Role of NZ’s CEOs Demystified
victoria-university-of-wellington
Mon Feb 01 2010 13:00:00 GMT+1300 (New Zealand Daylight Time)
Role of NZ’s CEOs Demystified
Monday, 1 February 2010, 12:26 pm
Press Release: Victoria University of Wellington
Role of NZ’s CEOs Demystified
Demystifying the role of New Zealand’s Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) is the aim of research conducted by Victoria University graduate, Dr Beverley McNally.
“Very little work has been done on executive leadership in New Zealand, so I was interested in talking to CEOs about how they perceive their role, taking into account the social, cultural, historical, forces that are perceived as unique to this country,” says Dr McNally.
A senior lecturer in management at the Open Polytechic of New Zealand, Dr McNally says her interest in this area of study stems from many years spent in a variety of management roles in the insurance and not-for-profit sectors.
As part of her PhD research, she travelled the country interviewing 22 CEOs and eight executives in non-CEO roles in large New Zealand organisations, including chairpersons of boards of directors.
“I wanted to know how they perceived their roles, the forces within their context and their perception of the interaction of those forces that either enhanced or inhibited their ability to do their job.”
Dr McNally says data collected revealed two distinctive sets of expectations that guide and inform the CEO role in New Zealand: the perception of CEOs as all powerful, visionary and charismatic, and the reality where CEOs felt they were expected to maintain a lower profile, were more risk-averse and did not have the degree of power that society perceived them to have.
“I found that in New Zealand when these two forces collide, it creates a set of tensions and paradoxes for the CEO. Here the role of the CEO is seen a social institution and the CEO as a mediator, mediating between these two conflicting expectations.”
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Dr McNally says her research showed that CEOs needed to effectively balance the tensions and paradoxes of their roles if they were to be successful.
Her research has implications for those involved in the governance function, policy makers, boards of directors, potential CEOs and those responsible for developing individuals for future leadership roles.
Dr McNally, who previously worked both as a tutor and as a lecturer in the Victoria Management School, graduated with a PhD in Management in December. Her study was supported by the Open Polytechnic of New Zealand and her supervisors were Professor John Davies and Dr Sally Riad.
ENDS
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