Leadership Analysis: Christian Holgate's Strategies and Challenges

This report provides an in-depth analysis of Christian Holgate, a prominent Australian business executive and current director of Australian Post. It begins with a background of Holgate's career, highlighting her roles at Telstra and Blackmores, emphasizing her experience in various sectors like media, telecommunication, finance, and healthcare. The report then associates several leadership theories and traits, particularly focusing on charismatic leadership, to Holgate's approach. It examines how she motivates employees, fosters passion, and leverages her expertise to drive organizational success. The report also identifies challenges faced by the organization, such as unsustainable growth and market changes, and how Holgate addresses them. Finally, it extracts key learning points from her leadership style, emphasizing the importance of adaptability, strategic planning, and a strong focus on company values and culture to achieve organizational objectives. The report references various sources to support its analysis.

LEADERSHIP

Contents
Background, work history, and family..................................................................................................3
Association of several leadership theories and traits to the Holgate-.....................................................4
Challenges faced by the organisation....................................................................................................5
Learning from the leader.......................................................................................................................6
References.............................................................................................................................................7

Background, work history, and family
Christian Holgate is one of the renowned Australian business executive in the corporate
world. Currently, she is the director of Australian post. Earlier, she was the CEO, executive
director and managing director of Telstra limited. Holgate worked as a chief executive officer
for the nutritive supplementary company named as “Blackmores” in the year 2008. This
business leader is acquaint with various leadership skills in order to hold its staff and
motivate them towards their work. Australian post`s chairman named “John Stanhope was
very much convinced” by the experience of the this leader as her expertise was very helpful
in regards to assist to achieve organisational goals in Asia. Christian was soon selected as the
head of the Australia`s oldest structured financially challenged company (ABC, 2018). She
has proclaimed that Australian Post was able to spend 300 million during the creation of the
more capability with them to avail such facility to track the parcels.
This leader has worked and secured a great experience in various sectors such as media,
telecommunication, finance, and healthcare (ABC, 2018). Further, Holgate has twenty years
of experience for both managing director and executive in many organisations. The main
concern of the Holgate is to chief the whole group and in the method that she would control
expansion strategies and apply them to the company in a supportable manner. She was also
appointed as a senior manager in the team in Asia, Australia, and America. She often says
there is no relevance of her educational qualification when we look at her skill set and her
current position. Christian has completed her post-graduation diploma and also (MBA)
master in the business administration. She was invited to the introductory ceremony of
ASEAN (Board of Australia). The leader has proved to be an explicit and great leader. Other
than the traits of a corporate leader, Holgate had helped Board of Collingwood Football
(BCF) and the non-executive director of the (TNHL) ten network holding limited. She was
also bestowed as best women CEO in 2015. Nevertheless, she was also among top 100

business entrepreneurs who won recognition of the monetary reviews of the Australia. In year
2013, she was represented for her charity work on the part of the organisation and self both
(Sacavém, Martinez, Cunha, Abreu, and Johnson, 2017).
Association of several leadership theories and traits to the Holgate-
Leadership is embedded skill set of several assistances, which will make motivational,
positive, and influential impact of the behaviour of the employees (Klettner, Clarke, and
Boersma, 2014). This famous business leader proclaims passion, which can resolve every
possible difficult situation of an organisation that is very concerned with the decision to bring
massive change in the organisation. Motivating the employees, passionate for the work, and
high focuses help the organisation to reduce the frequently of the business failures with the
help of experiences. Holgate is an charismatic leader who delegate a greater importance to
emotions in the team or of an employee (Siecap, 2015). This leader has a strong thoughtful of
several social purposes and other objectives. Holgate gives huge importance to understanding
of objectives and social groups. She values continuous learning, kindness, and authenticity.
She says that she is a free market socialist (Klettner, Clarke, and Boersma, 2014).
by using Holgate`s skills and expertise, the share price of the blackmores that has raised to
five times in 2014. During nine years, she had crowded profit at blackmores after associating
the sustainable development in the harvests in Asia (Johnston, 2018). Holgate discussed her
personal journey from employee to a most honoured business executive when she was
respected as the CEO of the year. She has asked the motive after the strong focus on the
values or the culture of the company. She has debated the main strategic encounters, which is
being confronted by the Australian post when handling new stages of the change in market of
E-commerce in Australia and Asia. Holgate was never the part of logistics in her career in
manufacturing, financial, and health segment (Johnston, 2018).

When selecting the concept of leadership, majority of preferences are according to the
Holgate characters are under the charismatic leadership (Keating, 2014). In this direction, a
charismatic leader is a leader who inspires specific kind of behaviour of the other people
communicating the effective personality. Charismatic leader is a convincing leader where
performances are further driven by opinion and the assurance (Keating, 2014). This leader
not only possess dissimilar idea and produce in the company but also the world. Christian is
sincere, innovative, reliable, and inspired leader who is very good at inspiring various staffs
(Holgate, 2016). She believes that a company should assist community as well as business.
This leader is quite determined in such a way that she would motivate new business plan
strategies for the distributive organisation in which she has never worked in her earlier times.
This leader does not delegate power by his own authority but also her personality
personalities have made her a great lead. On the similar side, she is a conservative leader who
has been selected by the board of directors. A charismatic leader often has knowledge base,
which she apply while making the corporate strategic plan (Evans, 2016). She has expertise
facts of global e-commerce, which are appreciated for the organisation while following the
Asian approach for leadership. Charismatic leader is quite ardent regarding the grabbing of
the chances and the occasion for the workforce who are working for the shareholders,
workforce, and the community. This behaviour of the Holgate in regards to the job was not to
earn huge money. She says this would help her to achieve greater impact on providing the
equality to the women (Evans, 2016).
Dares faced by the organisation
Before working in the Australian post, this leader worked in Blackmores for some of the
ages, which further ensued to the impactful development in the organisation. Some of the
major experiments associated with the Holgate is to uphold and drive enthusiasm for the
growth of the organisation (EY, 2016). Unsustainable growth is another challenge, which

indicates hike in the prices of the share. It is quite possible that if the share prices decrease
then the tendency of the sustainable growth is considerably low. This challenge was noticed
when the share price of last two years has shown a drastic hike in the prices of the share, on
August 2014, the price of share was $27 and in 2016, it grew to $217 (Benn, Edwards, and
Williams, 2014). Holgate would often uses the path goals theory in order to maintain the
healthy relationship between the workforces while performing the task. This further lead to
hyper growth of the organisation that reflect the share price (Sacavém, Martinez, Cunha,
Abreu, and Johnson, 2017). On the other hand, reviewing leadership, path goal theory is the
theory, which she ardently follow. The most challenging behaviour of the Holgate suggests
that she is an autocratic front-runner as she is not at all frightened of making wrong decisions.
The business leader is often successful in executing her leadership trait as leadership aptitude
of a business leader has intense impact on the financial strategies, which are made
strategically (Benn, Edwards, and Williams, 2014).
Learning from the leader
Due to the dynamic business environment, a leader plays a crucial role in the achievement of
the organisational objectives and the goals. After going through the leadership style, it is seen
that entrusting the power, which is not at all adequate in order to make the performances
effective enough. A leader is an objective-oriented as she was announced as the CEO of the
Australian Post (Gebert, Heinitz, and Buengeler, 2016). Holgate have started making and
creating the plans in order to execute the successful plan for the business. A leader should
have the worked in several industries so that she can be a subject matter expert. Most
manipulating attribute which should be exist in a lead`s character is that she should have
strong passion and love for work rather prioritising money. At the initial stage, Holgate was
the controller of Telstra`s marketing squad, which has further made the approaches for the

organisational sales and the channels, which will ultimately help SMEs (Benn, Edwards, and
Williams, 2014).
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]
Benn, S., Edwards, M. and Williams, T. (2014) Organizational change for corporate
sustainability. US: Routledge.
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]
Gebert, D., Heinitz, K. and Buengeler, C., (2016) Leaders' charismatic leadership and
followers' commitment—The moderating dynamics of value erosion at the societal level. The
Leadership Quarterly, 27(1), pp. 98-108.
Holgate, C. (2016). Other People’s Business: Blackmores CEO Christine Holgate. Radio
National (RN) Drive. (P. Karvelas, Interviewer) ABC.[online] Available on:
http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/rn/podcast/2015/11/rnd_20151104_1835.mp3 [Accessed on
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]
Klettner, A., Clarke, T. and Boersma, M., (2014) The governance of corporate sustainability:
Empirical insights into the development, leadership and implementation of responsible
business strategy. Journal of Business Ethics, 122(1), pp. 145-165.
Sacavém, A., Martinez, L.F., da Cunha, J.V., Abreu, A. M. and Johnson, S.K., (2017)
Charismatic Leadership: A Study on Delivery Styles, Mood, and Performance. Journal of
Leadership Studies, 11(3), pp. 21-38.
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]