What is leadership?

Is leadership the response to the challenges that organisations face

these days? Confronted with an environment that is increasingly
complex and unstable, businesses need to adapt rapidly, anticipate
change and innovate. They also need to be reactive and flexible.
In such a context, we need to promote cooperation between people,
to bet on everyone’s potential, greater creativity, individual initiative
and independence. In other words, we have to promote leadership.
Leadership skills and capabilities are rare and sought-after. Yet, each
individual has a potential in this regard, which is worth releasing or increasing. This can only be done in companies
that adopt a “leadership culture”. But what do we mean by leadership, and how can we recognise a leader?

Definition of leadership, and the stakes involved

Companies are confronted by many challenges:
• The use of the Internet has transformed the economy by introducing e-commerce, a global market and instant
communication.
• Recurring fluctuations in the economy create challenges, in particular the need for companies to accomplish
more with fewer resources.
• Business organisation is getting more complex: we are seeing the walls between various departments breaking down,
to be replaced by the widespread adoption of a project-oriented approach and matrix-based organisational charts.
The rapidity of these economic, technical and social changes makes new demands on organisations and individuals.
To stay the course, you have to adapt rapidly to change and innovate and manage resources in a more effective
way, so as to outpace the competition.
Leadership, by inducing others to want to act in order to accomplish a common purpose, is a decisive advantage
in this fluctuating and complex environment.

Leadership in order to face change

Regardless of the nature or the size of a change (the introduction of a new process, the use of new tools, a move
to new premises, or internal reorganisation), all changes must be taken on board by the people concerned.
Indeed, change is often troubling. It’s a time of indecision during which people seek out familiar landmarks. They are
also wondering how the change will affect their lives and their work. If they don’t understand the value of the change,
and don’t accept it, they could well lose their motivation in a way that damages the company’s performance.
In this context, showing leadership involves communicating a clear vision of the future. This vision makes people
enthusiastic about building the future together. By doing so, it makes them want to participate in an exciting adventure.

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Leadership - necessary in transverse management
The development of transverse management is another leadership challenge. This type of management emphasises
decentralisation. It involves bringing together the skills and capabilities in different departments of the company so
that they can be applied to a common project. In such situations, the project leader is rarely higher in the hierarchy than
the other participants. He or she has to get the project’s participants to commit to the project and make them want to
participate in it and to cooperate with each other to make it a success. In short, he or she must show leadership.

Leadership to favour proactiveness

These days, companies seek to promote individual initiative, and they want ideas to come from people “on the
ground”. But an idea doesn’t necessarily gain immediate support just because it is good. People have to be ready
to defend their ideas, to project them into the future and to build a vision around them which creates enthusiasm.
In this sense, leadership is needed at all levels in the company, and not only among top managers. It follows that
you need to increase the leadership potential of your staff. You also need to create a company culture which
encourages individual initiative, as well as a high level of independence, among your staff.

The difference between management and leadership

Leadership should not be seen in opposition to management. Rather, it enriches management by developing
complementary skills and capabilities. People generally start by improving their technical skills and know-how in
activities that they undertake, whether as managers or as experts. They then move towards the improvement of
their leadership skills. These skills are more about “what you are” than “what you know”: giving sense to collective
activity, having good relationship qualities, and being able to understand people and their motivations.

How to do/Why to do
Management answers the question “how to do it?” The idea behind it is to give people the means to act efficiently
to accomplish the objectives that have been set.
Leadership adds sense to people’s activities by answering the question “why do it?” It looks towards the future
and creates a vision of a future which makes people want to contribute.

Organisation/Relationship
Once the common purpose has been determined, management seeks to implement it by introducing the most effective
organisation for that purpose. Leadership adds a relational dimension to this organisational power. It does so by seeking
to get the rest of the company to share the common purpose and inspiring it with the enthusiasm that it needs in order
to get down to work.

External motivation/Internal motivation

Finally, to motivate people to contribute to the common purpose, management introduces external motivations,
which rely mainly on recompense and sanctions. Leadership, on the other hand, seeks to link the common purpose
to a deeper more internal motivation, in particular the desire to contribute to a higher goal. This goal meets deeper
aspirations with which people identify. In this sense, leadership helps to promote individual self-realisation and
self-esteem.

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Expectations concerning leaders
As Raymond W. Goldsmith, a famous American economist, once said: “The simplest and most effective way of knowing if
a manager has leadership qualities is to remove authority from the equation: if the manager ceases to have the authority
to tell people what to do, will they do it anyway?” In other words, there is no leader if there are no followers. It is therefore
very useful to ask the question: “What do people expect from a leader?”

First expectation: determination

Leaders know where they are going. They focus on an objective and move towards it in an assured way without
allowing themselves to be discouraged by obstacles. They dare to take risks and difficult decisions in order to
go forward. They show courage and determination to reach their goal. They face problems in a positive way,
convinced that the solution exists.

Second expectation: authenticity

People want authenticity from their leaders. This goes further than just being a good example by practising what
you preach. It’s a question of living what you believe in, being in sync with your values, and sharing them with
other people. Authenticity calls for transparency and integrity. It helps to create a trusting environment in which
everyone feels free to express honestly what they think. When people feel implicated in a mission which they
believe in and for which they live, their passion becomes contagious. They radiate energy that spreads to others
and helps them to overcome obstacles.

Third expectation: consideration

Finally, people expect individual consideration from leaders. Everybody needs to be taken into account for what they
are, what they want, and what they do. Taking another person into account means recognising their individuality, their
difference and talents. It’s a question of helping them to improve their potential and of appreciating their contribution.
It’s recognising their strengths and not emphasising their weaknesses. This creates a type of synergy in which everyone
is aware of what they can bring to the group, and are confident about doing so.
Being considerate also involves giving other people the respect to which they are entitled as human beings. Emmanuel
Kant suggests a simple principle to guide us, and it seems highly appropriate in this context: “Let’s consider human
beings as ends in themselves, and never use them as mere means for achieving our own objectives.”

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