Are leaders an endangered species? This is what Guillaume Bigot attempts to explain in his latest work recently published by Fayard. A graduate of the Paris Institute of Political Studies, an economist, and a Political Science doctoral candidate, this journalist who became one of the leaders at the Léonard de Vinci University Center and is now the general director of Ipag, brilliantly explains how over time we have shifted from good leadership to poor management. Exclusive interview for Nice Premium.
A delightfully acerbic work explaining how we moved from command to management, leading to a slow disappearance of true leaders. With new management rules, human society and trading companies have grown accustomed to dividing to better (or poorly?) manage instead of rallying troops to surpass themselves.
This is what “The Betrayal of Leaders” tries to analyze based on specific examples and unfortunately very real facts.
Guillaume Bigot opened up to Nice Premium to explain how society must return to basics if it doesn’t want to head straight for disaster.
Nice Premium: Guillaume Bigot, you have just released your new book “The Betrayal of Leaders.” What led you to write this book?
Guillaume Bigot: The late discovery, through interactions with old leaders such as Jean-Claude Barreau who was François Mitterrand’s collaborator, or Jean-Pierre Chevènement and Charles Pasqua, that there could be “good” leaders. I belong to a generation that does not believe in leaders.
NP: In your opinion, how did we move from command to management, and what have been the consequences of this shift?
GB: Between 1980 and 1990, five factors combined: The comeback of economic and political liberalism which began with the Reagan-Thatcher era in 1980, the triumph of the “sixty-eight” mentality with its cult of individual pleasure, the delayed awareness of the scale of the crimes of communism and Nazism, American hegemony after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and finally, commercial and especially financial liberalization which transformed corporate governance.
Overall, the figure of the leader has been profoundly delegitimized (General interest = communism and leader = fascist) and the right to enjoy and profit without hindrance is proclaimed. Now, the leader is a mixture of a supermarket entertainer, utterly demagogic but deeply cynical, who works for himself and from whom nothing…good is expected!
NP: What would be the middle ground between liberalism and totalitarianism?
GB: Democracy! The power of the people, by the people, for the people, and not the power of markets for rentiers and shareholders.
Your question embodies the general viewpoint that there is no middle ground between the total market and the total state. Yet, proclaiming, as we have done for thirty years, that there is nothing to hinder the right to profit for large companies (being the ideal of liberalism) is bringing about an original form of totalitarianism. Consider, for example, the trade of bodies and organs!
NP: The more one learns to lead, the less one knows how to lead. Should we then relearn how to command?
GB: Yes! With the paradox that the only formative learning of command comes through practice, through real-life situations. It is by forging that one becomes a blacksmith, it is by commanding that one learns to command. Command is an art of execution, said Bonaparte.
Then, it is certainly infinitely preferable to be highly cultivated or technically competent or well-trained (in a trade or with tools) to command well, but the more the false knowledge of management spreads, the more true culture is scientific or literary, and serious techniques decline.
NP: Should we then prefer French know-how over American management?
GB: It is certain that Americans retain something of the Germanic rigor (in the worship of procedures, for example), and this very methodical or explicit side can be beneficial in the world of work or business.
Conversely, the French sense of approximation can be easily exasperating. But I believe the error lies in the desire to remove techniques from their cultural context: KPIs and quantitative evaluations, for example, are perfectly suited to American employees but cause havoc when applied indiscriminately by French bosses. Let’s say it is often counterproductive to copy American recipes. By the way, I remind you that a French employee is more productive on average than an American employee.
NP: In a few words, leading for you is…?
GB: Serving a cause that surpasses you!
NP: Isn’t authority then the only way out of this managerial crisis?
GB: Authority, yes, but not authoritarianism. This book also attempts to testify to the ease with which people are ready to obey and serve as long as their leader is themselves in the service of a general interest. I know this position will be perceived as naive. But what’s profoundly naive is to believe for a second that people will go and get themselves shot to defend pension funds or give their all for the shareholder.
NP: Don’t you think that a good leader is only as good as the quality of their subordinates?
GB: I am absolutely certain! Tell me about your collaborators, and I’ll tell you what kind of leader you are. Knowing how to surround yourself is one of the cardinal skills of a leader. I contrast this with our current business leaders and politicians who want to surround themselves with yes-men who won’t outshine them.
Great leaders of the past, like Louis XIV, understood that glory never consists in climbing on the shoulders of a pyramid of mediocres. He surrounded himself with geniuses: Colbert, Vauban, Lulli, or Molière. He was not afraid to work with people more talented than himself!
NP: Finally, how would you like to be led, and what kind of leader do you think you are?
GB: Like everyone, by exceptional beings who would know, in the manner of General de Gaulle, how to resist the Greek hubris and the temptation of excess. For the last question, it’s up to my collaborators to respond, not me!
