Bob Hawkes Wife on Leadership
The Australian writer, Blanche d'Alpuget, has recently published a new biography, Hawke, The Prime Minister. As part of the promotional tour she recently spoke on Political Leadership at The Sydney Institute. As a novelist and the present wife of Bob Hawke, Blanche offered some fascinating insights on what makes a successful leader. In the book, she contrasts the personalities of Hawke and Paul Keating. There has been considerable criticism of her approach, but I think her comments are perceptiv.....
Read MoreWhy Poor EQ Managers Get Promoted
Every year on the last Thursday in September, alumni of the London Business School congregate in over 100 cities for a worldwide alumni celebration. This year in Sydney we had the pleasure of hearing Zeger Degraeve, LBS Professor and newly appointed Dean of the Melbourne Business School, speak on his specialty, Decision Science. I must confess I approached the evening with some trepidation as I could remember of my Decision Science lectures in the early 1970s when I did my MBA. They comprised dr.....
Read MoreWhat is the CEO’s primary role?
This morning I read two interesting articles. The first was a summary of survey results produced by Execunet who surveyed their members with this question: “If we had to boil things down to just one critical function, what is the CEO's primary role?” The answers varied from “increasing shareholder value” to “effectively communicating a vision.” The second article was an luncheon interview in the Weekend Financial Review (10 November 2012) with the person anointed by the Australian S.....
Read MoreWhat Does a CEO Actually Do?
There are millions of blogs on leadership and the role of a CEO but rarely do you hear a CEO expounding on his role in person. Normally they are spruiking the company or speaking on the latest organisational issue such as gender diversity. Several weeks ago I had the pleasure of hosting a Cambridge Society lunch for Rob Murray in Sydney. Rob Murray is the Chief Executive of Lion Nathan National Foods (LNNF), which employs close to 8,000 people across Australia and New Zealand and delivers reven.....
Read More"Put in a sales perspective, I loved your presentation! I got a lot from what you talked about and I will read your book."
Peter Morris, Executive Officer, Lomax Financial Group
Your presentation on 'Lifting your Level of Emotional Intelligence" to 10 CEOs scored an average 8.9 out of 10 for the topic and 8.5 for the presentation which is great. A couple of the attendees gave you a 10 out of 10, and the comments were:
- Great presentation. Very informative.
- Excellent presentation.
- made me think.
Christi Spring CEO Institute. - web www.ceo.com.au.

