Dreamworld tragedy: Can we accept CEOs who cry?

Do we still expect leaders to be clear-eyed and confident at all times, even in the wake of tragedies like Dreamworld?

Ardent Leisure CEO Deborah Thomas and Dreamworld CEO Craig Davidson after a private memorial service. Picture: Glenn Hunt/The Australian.

The chief executive almost cries at her company’s annual general meeting after a terrible tragedy and gets caned in the media.

As Australia sees the rise of more women at the top of companies, including Ardent Leisure’s chief executive Deborah Thomas, are we uncomfortable — or simply unable to accept different personal styles of leadership? Female leadership.

Do we expect that the CEO of a major public company should be a hard headed superman who takes charge like a military general: full of confidence and certainty about where he is taking the company, clear eyed in the face of tragedies like last week’s deaths of four tourists at Dreamworld.

Is crying — almost breaking down, which Thomas has done several times in the past week — unacceptable for a chief executive?

“Four people have died,” Thomas said, her voice breaking in answer to questions about the AGM considering her bonus. Yes it was a bad look, a very bad look, to be voting on bonuses for the CEO days after the tragedy, but the decision for that lies with the chairman, not the chief executive.

And decisions had to be made in haste amid the shock of handling the tragedy. Delaying the AGM could have been seen as hiding from public and shareholder scrutiny. Notices of motion had already gone out to shareholders, most of whom had already registered their votes.

There is no doubt that women leaders have a different personal style than men. Yet the world continues to love the action hero, the corporate superman brimming with confidence, with all the answers.

The world may soon see a woman step into the most powerful job in the world as president of the United States.

The question how much the public — outsiders, commentators, stakeholders, shareholders and staff — can accommodate the different leadership styles of women leaders?

As Paul Keating would say, almost every galah in the petshop has passed their verdict on Thomas’ performance at the AGM and subsequent televised press conference last week.

But it’s now time to lay off Thomas and let her do her job.

Thomas and the outgoing chairman of Ardent who appointed her, businessman Neil Balnaves, who has had a long history of involvement in theme parks, are both clearly traumatised by the event.

Does that make them less competent at their jobs or does it mean they are simply human beings?

After a terrible start, Thomas and her executives have worked hard over the past week to get on the front foot in managing the tragedy — reaching out to the families and delaying the opening of the park at least until the funerals of the victims, with Dreamworld chief executive Craig Thomas now giving daily briefings on the situation.

Thomas’ job now involves leading a team of traumatised workers at Dreamworld through a long period of public inquiries while they come to terms with what has happened, and making sure the families are assisted to cope with their loss. And overseeing the rest of the company.

In the end, the verdict on how Ardent has handled the Dreamworld tragedy should focus on an analysis of the events which led up to the terrible accident. How much was it an accident, or was it something that could have been avoided with different corporate practices?

Whether the CEO almost cries at a press conference, or whether it would have been a better look to delay the AGM for another week or so, in the end is immaterial.

Mishandling public relations in the raw days after a fatal tragedy is not the same as being an incompetent leader, particularly when Thomas and her team have moved heaven and earth since then to respond to criticism about information, accessibility and connecting with the families.

There are those who say — and have said since the beginning of her surprise appointment in April last year — that Thomas has been subject to undue criticism for being a woman chief executive.

It’s not quite true as there have been several leading women chief executives before her — Westpac chief executive Gail Kelly and Coca Cola Amatil chief executive Alison Watkins — whose appointment has not raised these issues.

Thomas has a long experience in women’s magazines in the Packer stable, including a decade overseeing the influential Women’s Weekly.

She was appointed for her deep experience in marketing and her understanding of female consumers in a leisure and entertainment business where they are the dominant decision making customer.

Part of the criticism of her appointment was because she was not seen as having operational and financial management experience.

Thomas was appointed to the Ardent board in late 2013 so directors had plenty of time to judge her performance at the board table, when they chose her to run the company almost two years later.

Balnaves, who is about to step down after 13 years as Ardent chairman, has remained a strong backer of Thomas, who has undertaken many initiatives across the company as chief executive including at Dreamworld, overseen the sale of two non-core assets and pushed to expand Ardent’s US operations.

I have sat through several of Thomas’ presentations as Ardent chief executive, which have often involved her throwing to the chief financial office to handle questions of financial detail.

But then again so do many other CEOs at results presentations.

Much has been made, in the debate about why more women don’t make it to the top of corporations, of the issue of unconscious bias.

Corporations are by nature conservative, results driven organisations where financial outcomes are lauded as the most important issue. Indeed achieving the best possible profit outcome for the company is a key part of corporate remuneration structures.

Many argue that women in business today are the victims of unconscious bias as they don’t come to work with the same style as typical hyper confident male leaders. They see the old boy’s clubs replaced by the new boy’s clubs and informal social networks they can never be a part of.

It’s not hard to see some male executives in corporate Australia today privately wrestling with their own version of Henry Higgins in the 1960s movie My Fair Lady when he asked himself: “Why can’t a woman be more like a man?”

Watching episodes of Mad Men, set in Madison Avenue in the sixties, one can easily laugh at the sexism in the cigarette smoking corporate world where men are executives and women are the telephonists and secretaries.

What will we think, looking back at corporate Australia in 50 years’ time?