Me? Leading?
A book about leading life by talking about leading business.
Running a company means giving meaning to professional lives.
Whether we are leaders or not, all our lives are enterprises. They lead us somewhere with more or less effort and means, more or less well coordinated.
What is true for business leaders is true for all of us.
Why do some people believe in you?
It could have started like this: Why me?
We have all been, at one time or another, pushed by others to face a huge challenge.
What makes it me and not someone else?
Michelle V., a senior executive in her company, is approached to become its future CEO. This good news is a source of joy, then doubt.
The forty-year-old then decides to see a man who had advised her twelve years earlier when she was first promoted to a management position. She invites him for lunch in one of the city's top restaurants. The meeting does not remain without follow-up.
The book reports the exchange between Michelle and this man who reflects by making people reflect. The free form dialogue is in the spirit of this sharing of ideas and doubts, experiences and knowledge.
The book
This work is an essay. And a fiction.
It is a personal reflection on what makes - and who makes - business leaders.
The ideas are presented in an exchange between two (partially) fictional characters.
The first part is dedicated to a critique of those commonly held beliefs that are used to define the qualities of leaders (reputation, education, personality, experience, intelligence).
The second part is devoted to what underlies these same qualities, namely the sense of responsibility as well as the sense (meaning) that leaders are supposed to give to their companies and to the work of their employees.
After a review of the importance of meaning and its omnipresence, the subject is clarified by focusing on the three senses that are the basis of responsibility: the senses of orientation, balance and measure.
These three senses close the loop of leadership.
To lead is to give a direction. It is therefore necessary to feel where one is; then to feel how to advance by composing with the antagonistic forces that one will undergo on the way of the goal to be reached; and, finally, to feel how to measure the effort to reach the goal knowing that it can prove to be more distant than envisaged...
Table of Contents
PREFACE
REPUTATION
EDUCATION
PERSONALITY
EXPERIENCE
INTELLIGENCE
DISCOURAGEMENT
CHIEF
SENSES
SURPRISE
EPILOGUE
TABLE
Biography
François E. Clerc is an executive and management consultant.
After an international career in Europe and Asia Pacific, he created his own consulting firm. His missions range from recruitment to executive coaching, including interim general management and corporate governance.
In his 30+ year career, he has seen how leaders need to believe, learn and adapt to make sense of all the stakeholders who make up the companies they lead as well as their own lives.
Press kit available on request.
Running your life business the right way
Of course, we spend our lives without setting goals.
Nevertheless.
Our dreams and projects take their place. They are so many incentives and motivations that define the course. The directions. By realizing them, we discover along the way the importance of the sense of orientation so as not to get lost, the sense of balance to cope with the twists and turns that destabilize us and the sense of measure so as not to exhaust ourselves along the way.
All our lives are long lasting enterprises.
What is true for business leaders is true for all of us.