Leadership Styles and Organizational Success

This assignment delves into the crucial role of leadership styles in achieving organizational success. It highlights the significance of leaders establishing clear objectives from the outset and guiding employees towards those goals. The text emphasizes the importance of personal accountability, budget management, and utilizing time effectively for organizational growth. Furthermore, it stresses the value of leaders embodying the organization's mission statement through their actions and communication style, fostering a culture of integrity, honesty, and collaboration.

Running head: MGT 536-LEADERSHIP -A CRITICAL PERSPECTIVE
MGT 536-Leadership -A Critical Perspective
Student’s name:
Name of the university:
Author’s note:

1MGT 536-LEADERSHIP -A CRITICAL PERSPECTIVE
Table of Contents
1. Introduction..................................................................................................................................3
2. Three biographical accounts of Australian CEOs.......................................................................3
3. Compare and contrast leadership style and leaders’ conceptualisation of leadership and
success.............................................................................................................................................5
a) The ways in which each leader is constructed as a leader by the accounts.............................5
b) How the leaders describe their conceptualisation of leadership..............................................6
c) How each leader conceptualises success through their leadership..........................................7
4. Application and critical evaluation of relevant concepts to the impact of leadership practice on
organisational success......................................................................................................................8
5. Identification of an organisational issue facing Alan Joyce and application of leadership
research to suggestions made to resolve the issue.........................................................................10
6. Drawing conclusions from the research and make suitable recommendations.........................12
Reference List................................................................................................................................14

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1. Introduction
An organisation is made up of a large set of employees who work together to attain the
organisational goals. This study will highlight the role of leadership of different leaders in
meeting the organisational objectives. Leadership is a critical thing in terms of organisational
success that underpins both theoretical and practical knowledge of the leaders. Leaders need to
have critical thinking spirit, risk-taking ability and decision-making capability in order to make
the organisational successful, motivate the employees and productivity of the organisation. In
this report, in the first part, three Australian CEO's role in leadership will be analysed with
setting the examples. In the later part, their leadership in work-related environment and their
effectiveness in organisations will be discussed. Thereafter, a critical aspect of leadership with
comparing and contrasting their roles will be analysed. This study is intended to highlight the
organisational issue of one of the leaders. In the final section, recommendations will be made in
terms of improvement of leadership effectiveness.
2. Three biographical accounts of Australian CEOs
Alan Joyce, CEO of Qantas Group
Alan Joyce has been Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Qantas Group
since the time of 2008. He has done graduation in Applied Science (Physics, Maths) and then he
completed MSc. He has a degree in M, FTSE and FRAeS. He was born in the year 1996 in the
suburb of Dublin. He was a student of Royal Aeronautical Society. Joyce made a huge
transformation in Qantas Airlines and the organisation saw the best financial performance in the
year 2016 almost after 96 years in employee engagement and customer satisfaction. Qantas was

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privatised in the year 1995 and the organisation started its diversification of Loyalty business.
Joyce served previously as CEO in Jetstar almost for five years and within Jetstar, Joyce started
its operation in Asia and Australia. Before Jetstar, he employed in Qantas, Aer Lingus and Ansett
(Afr.com, 2017) [Financial Review Australia]. He saw renewed growth of Qantas in
international market and renewal of fleet with more than 150 aircraft. Apart from this, Alan
Joyce is world's most influential gay business leader.
Andrew Penn, CEO of Telstra
Andrew (Andy) Penn is CEO of Telstra and Penn was announced as CEO of Telstra after
David Thodey in 2015. At first, Penn was CFO of Telstra and then he became CEO. Penn has 30
years of experience in executive before joining to Telstra. Penn is from the UK and then he
moved to Australia in the year 1992. He did his MBA from Kingston University and he also did
FCCA from Harvard Business School. Before joining in Telstra, Penn served in National Mutual
and this organisation later merged to AXA. He became the CEO of AXA Asia Pacific and Penn
became one of the seven directors of AXA. However, Penn's leadership is not happy hours for
Telstra as investors cannot trust Penn and former CEO Thodey negotiated with investors.
Moreover, Penn cut the dividend and he failed to communicate with the market
(Thewest.com.au, 2017) [The West Australian Newspaper]. Penn has contributed to not-for-
profit causes and community affairs. Penn has a passion for Visual Arts.
Bradford Banducci, CEO of Woolworths
Bradford Banducci is the CEO of Woolworths Ltd and he has been CEO of Woolworths
since 2016 February. Before joining to Woolworths, he has been Managing Director of
Australian Food and Liquor sector of Woolworths during the time of 2015-16. He has done LLB

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from the University of KwaZulu-Natal and he also has Bachelor's Degree in Commerce from the
same university. He is the board members of Woolworths Ltd and he was Board Member of
Gage roads Brewing Ltd during 2012-2015. In a previous time, Banducci was a sewing salesman
in South Africa and Woolworths recruited Banducci as CEO when the organisation has been into
the loss of market sales and momentum in supermarkets. Banducci’s performance in managing
director of the liquor business and his leadership style allured the board of directors and made
him CEO of Woolworths (Afr.com, 2017) [Australia Financial Review].
3. Compare and contrast leadership style and leaders’ conceptualisation of leadership and
success
a) The ways in which each leader is constructed as a leader by the accounts
Alan Joyce is one of the highest profile leaders in Australia and he has to take a tough
decision in his leadership. In the year 2011, Joyce had to face the backlash of the public in
grounding the airline and during his time, airlines saw the worst loss. However, Qantas is now
one of the most profitable airlines in the world and it is possible because of Joyce's gutsy
decision; however, these decisions came later.
Andrew Penn is ambitious by heart and he can set the priorities for the organisation. In a
previous time, David Thodey was a participative leader and Penn has been reshaping the
leadership. Penn's decisions are mainly short-term and in order to reshape the board of members,
he mainly uses the strategy of creating a new position and appoints senior executives of the
reputed company (Thewest.com.au, 2017).
Banducci was appointed CEO of Woolworth in March 2015 and he joined Woolworths
after the acquisition of Callermasters, a retail company of wine. He was an executive officer in

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Callermasters. The first work of Banducci did be to manage the stores of Woolworths and
products that it offers. Banducci unveiled then his desire of aspiration with a long-term target of
sales growth at least up to 4%. The cross-cultural issue is prevalent in Woolworths stores and
Banducci tried to engage the employees by providing training in order to satisfy customers as
last four consecutive financial years, liquor sales fell down. Banducci clarified that supermarket
sales affected because of Chinese import laws. He holds the final responsibility in delegating the
authority and he determines the work discussing with management (Afr.com, 2017).
b) How the leaders describe their conceptualisation of leadership
Alan Joyce had a challenging start in the beginning and Joyce showed classic leadership
style who had greater communication, decisiveness, team working and accountability. In order to
have results, he took the decisions in the later period, not instantly. Joyce had a long-term goal
and he has been ambitious. Joyce wanted to keep the heritage of Qantas and his leadership style
can be conceptualised as a strategic leadership style. As stated by (), strategic leadership style is
about keeping eyes at all levels and this type of leader is a high performance leader. They create
high-performance team, life and organisation with their strategies. Joyce tried to fill the gap
between practicality and possibility by setting the habits of the employees.
Telstra's Penn uses the leadership style of team leadership as he tries to make an
experienced team for running the organisation effectively. Telstra's new team is full of
experienced executives from Microsoft, Nokia and others. As pointed out by Clarke (2013), team
leadership impacts on the vivid picture of the bigger frame of the organisation, vision of the team
leaders are clear and they inspire the team members. Penn provides a strong goal and sense of
direction and purpose.

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Woolworths' CEO Banducci believes in democratic leadership as he always has interests
in involving subordinates in working. Woolworths is a supermarket and engaging a huge number
of employees is tough and he determines the positions of the employees. The communication of
Woolworths is upward and also downward. As stated by Ross et al., (2014), democratic
leadership style provides fairness, creativity, competence, intelligence and courage of the
leaders.
c) How each leader conceptualises success through their leadership
Joyce has a visionary mind and his team has also a vision. He set the target for the team
and his team and strategies tried to achieve these. His essence of strategic leadership is about
having a direction, strategy, vision and compatible team. Moreover, Joyce believes in creating a
diverse team as unless the team is diverse, the focus of the team would be narrowed down. Joyce
has big ideas and he does not want to make these ideas stifled. He always documented risks and
makes a mitigation actions by contingency plan. Without taking a calculated risk, no
organisation can gain success.
Penn's working behind the Telstra's success is important and it gave breathing space for
the management. Penn made the corporate culture of Telstra from arrogant to responsive and
personality change of management and employees is a sure success of Penn (Thewest.com.au,
2017). Penn brought technological change in making a communication to customers, in this way,
Telstra's business started to shine. Embracing the sentiments of the customers, governments and
regulators gave the success to Penn and Telstra.
Woolworths has been facing the issues of loss of market share and employee
engagement. However, rivalry with Coles makes another loss of customers. Woolworth is

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making the mistake; however, he learned from the mistake and cleaned up the mistakes. He
followed the similar practices of other retails and focus on what he does not know about the
organisation. Banducci is a collaborative, open and honest leader and he never bullies the
employees and he is trying to be self-made.
4. Application and critical evaluation of relevant concepts to the impact of leadership
practice on organisational success
Satisfying organisational demands for leaders think about to propose that taking the point
of view of both the leaders and supporters are similarly vital for compelling initiative
improvement. In the event that a leader can't or unmotivated to build up, an improvement
program, paying little respect to quality or length, will be ineffective. Moreover, the Visionary
factor is the most important feature in leadership. In talking about leaders, the first thing that
comes to mind is someone with an exceptional, extraordinary idea. The visionary leader is
considered to focus on the long term. A visionary leader is someone with a great prospect. This
type of leader isn't that much of a person who constantly tells everyone what to do. The visionary
creates a clear image, and tells the people where they are heading, but don't command them how
to get there (Du et al., 2013). Joyce demonstrated his financial decision-making capability in
making the business profitable. Joyce is courageous and he managed the airlines and unions with
a successful strategy. Joyce did not think of resigning when the airline saw the loss of 2.8 billion
AUD in the year 2014 (Giltinane, 2013). In addition, Joyce let the team members ask questions
and Joyce thinks these questions open up the opportunity and helps to make a strategy. Joyce
gave Qantas what the management and board of members expected from him and he always
involves himself in strategic thinking. Joyce has been trying to make strong management and this
management is healthy and it is significantly productive. Joyce tries to make capable workforce

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through employing training and development. Soft-spoken employees with good communication
skills of the employees bring out the profitability. Joyce looks into the financial management as
he regulated investment with growth.
Moreover, it is important to understand the adherent desires, responses toward the leader
all through the improvement procedure, and what endeavours can be set up to create solid
followership. Employee's desires and responses are not just pointers of a leader's prosperity or
disappointment however they can likewise impact a leader's future advancement. This proposes
administration isn't just about the leader, however, is shared and conveyed because of
communications between the leader and others. Despite the strategy utilized, look into indicates
successful authority advancement requires. This approach means there is very little guidance.
Followers have complete freedom to make decisions (Nahavandi, 2016). These leaders have the
chance to work with experts and high-skilled people and in every other situation. The type of
powerful people who can lead people in the right direction when they are working with experts
Penn has faced a crisis in managing the profit for the organisation, moreover, Penn drove the
higher customer satisfaction and lower the costs of the products to increase profit. Penn's
leadership concept is a combination of heart and mind and he recognises the teamwork must
involve cooperative leadership. Telstra has been through most important corporate
transformation and Penn’s confident and logical work made improvement for Telstra. Telstra
changed the culture of corporate life and the organisation was trying to make itself a contender in
the competitive market. Penn and his predecessor tried to disrupt the status quo and made
innovation redefining the organisational purposes.
Affiliative leadership is all about bonding. Making people feel good and appreciated is
the most important objective. Results or performance are not the main focus. Shockley-Zalabak,

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(2014), still convinced the affiliative type of leader is just some made up, idealistic person.
Banducci tried to provide better customer experiences by engaging employees through training.
Delivering in-store experiences to the customers is needed and Banducci provided this. The
employees like the democratic leadership style as they can convey their message to the CEO.
5. Identification of an organisational issue facing Alan Joyce and application of leadership
research to suggestions made to resolve the issue
Qantas has been facing the issue of managing the workforce and Joyce wants to rebuild
the relations after the disputes with the workforce. Qantas' stakeholders are passengers,
government and workforce, however, workforce's decisions impact on the management of
Qantas. British Airways has been facing the issues of long industrial relations with many of
flight attendants. In before time, Joyce had to sack 5000 employees and he had to consider the
interest of workforce stakeholder (Afr.com, 2017). Some applauded the tactic of Joyce and this
quick victory will not work in the long run as Qantas has to survive in the competitive market.
Qantas share price has fallen down and on that time Joyce's pay increased a significant high.
Workforces of Qantas have not been working that would help the management to meet the
organisational goals. Moreover, the team working structure is not working within the
organisation. Moreover, the Qantas has been facing the issue of the economic downturn. Joyce
follows mainly strategic leadership styles and this kind of leaders tries to set the prescriptive set
of habits to the team members to follow.
In order to keep them free from workforce crisis and rebuild the relations of the
workforce, Joyce could increase the pay of the workforce as he had increased his own pay. This
strategy is different from what he used to take; however, it would bring fairness, trust, fairness

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and democracy within the organisation. The success of a company relies heavily on the
employees. The coaching type of leadership makes employees better is crucial, even necessary to
ameliorate the company. The coaching type of leader tries to identify the strengths and the
weaknesses of their team members. Doing this requires a high-level empathy and good
psychological insight. More important, making other people better and it is a feedback
mechanism that works in both ways. Joyce could take the strategy of the development strategy of
training and team building within the organisation could give the organisation a better workforce.
The concept of ‘work together' could work for Qantas in this scenario, as the organisation has
been facing an economic problem, Joyce needs to listen to the voice of workforce. Joyce could
convene joint working party and develop a strategy of workforce engagement would give benefit
as Qantas employees have to work directly with the customers. Essence is one of the qualities of
a leader and Joyce needs to put values and emotional characteristics within his leadership and
that would work for him. Employees are felt compelled with the one who has a commitment
towards organisation and who has energy. A Strong essence of leadership makes employees
engage to the organisation. As opined by Kirkman & Harris (2017). Essence is the decisions,
behaviours and actions of the leaders that express the qualities of leadership. Most importantly, a
key aspect of the success of Joyce depends on consistency and commanding behaviour can bring
out engagement also. Their authority depends on orders, the threat of disciplinary action, and
tight control, maybe it is in certain situations. For example, the company is in a crisis. Being the
laissez-faire leader or being super-visionary probably won't get the company to anywhere (Hoch
& Kozlowski, 2014). In these situations, management needs someone who knows what to do and
who renders authority. Joyce could learn from other airlines also, in this scenario, Southwest

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airline will be the best as the size and volume it is similar to Qantas and Southwest treats the
workforce as source of value.
6. Drawing conclusions from the research and make suitable recommendations
Leadership qualities are important for an organisation to hold the success. First of all,
Alan Joyce has a simple issue, he feels excited whenever he gets any new idea. He feels that he
has resources to offer any solutions. He seems to observe forward and the plan will definitely
work out. However, the story is not the same. His strategic leadership style has not been working
in recent time and he could take participative leadership style as it gives the benefits to ask the
answers from employees also. The staff of the organisation can give their valuable decisions in
participative leadership (LaMagdeleine, 2016). Staffs can highlight the prominent issue and the
majority of votes of the employees will judge the course of action. Alan Joyce has to lead an
experienced team; it could be a one-to-one team and inspire the individuals to do the work
effectively. He needs to sow the empathy as it is part of high emotional intelligence. In addition,
in case of Andrew Penn, he believes in making the experienced team, in this regard, he could
follow leading others within a team. The skills needs for this are goal setting, communication
and delegating. Communication is important and clear communication brings transparency and
people can discuss and negotiate. Lastly, Banducci has to manage a team of retail enterprise and
the number of retail employees is high. In this regard, democratic leadership style is appropriate
and leading a perfect work culture is very important. Banducci’s selected work culture engages
the employees and he likes to lead the employees by examples and his demeanour impact the
team members.
Strengthening the relationship

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Most of the leaders spend time in their career as executives and they follow the vision of
their peers. In order to be attentive and goal focus, the leaders need to make good relationship
with all levels of employees. \effective communication can build rapport with employees.
Providing mentorship through accountability
Direct interaction cannot be made by the CEO of an organisation, however, in order to
make productive of human capital, the mentorship is important. The leaders can speak in front of
others and listen to the voice of the employees. Leaders should do something constructive and
mentor the employees.
Expecting and acting on accountability
Leaders must make expectations from the employees and they need to take accountability
of the requirements. Team leaders need to set the objectives from the very beginning and instruct
the employees to work on those principles. Spending on personal accountability, budgeting and
valuable time make difference within the organisation.
Brining principle and passion
Organisation's mission statement encapsulates the values of the organisation and the
leaders must bring these values to life through their style, speaking, working culture and actions.
Values like integrity, honesty, communication and capability make a huge impact on the morale
of the employees.

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Reference List
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Clarke, S. (2013). Safety leadership: A meta‐analytic review of transformational and
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Du, S., Swaen, V., Lindgreen, A., & Sen, S. (2013). The roles of leadership styles in corporate
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Giltinane, C. L. (2013). Leadership styles and theories. Nursing Standard, 27(41), 35-39.
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LaMagdeleine, D. R. (2016). The Leadership Imagination: An Introduction to Taxonomic
Leadership Analysis. Edward Elgar Publishing.
Nahavandi, A. (2016). The Art and Science of Leadership -Global Edition. Sydney: Pearson.

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Ross, E. J., Fitzpatrick, J. J., Click, E. R., Krouse, H. J., & Clavelle, J. T. (2014).
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gq37e9
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