LEADERSHIP1
Gail Kelly, who was the advisor of Westpac and now is working for UBS, was
considered to be one of the most successful female CEOs in Australia throughout her reign in
Westpac. She resigned from Westpac, after been working there for seven long years as the
chief executive of the company. She is widely regarded as the first ever female chief
executives who lead the biggest bank of the country and is a regular feature on the Forbes’s
list of “the most powerful women” (Liu, Cutcher and Grant 2015). However, it is to mention
that her leadership style is based on the OneTeam approach. This approach encourages the
employees for working together as a team for supporting one another in order to put the
customers first while keeping the company first over their own business unit as well as the
individual outcomes.
Furthermore, it is also to note that Kelly encourages trust in between the management
and employees and at the same time believes in the approach of “generosity of spirit” to
leadership. It is a relationship based leader approach, which is a pillar of her leadership style.
As per Haskins (2018), the leaders who possess generous spirit are much more memorable
and they believe that can achieve anything if they truly desire for it. With the same, Kelly is
known to notice the unique skills among the individuals and was able of giving a
personalised account of the way of contributing to the team success. She was a very strong
communication leader whose personal life experience of growing up in the city of South
Africa has influenced her style of leadership. Apart from these, it is to mention that the
personality traits that Kelly possess are that of optimism, enthusiasm and warmth. While
being there at Westpac, the entire team used to respond positively to her optimism and
enthusiasm. She was also successful in keeping the team in an upbeat mood and at the same
time, projected warmth throughout her years in the company. With the same, Kelly also has
higher level of emotional intelligence. Hunt and Fitzgerald (2018) in this context have
claimed “the most effective leaders have a high degree of emotional intelligence”. She makes

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