Imaginaries of Leadership
A warrior? Paternalistic? Creative? Powerful? Sensitive? Intuitive? Orchestral conductor? Charismatic? What were the imaginations of leadership in the past? What are they today? What are the prospects and levers for influencing these imaginations? For our association, whose mission is to help preserve our humanity in the 21st century, this research program is an obvious choice. It has become urgent and necessary to map, question and help renew the imaginary world of leadership, in order to promote a model of desirable leadership, inspired by life and driven by the heart, a creator of economic activities that are genuinely useful to the world.
Research objectives
In June 2022, we commissioned the sociology firm Eranos to carry out a research programme on “imaginary leadership” with the following objectives:
- Debating the question of leadership as a means of responding to the major challenges of the 21st century.
- Defining and documenting the imaginaries of leadership:
- yesterday, through a historical approach to the forms of expression of Western leadership ;
- of today, with young people in France, to understand what they see as a good leader or a desirable leader, what skills and competencies are in demand, and where their imaginations are ‘created’;
- of tomorrow, to put them back into context for the world to come (particularly with regard to the perception of global risks by young people in France).
The three stages of the project
The first stage involved a historical genealogy of leadership based on academic and professional texts. In order to understand the contemporary definition of this concept, it was necessary to retrace its social history and identify its key stages and major authors.
One of the challenges was to identify the extent to which the “heart-driven leader” (empathy, intuition, courage) promoted by our association was or was not part of a historical continuum.
Download the report “Une enquête sur les origines historiques et les actualisations des formes du leadership économique”
The aim of the second stage was to explore what young people today imagine leadership to be and what a desirable leader would look like. The aim was also to identify the players and forces behind the creation of these images. It was based on three surveys.
- A quantitative survey of a representative sample of the French population aged 18-30, based on the Opinéa panel (1,014 respondents)
- An exploratory survey of young working people and students in France (139 respondents) in order to gain an insight into how leadership is made and expressed among older people (18-35) who are more exposed to current and future experiences of organisational management.
- An exploratory survey of young English speakers (40 respondents, mainly from East Africa) to gather a non-French perspective.
Exploratory surveys are not intended to be representative.
Download the report detailing the results of the three surveys.
The research findings were presented and discussed at the event Un imaginaire désirable pour le leadership du 21è siècle? organised with Usbek & Rica on 6 June 2023 at the Hotel de l’Industrie, Paris.
Our objectives: to launch the debate on the importance of renewing the imaginary world of leadership; to enrich our work by identifying complementary questions and points to be explored; to build a roadmap with interested parties, in order to encourage the growth of a movement of leaders inspired by life and driven by the heart, and to deploy a robust strategy of influence on the imaginary world of leadership.
Download the magazine Le leadership passe par un imaginaire du coeur, produced with Usbek & Rica
Main results of surveys of young people
- Perception of global risks
- Young people mainly perceive global ecological risks, and less so social and geostrategic risks. The exploratory samples are much more sensitive to global risks than the representative panel of French young people.
- The risks of technological drift are less perceived overall. That said, young people do not have an idealised vision of digital technology. In the exploratory surveys, many risks associated with the development of artificial intelligence systems were identified.
- In the French exploratory sample, respondents expressed doubts about the ability of their training to respond usefully to global risks.
- The manufacture of imaginaries / leaders
- The family circle is the main source of leadership models. For students and young professionals, this circle is extended to include colleagues, teachers and friends.
- So, when it comes to identifying personalities who represent their ideal leader in the world of politics, music, sport, TV series/cinema or voluntary organisations, no single figure stands out.
- In addition to the family circle, social networks in the business sector are becoming increasingly influential in shaping people’s imaginations.
- The counter-models
- The persona of the “small entrepreneur” seems more desirable and closer to the values of young French people than that of the top executive.
- Young French people identify certain great leaders as counter-models and explicitly state the reasons for their rejection.
- The skills and competencies expected of the ideal leader
- The report on the history of leadership theories (phase 1 of the study) identified two main leadership regimes: one that is highly individual and embodied, and the other with a stronger relational component.
- There is an intensification of expectations relating to each of these two regimes: young people expect a leader to reconcile both vision and interpersonal skills.
- When we ask young people to rate the skills expected of a leader, those of Heart Leadership (in particular empathy and courage, and to a lesser extent intuition) come out strongly in both the representative sample of French young people and the French exploratory sample.
Download
the research results
Our
research partner
Eranos is a strategy consultancy bridging the gap between the humanities and business, specialising in Corporate Social Transformation. For 15 years and in more than 10 countries, the Eranos team has been helping companies to take the first steps towards a model that contributes to society, where the end is to support life and the means its commercial and productive activity.