Empathic, collaborative, honest, transparent, authentic…? Who comes to mind when mentioning these words? You? Not this time sorry… Let’s try 2 more clues: human-oriented, optimistic… Still no clue? OK, that was a difficult question! We’re talking about one key person that every organisation needs to succeed: a LEADER.

Of course, all these qualities are not compulsory, but it has been proved that if you manage to gather some, or recruit people that have some, you’ll be or be with the leaders of tomorrow. This theory has been proven by one of the best leader — Jim Whitehurst. Whitehurst is a genuine listener, clear in his focus and vision, collaborative in his demeanor and always focused on enabling the success of his colleagues. He worked to understand the culture and the driving forces. As you probably heard about it, Jim Whitehurst is IBM president, and a thing you probably don’t know, is that he has been in close contact with Chris Clayton, that we had the chance to talk to during a recent Live Talk dedicated to our entrepreneurs. Chris Clayton, international headhunter for more than 20 year, and our second guest Patrick Vignaud, entrepreneur and master of the corporate & collaborative culture, gave us their vision of the post-Covid-19 world concerning leadership, management, culture, motivation and team recruitment. And you know what? Their vision hasn’t changed that much because all these questions about those topics are not new and are obviously accelerated with the situation that we are facing.

In fact, they believe that the corporate culture asks for energy and money, but is the health of every organisation. It is essential to capitalize on it. This corporate culture can not be nurtured without the best people around, and it is primordial to focus on PEOPLE. Don’t underestimate or give up on people — they are the ones that will help you go further.

Hey! Hold on, no stress! Leaders and managers are not perfect! They can fail sometimes and aren’t afraid to admit the things they aren’t familiar with. The best leaders are the ones that know how to recruit people that can complement their strengths.

Here are the key takeaways of this inspiring talk we have done:

• It is time to analyze how leaders and managers behave. People who stand out during a crisis are a very important and relevant point. We must not forget these people and put in place a career and development plan. We must keep in mind that the crisis permits to do an analysis of managerial behaviors — Am I well surrounded for tomorrow?
• It also allows to force oneself to question the fundamentals: the Why, Where, How and What. Is there a necessity to pivot? Indeed, build or re-think the culture of your organisation. Indeed, the practical advice given by Patrick Vignaud was to always take culture (visions, values, strategy…) as a reference point for explanation so that decisions are always coherent.

Speaking about collaborative and corporate culture, one our portfolio company, Swile, aims to focus on the happiness and well-being of employees. Swile understands quite well this point about culture and wrote an article giving 9 levers to strengthen its corporate culture in times of crisis. For the international readers, time to work on your french 😉

Congrats folks, you understood well, the winner is… the LEADER!

Very best,

The daphni team