MGT3LWM Leadership Report: CEO Bradford Banducci Leadership Analysis

This report delves into the leadership style of Bradford Banducci, the CEO of Woolworths Group. It identifies his transformational leadership approach, supported by the Great Man theory, and explains its four key components: individualized consideration, inspirational motivation, idealized influence, and intellectual stimulation. The report provides an overview of Banducci's background, highlighting his experience and qualifications. It explores the challenges he faced, such as navigating constant changes and retaining team members, and suggests solutions like incorporating AI and ML, and increasing employee pay. The report also discusses what was learned about leadership from studying Banducci's style and concludes by summarizing the key findings and offering references to support the analysis.

MANAGEMENT
STUDENT DETAILS
STUDENT DETAILS

LEADERSHIP 1
Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Overview of Leader’s background.............................................................................................3
Explanation of his leadership style – Transformational Leadership..........................................3
Individualized consideration..................................................................................................4
Inspirational Motivation.........................................................................................................4
Idealized influence.................................................................................................................4
Intellectual Stimulation..........................................................................................................4
Great Man theory...................................................................................................................5
Challenges that CEO. Brad faced in past while governing the team.........................................6
Challenge in Navigating and communicating constant changes............................................6
Retaining team members........................................................................................................6
Suggestions................................................................................................................................6
What I had learned from this report...........................................................................................7
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................8
References..................................................................................................................................9

LEADERSHIP 2
Introduction
Leadership is a fluid practice. A leader needs to sharpen their leadership style or trait as time
passes through their experience. The leadership style of the leader comes out from his/her
characteristics. Leadership is the research area and a practiced skill that helps the leader in
governing the team towards the success of the organization. This report will incorporate a
discussion about the leadership style of Bradford Banducci. He uses the transformational
leadership style (Marketscreener.com, 2019). My reason behind choosing this leader is that
Woolworths group had incorporated the losses of $1.25billion after his appointment in the
year 2016 but in the year 2017, he conducted important changes that rises the profit level to
3.6% ($1.53 billion) (Executivecentral.com, 2019). This report will discuss the key
challenges he faces, detail explanation about his leadership style, concept of leadership theory
that is linked to his leadership style, etc.

LEADERSHIP 3
Overview of Leader’s background
Bradford Banducci holds the position of CEO in Woolworths Group since 2016. He holds
195,808 equities of the group that is currently valued at $5,265,995 (USD). He was appointed
as the Managing Director of the group in the year 2015 but in the year 2016 he was selected
as the CEO of the group due to his fascinating leadership qualities. Before 2015, he was
working at the CEO position in Cellarmasters Group (wine retail company) from 2007 to
2011. He stated that he has a passion for making varieties of wine and he owns a Winery in
Central Otago, New Zealand. He is graduated in law and commerce from the University of
KwaZulu-Natal South Africa. Apart from this, he holds a Master Degree in Business
Administration from the Australian School of Management. In his childhood days, he works
with his mother at their own retail clothing business. Thus, it can be said that the business of
the retail industry lies in his blood (Marketscreener.com, 2019).
Explanation of his leadership style – Transformational Leadership
CEO. Brad’s leadership style incorporates special qualities because this leadership trait
causes important changes in the team members and directs the team members so that they can
work towards achieving a common objective. In other words, in an ideal form, this leadership
style is responsible for creating positive and valuable changes in the team members and this
trait also boosts motivation and their moral values. This leadership style is introduced by
James MacGregor Burns in the year 1978 (Agra, Noorderhaven & Vallejo, 2016).
Transformational leadership enables a leader to motivate and inspire their team members
without micromanaging, so that team members can accomplish the goals of the organization
as well as their personal goals. This leadership style states that a leader should first set an
example from his sense of corporate culture because it will motivate the employees on a
practical basis to conduct better operations than before (Deichmann & Stam, 2015).

LEADERSHIP 4
This leadership style incorporates four major components that are:
Individualized consideration
Under this, the leader first acts as the personal mentor or coach and guide his/her team
member personally to know about their strengths or weakness. As per this, the leader is
required to pay close attention to the individual background of his team members
(Deichmann & Stam, 2015).
Inspirational Motivation
This implies the use of motivation theories and other resources with a purpose to motivate
and inspire the team members so that they can work beyond expectations. Apart from this, it
is noticed that leaders who incorporate inspirational motivation have high expectations from
their team members. For example: a transformational leadership can incorporate various
motivational theories under inspirational motivation such as ERG theory, Two-factor theory,
Equity theory, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, Reinforcement theory, Expectancy theory, etc
(Executivecentral.com, 2019).
Idealized influence
Leaders who show the idealized influence are the role model for their followers because such
leaders have very high moral values related to their culture and work ethics (Forbes.com,
2018).
Intellectual Stimulation
This implies the degree through which a transformational leader takes up the challenges and
calculates the risk that can be associated with the following task. After calculating the risk,
the leaders and followers both become aware of the implications or associated risk with a
particular task (Marketscreener.com, 2019).

LEADERSHIP 5
Great Man theory
The Great Man hypothesis developed around the mid-nineteenth century. Despite the fact that
nobody had the option to relate to any logical assurance, which human trademark or a mix of,
were liable for distinguishing incredible leaders. In other word, this hypothesis describes that
great leaders are born not made with time. Besides, the conviction was that incredible leaders
will rise when faced with the fitting circumstance (Executivecentral.com, 2019).
I think that CEO. Brad is one of them. He is perfect with this hypothesis as per my
perspective. My reason behind accepting “Great Man Theory” in the context of the CEO.
Brad is that Woolworths group had incorporated the losses of $1.25billion after his
appointment in the year 2016 but in the year 2017, he conducted important changes that rises
the profit level which leads to a profit of $1.53 billion. Apart from this, from his previous
background, it is concluded that leadership lies in his blood and he also has experience in
managing team because in his childhood days he used to work with his mother in their own
retail clothing business. Thus, as per my perspective leadership qualities of transformational
leadership lies in his blood and he is the born leader, so the applications of the Great Men
Theory suit him well (Pinck & Sonnentag, 2018).
Challenges that CEO. Brad faced in past while governing the team
Challenge in Navigating and communicating constant changes
While leading the team, he faces the major challenge that lies in navigating and establishing
important communication among the team members. The business of Woolworths lies in the
retail sector and adverse changes in external conditions require immediate action from the
upper-level management and from the team members. Thus, the CEO. Brad faces a major
challenge in navigating the team in a short span of time for giving an effective response to the
internal and external challenges in the company (Richards, 2016).

LEADERSHIP 6
Retaining team members
Retaining the team members is also a challenge for him because it is extremely important to
retain the skillful person in order to attain business success and competitive advantage. CEO.
Brad issues the high budget to two important departments. 1. Training and Development
department of the employees 2. Research and Innovation models. Thus, it creates a challenge
from him when employees leave the organization and join the other competitive companies
(Executivecentral.com, 2019).
Suggestions
Incorporating AI and ML:
He can take the use of AI and ML in their system to simplify their process and to reduce the
load of their human resources. AI and ML are the future technology that is known for
producing reliable results. It will also improve the customer experience and this will help the
organization in driving more profitable outcomes (Willis, Clarke & O'Connor, 2017).
CEO. Bradford Banducci should take the decision to increase the PayScale of the employees:
Increasing the PayScale of the employees will show positive results in increasing the
retention rate. The normal Woolworths Supermarket compensation ranges from around
$37,791 every year for Retail Sales Assistant to $97,481 every year for Store Manager.
Normal Woolworths Supermarket time-based compensation ranges from around $18.97 every
hour for Retail Sales Assistant to $77.23 (Willis, Clarke & O'Connor, 2017).
What I had learned from this report
I learned that it is important to recognize our own leadership style. Recognizing our
leadership trait is important because it displays our characteristics. I also learnt that a leader
should either relies on one particular leadership or a leader should change their leadership

LEADERSHIP 7
style as per the situation. For example: high-stress situation like adverse external forces
require immediate actions. In this situation, a leader can switch to the autocratic leadership
style because this leadership style enables the leader to take the independent decision. On the
other hand, in less-stress situation a leader can switch to the autocratic leadership style.

LEADERSHIP 8
Conclusion
In this report, it is concluded that CEO. Bradford Banducci utilizes the transformational
leadership style. This leadership trait helps him in governing his team to accomplish the goals
of the organization. Apart from this, it is concluded that this leadership style has four
components that are: Individualized consideration, Inspirational Motivation, Idealized
influence and Intellectual Stimulation. The “Great Man Theory” is link noted with the
leadership style of CEO. Brad. In this report, two major suggestions are suggested, these
suggestions are linked to the utilization of AI and to increase the pay scale of the existing
employees.

LEADERSHIP 9
References
Forbes.com, 15 Big Challenges You'll Face As A Modern CEO (And How To Solve Them)
2018, Forbes.com, viewed 11th January 2020,
<https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescoachescouncil/2018/11/21/15-big-challenges-youll-
face-as-a-modern-ceo-and-how-to-solve-them/#cc56e3e398e1>
Aga, DA, Noorderhaven, N & Vallejo, B 2016, ‘Transformational leadership and project
success: The mediating role of team-building’, International Journal of Project Management,
vol. 34, no.5, pp. 806-818.
Marketscreener.com, Business Leaders 2019, Marketscreener.com, viewed 11th January 2020,
<https://www.marketscreener.com/business-leaders/Bradford-Banducci-5178/biography/>
Deichmann, D & Stam, D 2015, ‘Leveraging transformational and transactional leadership to
cultivate the generation of organization-focused ideas’, The Leadership Quarterly, vol. 26,
no. 5, pp. 204-219.
Richards. R, Five things you need to know about Woolworths’ new chief executive Brad
Banducci 2016, Richards, R. viewed on 11th January 2020,
<https://www.smartcompany.com.au/people-human-resources/five-things-you-need-to-know-
about-woolworths-new-ceo-brad-banducci/>
Nguyen, TT, Winata, L & Chong, VK 2017, ‘Effect of transformational-leadership style and
management control system on managerial performance’, Journal of Business Research, vol.
70, no. 1, pp. 202-213.
Pinck, AS & Sonnentag, S 2018, ‘Leader mindfulness and employee well-being: the
mediating role of transformational leadership’, Mindfulness, vol. 9, no.3, pp. 884-896.

LEADERSHIP 10
Willis, S, Clarke, S & O’Connor, E 2017, ‘Contextualizing leadership: Transformational
leadership and Management‐By‐Exception‐Active in safety‐critical contexts’, Journal of
Occupational and Organizational Psychology, vol. 90, no.3, pp. 281-305.
Executivecentral.com, Woolworths Group’s Renae Smee: Driving transformation through
inclusive leadership 2019, Executivecentral.com, viewed 11th January 2020,
<https://executivecentral.com.au/blog/transformation-through-inclusive-leadership/>
Whyte. J, Woolworths new CEO Brad Banducci takes helm and promises 'authentic'
leadership 2016, Whyte, J. viewed on 11th January 2020,
<https://www.afr.com/companies/retail/woolworths-new-ceo-brad-banducci-takes-helm-and-
promises-authentic-leadership-20160226-gn4754>