Leadership has always been a much-esteemed quality in a business environment. However, when it comes to conceptualizing it, errors are committed due to ignorance of realistic anthropology. A leader goes beyond corporate objectives; in the first place, he pays attention to the personal reality of those around him. As Benedict XVI suggested, he is able to generate a community of persons in the business realm. And, springing from that attention are solid and consistent results in time.
I will review briefly what is thought of a leader and why these conceptualizations are not adjusted to man’s natural reality. Then I shall present a conceptualization that is adjusted to anthropological demands, and I shall describe a leader’s way of being.
For many, the leader in an organization is one who achieves some objectives or pre-defined goals, for example, a commercial Director who achieves the annual sales goal, or a project manager that is able to complete it within the expected deadline or within the estimated budget. From this perspective, a leader is the person who, with a human team, is able to achieve results.
For this mentality, the leader is one who is able to align the rest of the organization to a corporate objective. This explains why a leader must be a good communicator: he must be able to extend the strategy to the whole organization and align different interests behind the corporate interest: the goal, the budget.
In a broader sense, there are those that consider a leader one who is able to impose his aims on the group. For the good or bad of the whole, a leader captivates, convinces, and has the strength to push the group to the objective and goal he has set for himself.
However, these definitions of a leader are not in tune with the most profound realities of human nature: they remain at the superficial level although, undoubtedly, they lean on certain competencies and abilities that are glaring. The achievement of results is not synonymous with leadership. Results are important in the business environment — no one doubts that — however, in the human dimension, more than external effects, what really counts are the consequences in the interior of each person.
In his Encyclical Caritas in Veritate, Benedict XVI appealed to the business sector to put people at the center of the economy and finance. Therefore, we can say that interior apprenticeship is more important than the external product or service that can be offered: the human reality is superior to the material reality. Moreover, as Leonardo Polo affirms, in the human environment success is always premature. Therefore, rather than paying attention to what has been done, it’s necessary to look always to what might be able to be done later. The human environment is dynamic, not static or punctual, and this calls for continuous preparation for new challenges and new situations. Therefore, a focus centered on today’s product is always a short-range focus.
Consequently, more than focusing on the product or service, for clearly anthropological reasons the organization must pay attention to the development of professional competencies and personal virtues.
A leader is one who pays attention, in the first place, to the personal reality of each one of the members of the group in charge, who sees them as ends and not as means. Therefore the leader helps to develop the potential that each person has; he discovers unknown possibilities even by the interested parties themselves; he motivates and encourages them to launch themselves into what seems impossible, or challenges not even imagined by the protagonist, and supports that development.
A leader proposes, directs, advises, and teaches. However, to teach, as Pope Francis commented to a group of school teachers and directors in the year 2015, means a relationship in which each teacher must be totally involved as a person. Therefore, a leader gets involved in personal improvement and does not excuse himself from the necessary effort that all development of abilities and competencies exacts. So when he pursues results, he never uses the short way, but the exacting way – also for him, of the acquisition of capacities and virtues.
In this connection, a leader gets results but before, he sees to the virtues and competencies of those around him. More than that, because he is focused on these more internal objectives, he gets results, although not always in the short term: the success of management depends on many variables, and not all of them are always under the domain of the one who leads the team. Success is always an uncertain reality when not pursued directly but as a consequence of true personal growth. However, if results aren’t evident in the short term, they will appear later on and will always be more solid and consistent.
As the leader knows he works with people, he also takes care of the ways he deals with them. He demands but welcomes; encourages and comforts. His ways aren’t brusque: they are attentive, proportional, and with good humor. These circumstances give way — between the leader and the team — to the most profound bonds: great trust, which enables the sharing not only of professional concerns but also those of a personal nature. So, such a work environment becomes very attractive to all and often gives origin to lasting friendships. The leader collaborates profoundly in the generation of a community of persons, as Benedict XVI suggested to Italian businessmen in May of 2010.
Up to here is this brief reflection on what a leader is and is not.
By way of conclusion, I would only add: leadership is a buildable quality by the executive. As opposed to strategic capacity and executive capacity, it does not exact an innate component. However, it does call for personal openness to the reality and, especially, to the reality of the personal nature of those around him. However, above all, it calls for being able to place this dimension above personal objectives or those of the group. Therefore, only one who works, knowing that he is surrounded by persons is in a position to be a leader.
Translation by Virginia M. Forrester
