QUT Business Leaders’ Forum with Gail Kelly, CEO & Managing Director of the Westpac Group

The team at A B Accountancy recently attended QUT Business Leaders’ Forum, where we were inspired, motivated and informed by guest speaker Gail Kelly, CEO & Managing Director of the Westpac Group.

Gail is truly an inspiring person to listen to as she has a down to earth approach in communicating powerful and useful life skills which can be applied to your professional and personal life.

Over lunch Gail shared with us an insight into some of the core attributes of a good leader.

According to her the following attributes make a good leader:

• Positive outlook – the ability to look at the glass half full as opposed to half empty
• Love and believe in what you do – if you don’t love what you do than something needs to change, either your attitude towards what you do OR change what you do.
• Embrace change – leaders are expected to have the ability to cope with change… but a good leader has the ability to embrace change.
• Resilience
• Generosity of spirit
• Ability to work in the moment –  Critical to prioritize your work and to be able to clear away the clutter and noise around you to focus 100% of your attention and energy to the task at hand.
• Take a leaf out of the book ‘Good to Great’ by Jim Collins – A good leader should ensure that only the right people are on the ‘bus’ even if the destination of the bus is not clear it is critical that only the right people are on the ‘bus’! Everyone else needs to get off the ‘bus’.

To find out more about QUT Business Leaders’ Forum visit: http://www.bus.qut.edu.au/community/businesslead/

“I think my favourite part was when Gail spoke about changing from something that she was comfortable with to something that was totally out of her comfort zone, which became the turning point in her career. She took a chance and look how far she has come!”
Jenni – Team A B Accountancy

“She was a very engaging and convincing speaker. Her beliefs in the powers of positive thinking I could certainly relate to, if you believe you can achieve the unachievable then anything is possible.

Also, her thoughts on great leaders needing to have a ‘generosity of spirit’, using the example of Nelson Mandela, I thought was very powerful.”
Bella – Team A B Accountancy