Leadership: A Case Study of Christine Holgate

This article presents a case study of Christine Holgate, CEO of Australian Post, and her leadership style. It discusses her work history, educational background, and leadership experience in various sectors. The article also elaborates on the leadership theory associated with Holgate's traits and how she overcame obstacles to achieve success. Finally, the article provides insights into leadership lessons that can be learned from Holgate's experience.

LEADERSHIP

Contents
Answer no. 1)-.......................................................................................................................................2
Answer no. 2)........................................................................................................................................3
Answer no. 3..........................................................................................................................................4
Answer no. 4..........................................................................................................................................5
References.............................................................................................................................................7

Answer no. 1)-
Work history, family, and educational background
Christian Holgate is a famous Australian CEO, businessperson and director of Australian
post. Earlier, Holgate remained as a CEO, executive director, and Managing director of
Telstra corporation ltd. Apart from this, Christian Holgate worked as CEO of nutritional
supplementary corporation “Blackmores” in 2008. She is well known for her leadership
skills. The chairman of Australian Post “John Stanhope” was very much convinced with her
experience and her expertise was very helpful to the organisation to accomplish business
goals in Asia (Samad, 2015). Christian was selected to head one most Australia`s oldest and
structurally financially challenged corporation. Colgate has announced that Australian Post
would spend 300 million dollars while creating the capability and capacity to get available
with them the track position of parcels.
This leader has an experience of leadership at international level in several sectors such as
telecommunication, media, healthcare, and finance. Apart from this, Holgate has the
experience of twenty years of both executive and non-executive member of several
corporates. The prime responsibility of the Holgate is to lead the team in such a way so that
she can regulate to deliver the expansion and growth to an organisation in a sustainable way.
In addition to this, she was positioned in the senior management team in Australia, Asia, and
America (ABC, 2018). Although basic education qualification is necessary but Holgate has
positioned herself in such a way that her skill set defines her personality. Therefore, Holgate
has completed post-graduate diploma and masters in Business administration (MBA). She has
been invited for the inaugural ceremony of ASEAN council of Board of Australia. Holgate
has encouraged international trade relationships between member countries of ASEAN and
Australia. Holgate has proved to be a great and explicit business leader. Apart from corporate
leader, Holgate has served the Board of Collingwood Football and has also remained non-

executive director of Ten network holding limited. Holgate was awarded in 2015 and was
recognised as best women CEO of the year. Moreover, she was named among the top 100
women who received recognition in financial reviews of Australia. In 2013, she was
honoured for her adorable charitable work (EY, 2016).
Answer no. 2)
Elaboration of leadership theory where traits are associated with Christian Holgate
Leadership is a skill set of practical skills that can create a motivational, influential, and
positive effect on behaviour of employees. Renowned business leader “Christian Holgate”
claims passion that can solve the difficult challenges of an enterprise especially when it is
concerned with decision for a massive change. These traits of a leader help the organisation
to decrease the frequency of complaint letters (Siecap, 2015). Apart from a business leader,
Christian Holgate emerged as a charismatic leader too who focused to give importance in
generating emotions within the team. Holgate has a strong understanding of social objectives
and goals. This leader values continuous learning, authenticity, and kindness. Apart from this,
leader serves the social issues very well and she calls herself “free market socialist.”
The market share of the company increased since she joint the work as stock price of the
“Blackmores” has increased in such a way that it has increased to five times after 2014. In
approximately nine years of her career, she has represented the company as profitable profit
by supporting a sustainable growth and promoting the products in Asia. Nevertheless, she
was also honoured as the CEO of the year and she shared her personal experiences that has
led here to become most respected person amongst business leaders (Evans, 2016). Christian
has also discussed the importance of culture and morale while undertaking business
operations. Holgate also discussed key strategic challenges faced by Australian Post when
during tackling the new stages of transformation in E-business market in Australia and Asia.
Even after a huge work experience, she has never been a part of logistics department but this

time she strived to take some decisions as a manager of Logistics department. She has spent
her most time in several careers such as health, manufacturing, and financial sector.
While choosing a leadership theory, authority has not enforced the building of traits in
Holgate but she carries a charisma that is reflected in her behaviour while communicating to
different personalities. Holgate follows a charismatic leadership who encourages a particular
form of behaviour of influencing the employees in a particular way. This leader is a
persuasive individual whose deeds are driven by both commitment and conviction.
Charismatic leader not only thinks on the part of organisation`s profit but it has different
visions and ideas that will help organisation to grow as well as the society. Holgate is a
warm-hearted, authentic, creative, and innovative woman who keep motivating the
employees (Meuser, Gardner, Dinh, Hu, Liden, and Lord, 2016). She is a strong business
women who wants to serve business and society. She has built a new business strategic plans
for the logistics department in which she has never worked before. Holgate as a leader cannot
predicted by delegating the power in the hands of the person but it is his personality traits that
have made him a leader. At the same time, Holgate is a conformist leader, who was appointed
by the board of directors. This leader has strong knowledge base, which she applies to make
the plans for business strategies. Holgate has competitive advantage over other leaders such
as she is abled for global e-commerce knowledge when pursuing the Asian Strategy. Holgate
is passionate leader to seize the chances and opportunity for its employees, shareholders and
community. The aim of Holgate was not only to earn money but also to serve people very
well especially its employees. She also has great impact to promote equality of women
(Dovey, Burdon, and Simpson, 2017).
Answer no. 3
Two major obstacles faced by Christian Holgate

Before she started working in Australian Post, Christian had worked in Blackmores for few
years, which has result to achieve a considerable growth in company. Challenges associated
with Holgate is to regulate the business activities so that they can pace the same growth in the
market. The challenges for the leader to maintain the same long-term sustainability because
of inflation and large hike in the share prices. When share price decreases drastically, it
becomes difficult for the leader to maintain the level of sustainability for the growth
(Antonakis, and House, 2014). The challenge is encountered since last two years when the
share price of the blackmores has reflected an increase from $27 in 2014 to $217 January
2016. Holgate uses path goal theory, which will lead to maintain a healthy relationship
among its workforce. This will lead to hyper growth for an organisation that has reflected a
raise in the share price of Blackmores (Holgate, 2016).
Apart from considering the leadership theory, Colgate ardently follows the traits of all
leadership theory. Other challenges reviewed as when behaviour of Holgate is believed that
he is an autocratic leader because she does not consider employees and stakeholders that has
sometimes led to wrong decision-making. This business leader has become successful in its
way to execute the work. Various leadership ability of Holgate (women business leader) that
has affected the profound effect that have made financial plans strategically. Christian also
got a chance that led to expansion strategies for China (Johnston, 2018).
Answer no. 4
Learning about the leadership after researching the leadership style of Christine Holgate
With the changes in the external environment of business, leader plays an important role to
achieve the organisational goals and objectives. After studying the related leadership style, it
is to be considered that only delegating the power among the leaders is not sufficient to make
the deeds efficient. Leader is goal-oriented when being announced by CEO at Australian
Post. Holgate have started strategizing the plans for executing successful business plans. A

leader should work in various industries and he should be a subject matter expert (Miner,
2015). Although, Holgate never worked in a logistics industry but still she could work in
services as efficiently as possible. Moreover, the leader has worked in manufacturing and
financial service industries. It is not any less than undertaking and managing the business
risks( Keating, 2014).
Most influencing trait that should be reflected in a leader`s personality should come with
strong passion for the work. At first, Holgate remained a manager of Telstra`s marketing
team which further undertake to form the strategies for the business sales and the channels
that will ultimately serve SMEs. “Blackmores” faced financial crisis in 2008 that was related
to debt. Holgate focused on expanding and manufacturing the business by starting
Blackmores pipelines in Asia by supporting the local management and ultimately offering the
diversified portfolio product range to the local market (Maak, Pless, and Voegtlin, 2016).

References
ABC (2018) Australia Post names Christine Holgate as new CEO, replacing Ahmed Fahour.
[online] Available on: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-27/christine-holgate-new-
australia-post-boss/8654762 [Accessed on 27/09/18]
Antonakis, J. and House, R.J., (2014) Instrumental leadership: Measurement and extension of
transformational–transactional leadership theory. The Leadership Quarterly, 25(4), pp.746-
771.
Dovey, K., Burdon, S. and Simpson, R., (2017) Creative leadership as a collective
achievement: An Australian case. Management Learning, 48(1), pp.23-38.
Evans, S. (2016) Cod liver oil and family tragedy shape Blackmores CEO Christine
Holgate’s destiny. [online] Available on: Sydney Morning Herald:
http://www.smh.com.au/business/retail/cod-liver-oil-and-a-family-tragedy-shape-
blackmores-ceos-destiny-20151214-gln4hf [Accessed on 27/09/18]
EY (2016) EY Strategic Growth Forum China. [online] Available on:
https://www.ey.com/cn/en/services/strategic-growth-markets/ey-strategic-growth-forum-
china-2016-speaker-christine-holgate [Accessed on 27/09/18]
Holgate, C. (2016). Other People’s Business: Blackmores CEO Christine Holgate. Radio
National (RN) Drive. (P. Karvelas, Interviewer) ABC.[online] Available on:
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27/09/18]

Johnston, D. (2018) Australia Post's positive result from Deloitte Access Economics report,
but mail delivery delays on CEO Christine Holgate agenda. [online] Available on:
https://www.thecourier.com.au/story/5592093/australia-post-ceo-wants-faster-deliveries-and-
more-post-offices/ [Accessed on 27/09/18]
Keating, E. (2014) Gail Kelly retires: Five leadership lessons from the first woman to lead
one of Australia’s big banks. [online] Available on:
http://www.smartcompany.com.au/people-human-resources/leadership/44621-gail-kelly-
retires-five-leadership-lessons-from-the-first-woman-to-lead-one-of-australia-s-big-banks/
[Accessed on 27/09/18]
Maak, T., Pless, N.M. and Voegtlin, C., (2016) Business statesman or shareholder advocate?
CEO responsible leadership styles and the micro‐foundations of political CSR. Journal of
Management Studies, 53(3), pp.463-493.
Meuser, J.D., Gardner, W.L., Dinh, J.E., Hu, J., Liden, R.C. and Lord, R.G., (2016) A
network analysis of leadership theory: The infancy of integration. Journal of
Management, 42(5), pp.1374-1403.
Miner, J.B., (2015) Organizational behavior 1: Essential theories of motivation and
leadership. US: Routledge.
Samad, A., (2015) Towards an understanding of the effect of leadership on employee
wellbeing and organizational outcomes in Australian universities. The Journal of Developing
Areas, 49(6), pp.441-448.
Siecap (2015) Australia Post’s Christine Holgate discusses leadership. [online] Available
on: http://www.siecap.com.au/australia-posts-christine-holgate-discusses-leadership/
[Accessed on 27/09/18]