WELLINGTON, Today: Innovation by New Zealand’s business leaders is largely driven by disruption from abroad, and they are seen as relatively conservative decision-makers, research by Isentia has found.
There is an opportunity for CEOs to be more disruptive, the second edition of Isentia’s Leadership Index has revealed. It identified two distinct styles of leadership in business across Australia and New Zealand: conservatives and disruptors, with Kiwis more likely to be conservative.
Isentia’s Wellington-based head of insights Ngaire Crawford (in a release distributed this morning by Porter Novelli) said the way people see disruptive leaders behave, and how they are reported on in media coverage, is key to understanding modern leadership.
“We included a study of disruptive figures because, in the current business climate, every single industry is seeing disruption, whether from technology developments or heightened customer and staff expectations,” she said.
“Assessing disruptive personalities adds another layer of insight into leadership.
“What we’re noticing is that disruptive leaders are positioned quite differently to more traditional CEOs: these are typically required to be risk-averse, answering to shareholders and board members, while a disruptor is able to be agile and creative.”
The report also highlighted the top 10 CEOs in New Zealand from the past quarter and took a deeper look at disrupters across Asia, Australia and New Zealand, identifying their differing characteristics and the roles they play in business.
As well as updating its analysis of CEOs in Australia and New Zealand’s top 150 companies, Isentia explored the characteristics of leadership through the lens of disruption.
The top 150 companies were derived from a combined list of the ASX50, the NZX50, the 2018 IBIS World Top 500 companies published by The Australian Financial Review and Deloitte’s Top 200 data in New Zealand.
Musk & Bezos
To identify disruptive leaders, Isentia searched its database of more than 14,000 media articles for varying forms of the word “disrupt” to identify the people and companies associated with the term.
The most mentioned disruptors were global business leaders with celebrity status, including Tesla’s Elon Musk and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos. Positive characteristics of this group included “ambitious” and “charismatic” while “erratic” and “impulsive” were listed as negative attributes.
A significant 46% of coverage regarding these individuals focused on their personal life, wealth and behaviour.
In New Zealand and Australia there were no clear disruptors, only those being disrupted.
The three most common traits of leaders facing disruption in Australasia were: the ability to provide guidance in the face of circumstances outside the business’s control, a focus on keeping technology front-of-mind in decision-making, and an aptitude for agile, flexible and forward-thinking ideas.
“Traditional CEOs are typically required to be risk-averse, answering to shareholders and board members, while a disruptor is able to be agile and creative.”
The top CEOs
Isentia analysed more than 50,000 media items aired or published between 1 October and 31 December 2018 to provide an understanding of Australia and New Zealand’s top 150 companies.
The CEO profiles and media trends of these businesses are assessed quarterly to reveal the top 25 CEOs. The three main factors that were evaluated were public perception, employee approval and financial performance.
Of the 150 companies assessed, the top 50 were mentioned in more than 700,000 media items. However, on average, the top CEOs were only present in 9% of their company’s coverage.
The top NZ CEOs
The top three CEOs on the New Zealand list were Steve Vamos of Xero (1), followed by Jayne Hrdlicka from A2 Milk (2) and Marc England from Genesis Energy (3).
This is the second release of the quarterly Isentia Leadership Index. The first index was topped by Jayne Hrdlicka from A2 Milk (1), Steve Vamos of Xero (2) and Julian Cook of Summerset (3).
Looking forward
The Isentia Leadership Index is designed to provide a benchmark to compare leadership profiles over time, highlighting key trends and figures as they shift each year.
“Broadening our report to include a study of disruption has really enriched our understanding of leadership,” Crawford says. “It will be interesting to see which style of leadership becomes more prevalent in the coming years, as we continue to undertake our Leadership Index.
“Suggestions for other research topics are always welcome.”
NZ top 10
- Steve Vamos Xero
- Jayne Hrdlicka a2 milk
- Marc England Genesis Energy
- Mike Bennetts Z Energy
- Julian Cook Summerset Management Group
- Leon Clement Synlait Milk
- Dennis Barnes Contact Energy
- Mark Cairns Port of Tauranga
- Fraser Whineray Mercury Energy
- Lewis Gradon Fisher & Paykel Healthcare
About Isentia
Isentia (ASX:ISD) is a leading APAC integrated media intelligence and insights business with operations in 11 markets. Isentia blends market-leading monitoring experience with analytics to help the world’s biggest brands uncover the whole picture – and act on it. Powered by cutting-edge technology and a team of world class experts, our mission is to help businesses leap-forward where only genuine insight can take them.
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