mandate to connect, innovate, and co-create solutions to persistent and emerging workforce challenges. Drawing on over 30 research and innovation projects—ranging from apprenticeship design to neurodiversity, equity, and sustainability—this framework distils systems change insights into five interrelated leadership domains: systems literacy, equity and participation, adaptive culture, intergenerational thinking, and distributed innovation. These domains are grounded in established systems literature, including Meadows’ Leverage Points, FSG’s Water of Systems Change, and Heifetz’s Adaptive Leadership.