Critical Analysis of Leadership Value
ASSESSMENT QUESTION:
Identify three ‘interviews’ or biographical accounts of Australian CEOs, business or third sector leaders from the Australian news media, a professional management journal or management-related magazine. Justify your selection.
Analyze these cases, and from a critical perspective, compare and contrast:
- a) The ways in which each leader is constructed as a leader by the accounts;
- b) How the leaders describe their conceptualization of leadership;
- c) How each leader conceptualizes success through their leadership.
Critically evaluate how each leader’s practice of leadership impacts the success of their organization, using relevant theoretical perspectives you have covered during your study of MGT536.
Identify organizational issues one of these three leaders is facing. Drawing on current leadership research (from the last five years) what advice would you offer this leader to assist them in addressing these issues?
Finally, draw conclusions from your entire critical analysis, and make recommendations about how relevant theories and research can assist leaders to fulfill their role. ORDER YOUR PAPER NOW
Student Sample Paper:
Executive Summary
The businesses in the Australia have been facing various changes especially because of the stiff market competition. In order to succeed in the business world, one should be creative and innovative. This requires that the business leaders should be on the front line in initiating the strategies to meet the various challenges. Different leadership theories produce different results, and therefore there is no specific theory which guarantees success. This report analyzes the leadership styles of three Australian Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) to assess how their theories impact on the performance of the organizations. This is through analyzing the leadership theory of Richard Goyder – Wesfarmers, Ken Mackenzie – Amcor Limited, and Andrew Mackenzie – Billiton Group. The analysis reviewed that although they differed in their modes of leadership, their conceptualization of leadership and profit maximization equaled. The CEO has an obligation to set the conditions necessary for success and initiate them. The leaders should assess the strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities of the business and also understand the followers. This means that a leader will have sufficient education background and work experience.
Introduction
The CEOs are very important in determining the progress of the company. This means that they ought to have diverse and intense skills of leadership since they deal with employees and clients of different backgrounds. However, the CEO position is quite challenging, and this necessitates a series of dismissals which cost a company billions of dollars if a CEO is not effective. It is also discouraging for the directors who put more efforts in scrutinizing candidates to anoint the appropriate CEOs in their companies. Therefore, the position requires one to be focused on achieving a lot of success and maximizing profits. The big companies in Australia for example, have been able to attain the topmost position in the country and the world at large because of the good leadership got from their leading CEOs. This paper features the CEOs of Wesfarmers, Amcor Limited and Billiton Group namely; Richard Goyder, Ken Mackenzie and Andrew Mackenzie respectively, as some of the largest companies in Australia and their leadership styles and how they have impacted on the progress of the company. ORDER YOUR PAPER NOW
Aim
This report aims to analyze the leadership of three Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) of Australian companies to assess their leadership theories and how leader performance can be improved to enhance organizational performance.
- This report will compare and contrast the leadership approaches of three Australian CEOs and identify how each leader’s approach has influenced the organizational output and analyze the challenge faced by one of the CEOs. An effective leader should understand the organization and its structure to identify the opportunities available for exploitation and initiate proper directions and inspiration. This requires a leader to have a professional background which includes education and work experience.
Selecting and Accessing the CEO’s
The three CEOs selected for this analysis include:
1. Richard Goyder – Wesfarmers – Australia, 1993 having worked in several commercial roles. He was the General Manager for three years before being elected as the Managing Director in 1999. He became the firm’s Chief Financial Officer in 2004 and assumed the position of Chief Executive Officer in June 2005. He was a leader who believed that the future of the company should be far much better than the current state and directed his efforts in making things work more easily.
2. Ken Mackenzie – Amcor Limited – 2002 as the Deputy Managing Director. In 2005, he assumed the CEO’s position whereby he was keen to ensure that every occurrence would not just happen and disappear but rather he would learn great lessons to help him advance his ways of handling situations in future.
3. Andrew Mackenzie – Billiton Group – 1983 as vice president. In 2003, he joined Rio Tinto as the Financial Manager of the industrial minerals division until in 2007 when he became the CEO succeeding Marius Kloppers. He had expert communication skills that enabled him to appear mostly in the news media, and this helped him advertise his company to a great extent making his clients attain more confidence in the company and the products. ORDER YOUR PAPER NOW
Ways Each Leader Conceptualizes Success through Their Leadership
Wesfarmers is one of the biggest companies whose CEO is Richard Goyder and whose leadership landed the company many miles ahead than anyone would ever imagine. Under his leadership, the company was transmuted into a diverse organization from a relatively small farmers’ co-operative standing in the top 50 companies in Australia in a span of 10 years. The company had a market share of around $26 million when Richard took over the leadership mantle in 2003. The company rose up to past one billion dollar market share before he stepped down making it among the largest private companies employing more than 300,000 people. This was a significant move in the company under his leadership which made him become a great and prominent CEO whose legacy would be remembered and felt for generations to come. His financial goals were far much ahead of his years, and his business mentality was quite excellent.
Ken Mackenzie as the CEO of Amcor Limited from 2005 has extensive experience both in the executive and global leadership due to his deeply strategic approach. This company is a packaging company has operations in over 40 countries. The 23 years of career in the packaging company gave him extensive experience regarding all the business segments of the Amcor in all the emerging and developed markets in Asia, Europe, America, and Australia. He has initiated packaging sustainability and led the board in informing the entire market about the sustainability of packaging. This has been done through various means including participation in the industry forums like the Sustainable Packaging Coalition. Working with the suppliers and customers also ensures that the packaging sustainability has been considered from design to end-of-life. Through his leadership skills, he has ensured the safety of the workplace which forms one of the greatest concerns for the employees. The CEO gears towards achieving a workplace of zero injuries. Occasionally, some incidents of serious injuries may be experienced in the workplace which makes the CEO to take the initiative to learn from the incident and initiate proper measures to ensure that a similar case ceases to occur. ORDER YOUR PAPER NOW
Andrew Mackenzie has been the CEO of the Billiton Group for the last five years which made him become an expertise in the complex corporate and risk management, advisory work and solving disputes. He was involved in the trusted advisor with the clients from Australia globally. He possesses industry knowledge and technical excellence. This has enabled him to work closely with customers on some complex and significant criminal investigations and civil disputes in Australia mostly in resources and energy, telecommunications and financial sectors.
How These Leaders Describe their Conceptualization of Leadership…. Continue Reading