Christine Yates is an experienced executive who began her career in chartered accounting with Deloitte, transitioning into the banking and finance industry where she has accumulated over 30 years of experience. Currently serving as a group executive at one of Australia’s largest mutuals, Australian Unity, leading the group’s banking and insurance businesses.
She will defend her Doctorate in Business Administration (DBA) in September 2023, on the theme “The theory of leadership impotency: Studying the recursive loop between leadership impotency and becoming the system” under the supervision of Professor Isabelle Walsh, Professor Emeritus, Université Côte d’Azur, France.
Thesis Direction
Pr Isabelle Walsh
Thesis Title
The theory of leadership impotency – Studying the recursive loop between leadership impotency and becoming the system
Abstract
This thesis targets more specifically banking executives, and perhaps more broadly, those executives in large organisations where operationalising strategy involves interdependencies within these organisations.
We study the role of executives in the Australian banking industry. To build trust within the community and remain competitive amidst disruptive forces from global non-bank platforms, emerging FinTechs and changing customer demands, banks have a need to adopt customer centric practices through purposeful strategy development and the execution of strategic decisions made (together strategy development and execution). However, the state of the banking industry in Australia is such that strategy development and execution is stifled by inertia. The primary responsibility of bank executives is to contribute to their bank’s strategic development and ensure execution alignment with the overall strategic direction. However, this present research reveals a significant problem: bank executives struggle to fulfil their accountability as leaders, hindering their effectiveness. A counterintuitive finding emerges from this research, demonstrating that the very system that is meant to empower executives actually disempowers them and renders them impotent as leaders. In turn, and recursively, impotent leaders reinforce and enact the system in which they evolve: they “become” this “system.” This thesis explores the interplay between leadership impotency and the system and conceptualises the underlying patterns that contribute to this inertia. We propose a conceptual model that explains how the system impacts leaders, leading to a loss of their agency, thus reinforcing the very system that leaders are trying to change and leading to their impotency.
The insights we provide could prompt organisations to reconsider traditional leadership assessments and programs, shifting focus from individual generic leadership traits to designing institutional leadership programs that train executives on actively understanding and managing the complexities of the organisational system as a critical enabler to effective strategy development and execution. Without a comprehensive understanding of factors influencing executive behaviours, the problem of inertia in strategy development and execution cannot be addressed, perpetuating challenges for executives in executing their most significant work as leaders, work for which they are accountable.
Overall, this thesis provides insights and grounds for organisations to reassess their approach to leadership development and highlights the importance of actively managing the organisational system to enable the operationalisation of strategy. Applying the practical recommendations that result from our work could help organisations empower executives to effectively execute their organisation’s strategy, thus embodying the true essence of being an ‘executive’, and also perhaps further their role as effective leaders.
The research methodology used was qualitative research, specifically classic grounded theory. The field data collection included interviews with 24 banking executives, industry reports, news articles and transcripts from the Australian government review of the banking industry.