Training: Leadership Barometer

Article by Massimo Berlingozzi – HBR issue June 2022 “Five generations at work”.

The quantity of definitions relating to leadership, Joseph Rost cites 221 of them (1991), is probably unparalleled in the literature of the field. Such a proliferation of definitions undoubtedly has more than one explanation: the intrinsic mutability of a concept that is profoundly linked to social evolution, to reference educational models and, consequently, to the different meanings attributed to the very idea of authority. The limitation due to attempts to objectivise a function that is generated in a process of relations, which by its very nature is therefore inevitably intersubjective, finally the risk of crystallising this capacity in the description of the ideal characteristics of a particularly charismatic person.

Returning, then, to the countless attempts to give an exhaustive explanation, one would like to say, paraphrasing Lao Tzu’s words on the Tao: ‘leadership that can be defined is not true leadership’. Yet, the attempt to attribute, through a new concept, the winning characteristic of the ‘leadership of the moment’ always resurfaces, particularly in times of crisis, when great changes loom on the horizon. The two-year pandemic crisis has spawned the figure of the ‘kind leader‘: an empathetic leader, capable of listening and expressing emotions with his or her collaborators, with the aim of creating greater involvement.

There is nothing wrong, let’s be clear, in referring to these qualities, which after all do no more than remind us of the importance, highlighted for several years now, of relational competence. The only doubt concerns the somewhat superficial approach that sometimes transpires in the numerous articles that have appeared on the subject. This attitude probably concerns, in particular, the non-specialised press, but certain descriptions resonate a little like the instructions that fashion designers, from year to year, gave to those who wanted to be in line with the trend of the moment. If politeness has never been a hallmark of our organisations, we cannot hope that from tomorrow every manager will be ‘dressed’ in impeccable politeness in the same way as one would a new suit. And hope is not a strategy. But there is a greater danger, the risk of assuming, however well-intentioned, a ‘seductive’ attitude, in an attempt to become attractive again in the face of an ever-widening ranks of workers who show discomfort and impatience with the traditional model of work organisation.

If the problem concerns the changing values that people attribute to work, the appearance of new needs and the affirmation of different lifestyles, the search for adequate answers must be a more articulated and profound process, aimed in the first instance at understanding the reasons behind life choices (e.g. the phenomenon of large resignations) apparently incomprehensible in the light of the old values. It is for this reason that the endless and sterile debate, on who is or is not a leader, which recently exploded after Elon Musk’s peremptory appeal to his employees to return to the office, appears to be very much out of proportion to the real need for effective answers.

What we are witnessing is the emergence of a new work ethic, perhaps it is still early to draw conclusions, but when people, touched in their lives, appear willing to make radical choices in the search for a better perspective, there are grounds to take the whole issue very seriously. The issue of leadership takes on a different dimension at this point. Every person called upon to play a role of responsibility must be able to equip himself, at least at the level of thought, to respond to these new demands. Leadership is not the gift ‘of the anointed one of the lord’ on duty, it is not a different garment to be worn according to the need of the moment, it is a principle of authority that should inspire anyone who finds himself in a role of responsibility, and everyone is different so the objective is common but the solutions adopted can and must be different. In the same way, it would be desirable to think of a widespread leadership among the people who give life to an organisation, perhaps the only way to make sustainable a resource that has often damaged relationships and consumed people, with the same look that we are beginning to apply to environmental resources. A distinction that only concerns the words we conventionally use, because people, relationships and things belong to the same environment in which we all live.