MGTT220 Management and Strategic Leadership | Leadership Behaviours

It is helpful to use quotes and detailed descriptions of selected incidents to support conclusions about the leader’s behaviour and influence on followers. The source for any quotes or factual details should be clearly cited. It is essential to describe incidents involving effective or ineffective behaviour by the leader to support your analysis.

Answers:

Introduction

The report discusses and analyses the development, capacity and achievements of a leader. The report divulges in the information about the struggles that have been faced by the leader during his tenure and the criticism that he had to face by the different stakeholders. The different ethical issues of the leader have also been discussed along with the strengths and weaknesses of the leader. The leadership trait of the leader is discussed and the alignment to a leadership theory is determined in this report followed by certain recommendations for the leader.    

About the leader

Ian Narev was the Chief Executive Officer and the Managing Director of Commonwealth Bank and was appointed in the tear 2011 on December 1. He studied from the Auckland Grammar School which was located in New Zealand and graduated from University of Auckland, New York University and Cambridge University for different degrees. He was born in a Jewish Family in Auckland and starred in Children of Fire Mountain which is a television series of New Zealand. He worked at the McKinsey & Company from the year 1998 to 2007 in their offices in Sydney, New York and Auckland.     

Struggles of the leader

There have been many scandals associated with the leader during his tenure as the CEO of the bank. Ian Narev say that it is hard to fight with the big giants of the financial services sector and the other global banking companies. According to him Commonwealth Bank does not hold the global scale with which they can compete with the other global players and maintain their foothold in the market. The biggest struggle that Ian Narev had to face during his tenure is the biggest scandal that he was associated with. It was the money laundering scandal of compliance which destroyed several billions in shareholder value and put the lenders under severe scrutiny. He was constantly grilled by the federal parliament for the scandals and his association with the same as there was much damage that have been done to the customers and the shareholders of the bank.

Criticism by stakeholders

The previous chief executive of Commonwealth Bank Ian Narev had faced huge levels of criticisms based on the money-laundering based activities that have been performed by him. The major allegations that have been made against him are based on different scandals that have been faced by the company related to breach of anti-money laundering and the terrorism financing based laws. The levels of misconduct in the financial advice related business were also quite high and the bank further faced issues in life insurance based arm. According to Johnston (2018) the major stakeholders of the bank are the customers who been let down by the organization in a huge manner.

The organization has faced the anger of customers in this case which has further led to issues within the different processes. CBA had also faced major levels of criticisms due to the governance and culture which has been developed by the CEO. The financial intelligence based agency named Austrac has also made explosive allegations against the bank based on the ways by which it has been operating over the years. The ex-CEO of the bank had thereby admitted that he made many mistakes in the term which has been served by him in Commonwealth Bank. Hayland (2018) state that the money laundering related activities which had taken place within the bank were not reported by him and this had been able to affect the operations of the bank and its revenues as well.

The senior executives of the bank were held responsible for the issues that were being faced by the bank based on different practices that are performed by him. The victims of the cases which had taken place in the bank were also not provided effective levels of compensation by the authorities within the stipulated time. The financial advice based scandal had been able to affect the bank and the major stakeholders in a negative manner. The leader had further answered the criticisms by saying that the issues which were faced by the bank were not quite small and solving them would require time. The major stakeholders of the bank or the customers were totally let down by the issues that had taken place within its operations. The bank had to thereby change its stance based on the ways by which it wished to operate within the financial industry. As stated by Pash (2018) the victims had to be addressed in an effective manner in order to provide them with the services that are required by them.

The leader was thereby not able to fulfil the expectations of the customers based on advice that was provided to them based on different financial issues. The inappropriate steps which have taken by Ian Narev in the bank have been a major part of the ways by which the customers and the employees have been affected. The steps of the leader had also been a major reason behind the negative publicity which had been received by the bank in the financial industry. According to Rose (2018) the high levels of criticism are thereby based on the ways by which stakeholders of the bank had been affected by different activities of the leader.

Specific leadership behaviours along with leadership theories for analysing the appropriateness of leadership of Ian Narev

The leadership style and behaviour of Ian Narev is based on transactional theory. Transactional leadership style is based on the leaders who mainly focus on the organization, supervision and levels of performance that are depicted by them. The compliance of the followers is thereby promoted by the leaders with the help of punishments and rewards. Ian Narev has followed this style for the purpose of leading the employees in the Commonwealth Bank. The leader has however faced high levels of criticisms based on the leadership process. A major criticism that was made against him was based on the unethical behaviour which has been shown towards the employees (Johnson, 2018).

The bank had already faced many criticisms based on the bad behaviour which has been shown by the leader and the other issues faced by the stakeholders. The rise of Ian Narev as the CEO of Commonwealth Bank was quite fast and the leader was also appreciated in an effective manner for the levels of strategic knowledge that is possessed by him based on the operations of Commonwealth Bank. The financial planning based crisis which was faced by the bank had also been managed in an effective manner by Ian Narev. The leader had been able to show his skills at the start of his term in the Commonwealth Bank (Holten & Brenner, 2015).

The management of the bank was thereby put into fast track by Ian Narev in the year 2009 and this had led to the improvement of the revenues of the bank in an effective manner. The leader had also played a major role in dealing with the huge financial crisis which had started engulfing the bank and its operations in the financial industry. Ian Narev was able to manage the operations of the bank in an effective manner. However, this rise of leader did not last for a long time. The steps that were thereby taken by the leader had been an important part of different scandals which were faced by the Commonwealth Bank (Strom, Sears & Kelly, 2014). The high levels of dissatisfaction which were faced by the customers and other stakeholders of the bank had affected the operations of Ian Narev as the CEO of the organization.      

The reign of the leader as a success or failure

The reign of the leader was a failure since he was not able to continue his work as the Cleo of Commonwealth Bank. Amidst the scandals that surrounded him, he had to stand down from his position and was succeeded by Matt Comyn as the next CEO of the bank. He started as a good managing director of the company, but in his greed to gain more profit, he was unable to maintain his work and his stand in the bank (Businessinsider.com, 2018). He took the support of several unethical means to do his work and this made his tenure and work a failure in the eyes of the people. It was because of him that many people had to lose billions of money. He had different expectation form his job but was unable to fulfil them since he not able to follow the right path and his actions made a great negative impact on the image of the bank. 

Strengths and Weaknesses of the leader

Every person has certain strengths and weaknesses which make up a complete package. In the same way the leader has strengths and weaknesses which help him to work and become successful in his time period.

The strengths of the leader are as follows:

• He wanted to make the bank a global player so that they can compete with the other banks in a global perspective.
  
  
• He was a team worker and motivated the staff to contribute their ideas so that they can innovate new things and products in the bank.
  
  
• He was an innovator and creative thinker and he himself contributed many new and beneficial ideas for the betterment of the bank.
  
  
• He was optimistic in nature and felt that he could help the bank to be more successful than it already is (Herrmann & Felfe, 2014).

The weaknesses of the leader are as follows:

• He wanted to incur more profit at a lesser time and therefore had to take the help of unethical practices which finally led him to lose his position and integrity.
  
  
• He was not successful as a leader, since according to his claims he was not a part of the money laundering scandal and the bank failed to report it at the right time. Being a good leader would have meant that the right steps should have been taken before the problem arises.

Ethical issues of the leader

The rule of Ian Narev saw many ethical violations and issues that was faced by him and the bank. Popli and Rizvi (2015) argue that there have been claims where the customers said that they have not been treated well by the people of the bank especially the customers who are terminally ill and have been refused legitimate claims by the bank. The concerns of the customers have not been addressed by the people as well as the manager of the bank and Ian Narev took no notice of the issue. The other ethical consideration that has come into light is the money laundering scandal that Ian Narev was a part of but has declared to be not guilty stating that he had no knowledge of the same. However, it was under his leadership that the scandal occurred and therefore, the ethical violation had been done by him directly or indirectly.  

Recommendations

Ian Narev could have been a great leader had he not been involved in any scandal and have taken the right route to lead the bank. He had good knowledge and experience in the banking sector, however, he was unable to rule and lead the people in the right way. He should have concentrated on the benefits of the customers rather than his own and should have also take proper reports from the staff regarding all the financial activities that have been going on in the bank. Being the CEO of the bank, it should have been his job to know about all the functions and occurrence within the bank.

Conclusion

The report can be concluded by stating that Ian Narev had followed the transactional style of leadership for managing the employees in an effective manner. The leader was able to rise in the position in which he was appointed in Commonwealth Bank. However, the success did not last for a long time and the organization started facing major issues related to different activities which had led to high levels of dissatisfaction of the stakeholders. The leader was thereby criticised for his activities in spite of the success which he had received at the start of his term in the bank.

References:

Businessinsider.com. (2018). IAN NAREV: The CBA money laundering scandal doesn't 'reflect well on me'. Retrieved from https://www.businessinsider.com/ian-narev-the-cba-money-laundering-scandal-doesnt-reflect-well-on-me-2017-8?IR=T

Hayland, A. (2018). Called to account: Ian Narev's reign at CBA from scandals to blockbuster profits. [online] Financial Review. Available at: https://www.afr.com/business/banking-and-finance/called-to-account-ian-narevs-reign-at-cba-from-scandals-to-blockbuster-profits-20170810-gxtn85 [Accessed 29 Sep. 2018].

Herrmann, D., & Felfe, J. (2014). Effects of leadership style, creativity technique and personal initiative on employee creativity. British Journal of Management, 25(2), 209-227.

Holten, A. L., & Brenner, S. O. (2015). Leadership style and the process of organizational change. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 36(1), 2-16.

Johnson, C. (2018). The two questions CBA boss Ian Narev refuses to answer | The New Daily. Retrieved from https://thenewdaily.com.au/money/finance-news/2016/10/04/bank-hearing-ian-narev/

Johnston, B. (2018). Commonwealth Bank's Ian Narev fast to rise, but slow to move. Retrieved from https://www.smh.com.au/business/banking-and-finance/commonwealth-banks-ian-narev-fast-to-rise-but-slow-to-move-20140704-3bdug.html

Pash, C. (2018). Ian Narev is under attack for the 'culture of bad behaviour' at the Commonwealth Bank. Retrieved from https://www.businessinsider.com.au/ian-narev-is-under-attack-for-the-culture-of-bad-behaviour-at-the-commonwealth-bank-2016-10

Popli, S., & Rizvi, I. A. (2015). Exploring the relationship between service orientation, employee engagement and perceived leadership style: a study of managers in the private service sector organizations in India. Journal of Services Marketing, 29(1), 59-70.

Rose, S. (2018). CBA boss Ian Narev talks tough on 'unreasonable' unhappy customers. Retrieved from https://www.smh.com.au/business/banking-and-finance/cba-boss-ian-narev-talks-tough-on-unreasonable-unhappy-customers-20160420-gob726.html

Strom, D. L., Sears, K. L., & Kelly, K. M. (2014). Work engagement: The roles of organizational justice and leadership style in predicting engagement among employees. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, 21(1), 71-82.