Mrs Hanard, you have been very active in your professional career, both in operational "managerial" tasks and in "leadership" tasks. What is for you the difference between a manager and a leader?
The difference between a manager and a leader is not a difference in tasks, but a difference in how they fulfil those tasks. A manager has formal authority and is legitimised to carry out tasks and give instructions. A leader, next or on top of that, enjoys informal authority and wants to guide and inspire people. A quote by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry sums up this difference very clearly: “If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.” So: everyone can be a leader! It all depends on how you show up.
“Doing the right things" may not be a hollow concept for many business leaders today... With the climate crisis, COVID, the war in Ukraine, we are living in very uncertain times. How do you explain that, for example, in the case of Ukraine, so many people have taken a social and political stand so quickly?
I am convinced that we have always lived in uncertain times, only today it is very acute. I myself live in London and at the beginning of the COVID crisis, very suddenly the borders were closed, there were empty shelves in the shops... situations that you could never have imagined at the beginning of 2020!
The reactions of companies in the Ukraine crisis are of course wonderful to see but are, in my opinion, in part geopolitically driven, so I don't think that's the best example of a long lasting shift in stance. But in the case of global warming for example, you see that companies have indeed made a fundamental and lasting change, certainly also based on a sense of urgency. And the various stakeholders have given companies a licence to operate on those topics. At Unilever, for example, an entire programme has been set up to encourage customers to use less water, by encouraging the use of water-less products such as dry shampoo, and it has succeeded in mainstreaming this kind of products. Once a train like that is in motion, nothing can stop it. Or, as Victor Hugo put it: "Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come".
In the article I argue that the distinction between manager and leader is artificial. Everyone is a leader, first and foremost for himself, but also as a partner, friend, parent... Don't you agree that sometimes too little responsibility is placed on everyone? Or as Gandhi put it: "You must be the change you wish to see in the world?"
Individual responsibility matters of course. But I do think that collective responsibility is very important too. As an example, the concept of individual carbon footprint has originally been developed by a group of oil and gas companies, as a way to shift the emphasis from their own collective responsibility to individual responsibility. But as a society we need collective rules we all adhere to as well, building off of the principles we want to live by at an individual level: if something is simply forbidden because we all think that’s inacceptable, such as child labour, then there is no more discussion and everyone has to comply.
Education is close to your heart, among other things through the organisation Be Education. You can also change Peter Drucker's statement to: "teaching is doing the things right, education is doing the right things". Does our education pay enough attention to "doing the right things"?
Difficult question... critical thinking is very important and education plays a crucial role in this. For me, education is the sum of the teachers and they try to give the best of themselves every day, and try to focus on the right things. Only you see that it is very difficult to change the education system. The way of teaching has not changed in the last hundred years. But what has changed, unfortunately, is the socio-economic status society offers to our teachers... it has only deteriorated. So as a society, I am convinced we don’t support our teachers enough in being able to deliver on their critical mission. In many ways, they should be the best of the leaders out there as they prepare the next generation.
Who or what inspires you?
Spontaneously I think of Martin Luther King. To me, he is a true leader. After he was murdered, his ideas continued to live on. He succeeded in building an ecosystem around his ideas and in creating a true self-sustaining social movement. After his re-election as President of France, Emmanuel Macron is facing the same challenge: how to make himself redundant within five years, and offer a future for a democratic France beyond his own individual persona.
What quote would you like to see analysed by Dr Quote in the future?
I have already given you two beautiful quotes! But maybe one more from Martin Luther King: "The arch of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” I’m through and through an optimist: I think society is in constant progress, though that progress might not always be linear.
