CBA Leadership and Culture: An Analysis of Leadership Styles

This essay examines the leadership style of Ian Narev, the Managing Director and CEO of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), in relation to the organization's culture and recent corporate scandals. It argues that Narev's leadership approach leans towards a Laissez-faire style, which, while promoting employee autonomy, has also contributed to a lack of oversight and accountability, resulting in negative outcomes such as money-laundering scandals and financial planning issues. The essay further critiques the transactional aspects of Narev's leadership, highlighting a focus on day-to-day operations rather than strategic vision. Despite initiatives promoting diversity and employee development, the analysis suggests that weaknesses in leadership and corporate strategy have created loopholes exploited by middle management, ultimately damaging the organization's reputation and public trust. The essay concludes that while the intention behind the management is positive, the Laissez-faire leadership style has led to a lack of control and contributed to the ethical failures within the organization.

Running Head: LEADERSHIP 1
Leadership and Organization Culture

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Introduction
The success of a business organization is dependent upon the leadership and the organization
culture. In the recent years, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia has suffered from several
cases of corporate frauds and money-laundering scandals. These cases show that there is some
serious issue in corporate culture and the leadership style of the organization. Since 2011, the
Managing Director and the CEO of Commonwealth Bank of Australia is Ian Narev. It is the
largest company of Australia by market capitalization.
Ian joined the company as the Group Head of Business Strategy. Since 2009, Ian was given
diversified job roles of Group Executive, Business and Private Banking, SME banking and
CommSec retail brokerage business. He was a tenured and talented candidate focused on
developing the organization culture in several different ways. He introduced new technologies to
enhance the customer engagement with the organization, enhancing the employee productivity,
adapting new business regulations, and developing a customer-centric and value-driven culture
(Bolman & Deal, 2017). Ian is well-educated and director of Business Council of Australia and
International Monetary Conference.
As the CEO of CBA, Ian promotes workplace diversity and positive organization culture at the
workplace. He has a broad view and believes that diversity can increase the productivity at the
workplace. He also promotes leadership and inclusion of disabled people and older people at the
workplace. His initiatives have yielded positive results and resulted in high diversity in terms of
religion, sexual orientation, and ethnic background (Willaims, 2015).
However, in the recent years, the organization has been plagued by different corporate scandals
in the insurance industry, financial planning and the money laundering cases. It can be stated that
these scandals are the results weaknesses in the leadership style and the corporate strategy of the
organization (Antonakis & Day, 2017).
With the analysis of these scandals and the management intention of Ian Narev, it can be stated
that the intention of the management is good; however, there are certain loopholes, which has
given the middle management autonomy. They have taken certain decisions, which have resulted
in negative outcomes for the society as well as for the organization. With this analysis, it can be
discussed that the leadership strategy of Ian Narev is Laissez-faire leadership style (Fairhurst &
Connaughton, 2014). It is a delegate leadership, in which the leaders allow the group members to
take certain decisions.
However, this leadership style results in lowest productivity among the group members. The
most prominent characteristics of Laissez-faire leadership style are that the employees receive
very little guidance from the leaders. It also provides significant freedom to the followers so that
they can take easy decisions. In this leadership style, the power is handed over to the followers;
however, the leader is responsible for all the decisions (Eagly, Johannesen-Schmidt & Van
Engen, 2003).

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The conventional ‘Laissez-faire’ leadership style is the leadership approach, in which the leaders
adopt a hands-off approach. These business leaders remain open to the different group members
for consultation and feedback.
The leaders provide direction to the team members; however, the employees are allowed to
complete their job with little oversight. The approach to leadership is effective, if the employees
are responsible, expert and trustworthy. The leaders should feel confident that the employees of
the organization have the necessary skills, knowledge and capable of managing the projects
without any supervision (Skogstad, Einarsen, Torsheim, Aasland & Hetland, 2007).
However, there are certain pitfalls of this type of leadership style. The leadership style is not
ideal, if the people lack the experience or the knowledge to make certain decisions. The
leadership style is associated with poor job performance, leader effectiveness and lack of group
satisfaction (Xirasagar, 2008). There are several negative sides of Laisez-faire style, which are
lack of awareness, involvement with the group, low accountability and passive behavior towards
the organization (Hinkin & Schriesheim, 2008).
The money-laundering scandal was a result of the negligence from the management of the
organization. The ASIC is investigating CBA for regulatory uncompliant behavior. It is
evaluating if the organization has complied by the regular disclosure laws. The organization
should also immediately alert the investors of any suspicious behavior. The ASIC committee
suspected that the bank might have played some foul play and has not complied with the
licensing obligations. The public and the media criticized the board of the bank regarding the
money laundering allegations; however, Norak rejected the criticism. He stated that the
organization is very large in size and therefore, they have developed several autonomous teams,
which has to be managed by the investors and the regulators (Ryan, 2017).
There were other issues as well. The public relations of the organization were not appropriate,
which created several issues in the mishandling of trust and the public confidence (Butler and
Johnston, 2014). There has been a lack of financial planning and foresight in the introduction of
the financial policies in the organization. The financial planning scandal has led to several
questions regarding the leadership style of Ian Narev and whether he will be capable of handling
the financial crisis. The current decisions of the CEO states that he has very static style to handle
the financial planning crisis. As a result, the customers, companies and the captains of the
organization have also accused the company of hubris (Jones & Rudd, 2008).
The lack of foresight can also be perceived by the personal career growth of CEO of the
organization. The career growth of Ian shows that there is lack of career planning. The current
annual package of Narev is the lowest, which shows that he has not negotiated properly with the
Board of Directors.
Further, it can be critiqued that Ian follows transactional leadership style. This style demonstrates
a lack of vision, as the leader is focused on running the day to day operations of the organization

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rather than leading the organization for the future growth. The business leaders make the
followers comply by the rules and regulations with the help of rewards and punishment.
These leaders set goals and explicit agreements with the followers of the organization. They also
increase the efficiency and establishing routines in the organization (Amanchukwu, Stanley &
Ololube, 2015). These leaders are focused on establishing rules and making the followers to
work accordingly.
Diversity and inclusion are important criteria for the transactional leaders. They consciously seek
diverse talent to build a competent workforce. They emphasize building and working with
heterogeneous teams by understanding the significance of diversity and inclusion in the business
enterprise. Ian Norak also emphasizes the importance of diversity in the organization (Harland,
Harrison, Jones & Reiter-Palmon, 2005). The recruitment and the talent management department
of the organization emphasize the inclusion criteria and try to select the employees from different
walks of life.
Along with it, Ian Norav has also been a good leader and mentor for the employees. The
mentoring relationship is crucial for the corporate to develop the human resources. It is the
process, which can be used to emphasize the growth and talent of the employees. Norav has
introduced a unique organization culture, in which the employees are given freedom and
flexibility. They are also provided opportunity to develop their talent within the organization.
There are several training and development programs within the organization, which are
dedicated towards the employee growth (Eagly, Johannesen-Schmidt & Van Engen, 2003). Other
than that, there are several leadership development programs, which are dedicated towards to
develop the future leaders of the organization. The organization culture also promotes diversity
and empowerment of the employees. The employees are given autonomy so that they can control
their growth. Other than that, the organization culture of the bank is positive and flexible. The
employees have a flexible work schedule. However, since the privacy and security is the major
concern for the banks, proper training is provided (Chaudhry & Javed, 2012). The bank has fixed
timings and the employees should follow them.
Conclusion
It can be concluded that the leadership style of Isan Norak is that of Laissez-faire style. . It also
provides significant freedom to the followers so that they can take easy decisions. In this
leadership style, the power is handed over to the followers; however, the leader is responsible for
all the decisions. The employees were capable of conducting fraud, due to the freedom provided
to them. There has been a lack of financial planning and foresight in the introduction of the
financial policies in the organization. It also shows the issues in the leadership style of the CEO.
Since 2011, he has been the Managing Director and the CEO of Commonwealth Bank of
Australia. It is the largest company of Australia by market capitalization; however, his
compensation has been low.

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