Qualities of a Successful CEO: Interview with Greig Gailey

17 April 2008

Record of an interview given by BCA President Greig Gailey to ABC TV’s ‘Lateline Business’ program regarding qualities he believes make a successful CEO and the importance of having women in the workplace.

Reporter: Greig Gailey became Chief Executive of ailing miner Pasminco six weeks before it went into administration in 2001, with debts of $3 billion. In the next six years Mr Gailey drove the rebuilding of the company – a change of name to Zinifex, and a re-listing on the stock market – in what he looks back on as an amazing journey.

Greig Gailey: Not too many people in their life get to run a public company; take it into administration; massively restructure it outside of the public eye during that period; try and sell bits of it off in that period; try and sell the whole company in that period; subsequently bring it to market; and sell it again to investors, and then run a successful public company.

Reporter: In that time Mr Gailey learned a lot about leadership and power, something he believes should be used subtly.

Greig Gailey: People are very smart; people are very clever at picking up on even nuances, and you can make your views known in a positive constructive way, which helps you get an output just as effectively as if I come and harass you or harangue you.

Reporter: According to Greig Gailey, a key part of the CEO’s role is to know themselves well. United Group Chairman Trevor Rowe, who was part of today’s presentation, agrees saying it’s fundamental to building a strong management team.

Trevor Rowe: You need to have an understanding of what your own capabilities are and you need to be able to complement those capabilities with the sort of people you hire, which usually gets down to hiring better and smarter people than you.

Reporter: The challenge then is to provide the environment for managers to perform at their best, and a big part of that for Greig Gailey is for the Chief Executive not to spend his whole life at work.

Greig Gailey: … is about recharging the batteries – i.e. ensuring that you have enough time, down-time to ensure that when you are at work you’re at peak performance. And the second thing is about being a balanced person, having a life outside the corporation, which ensures that you have a degree of balance. It’s absolutely critical in my view.

Reporter: Mr Gailey said he never worked more than 10 hours a day; never took work home; and rarely worked weekends. He also ran a company where 50 per cent of the people reporting to him were women, and he says there was a simple reason for that.

Greig Gailey: I have a strong personal relationship with you, where we’re honest and open and constructive, I’ll get much better productivity for the corporation. And quite frankly, women are better at relationships than men are.

Reporter: However, while women were encouraged in his time at Zinifex, Greig Gailey believes prejudice and inflexibility remain big barriers to many women reaching the upper echelons of the Australian corporate ladder.