Leader today

Leaders are not responsible for results. They are responsible for the people who are responsible for the results.

In a world full of dangers, things and people who try to hinder us and prevent us from achieving success, the only turning point is trust and collaboration. When people feel secure and protected by leadership in their organization, the natural reaction is to trust and cooperate. So when a leader makes the choice to "take care of people" even at the expense of his own self-interests, he gets remarkable results from the people around him.

When we say that leadership is a choice, not a role, we mean that there are people who, despite being at the lowest company levels, are leaders in all respects, because they have chosen to take care of the people they work with , at any level. The true leader is the one who chooses to sacrifice himself so that people can feel safe and protected and thus be successful; and when they are, the natural response is that people will sacrifice themselves for the leader.

Great leaders know how to give opportunities, education, affirm self-esteem, give the opportunity to try and fail.

There is no leadership possible without caring for people

The ability to involve and listen, to relate to individuals even before "employees" is a key factor for success. Those who have a top role must lead and make decisions, often alone, often dressed in armor. But we are people, with our weaknesses and frailties, and it is worth stopping every now and then to assess whether we have lost that basic sensitivity that is necessary to govern complexity. Those who manage a company are at a crossroads: on the one hand, they have the option of maintaining a vertical, patriarchal and assertive style and idea of leadership; on the other, it has the possibility of opening up to inclusive forms and a way of living the role without identifying too much with it, proceeding horizontally, with an approach aimed at converting the organizational culture from sacrifice to shared satisfaction, by making the listening to the real needs of the people is a focal point.

Only thanks to values such as respect, trust, empathy, responsibility and cooperation can we go through (all together) any phase of corporate life, even those marked by uncertainty and vulnerability. But a profound exercise of self-evaluation and self-awareness is needed.

The ability of a leader to involve and listen in order to relate with "people", and NOT with "employees, functions or tasks", is therefore one of the keys to ferrying the company out of the troubled waters of any adaptation and transformation process that affects the organization in its entirety. If these skills go to the top of the managerial culture hierarchy, we will have a new corporate culture that is better suited to dealing with disruptions without losing people along the way.

Today, full awareness of the emotions of others represents a decisive factor, because it has been understood that vulnerability is not an individual problem but a universal condition from which to start again to rethink society, organisations, work and hierarchies of power.

For those who hold top positions, the challenge to overcome is therefore that of creating new scales of values that make organizations sustainable, practicing a form of caring leadership and leaving room for the autonomy of the members of the work team, favoring collaboration over competition and focusing on the interpretation of real needs, through the direct involvement of the recipients of the benefits. In a nutshell, companies and their leaders are invited to build partnerships generated by listening, seeking the ideal point of balance between flexibility, engagement and respect for objectives.

Every company needs to commit to training people on a model that minimizes emotional uncertainty and the perception of a boss who has control over everything and everyone. And be a leader in being curious about the human soul in all its facets, especially as regards listening to the problems of one's collaborators. Without in the least undermining the authority of the role. It is not enough to be a boss and exercise one's status: leadership is affirmed by sharing, collecting and valuing the ideas of others, acknowledging respect and dignity to people.