During my EMBA at HEC Lausanne last year, we had great LDP (Leadership Development Program) classes. Well, one can ask what is leadership ? Every year tons of new books are written on the subject ! In my classes I got this definition :
« Leadership is not just about yourself and how you lead others; it is about developing others so that they can self-lead »
Through these 6 classes on leadership, I focused on the roles of managers as leaders and how leadership is key for individual and organizational performance. I obtained insights into my leadership style and personality and learnt how to improve my leadership influencing abilities. Truly a great experience !!!
Having said that, I would like to share and summarize a great article I came across during my classes. This article is called « Leader corruption depends on power and testosterone ». My teacher participated in the issue of this article. Basically, the document reflects on the following question: » Do those with power use it in ways that serves the greater good or do they succumb to its corruptive effects ».
In this article, the researchers examined how power and individual differences (e.g personality, hormones) affected leader corruption, which was highest when leader power and baseline testosterone were both high. Honesty predicted initial level of leader antisocial decisions; however, honesty did not shield leaders from the corruptive effect of power.
This article brought me some thoughts and I mixed them with my 20 years of experiences throughout my corporate jobs. My suggestion is :
-« If you would like to lower corruption or prevent it, get more women in your teams ! »
Women are smart and powerful and many of them are amazing leaders. In general, women care more, women get more empathy that men which give them a significant added inner skill. I strongly believe that the 21st century is finally the century of women, they should get what they have been waiting for too long, job recognition and equal gender treatment with men regarding position, promotion, salaries and more…
If all countries of the word would get as President a woman, maybe we would not live in a perfect world however the world would be a better place !
Alexandre R Rio.
« Leader corruption depends on power and testosterone » full article :
https://serval.unil.ch/resource/serval:BIB_4ED04AB05021.P001/REF
