 Welcome, everyone. The last lecture is an event that was originally designed by Randy Pausch, who upon hearing his terminal cancer diagnosis decided to have one last lecture talking about the thing that he wanted to pass on to students the most. We have turned this into a bit of a tradition and today our speaker is Paola Santori who will be speaking on leadership and its rather annoying perseverance in popular culture and academia. I hope you all enjoy. At the end we will be having some drinks here in the Esplanada building and we'll have a lot of fun. Okay, so thank you very much to Studiung General in Extramuron, Samuros and Ruben and Anelike for inviting me. So my last lecture, I mean when Ruben one month ago asked me oh we have this tradition of the last lecture the first question that I asked myself was what I'm going to talk about I mean because I mean usually when you give a last lecture you are supposed to look behind you know your long career as an academic as a researcher but I joined Tilbury University two years ago so I mean that that option was you know already canceled I mean for me you know some wisdom from my long academic career and so what do you do? I ask advice I ask to my parents to my parents to my friends to my girlfriend what should I talk about and my girlfriend and my friends told me oh make it personal don't be too abstract as you usually do in the in the normal lectures and that was a pretty good advice then I called my parents and my mom I remember picked up the phone and I said oh mom I was asked to give the last lecture at Tilbury University she was like oh I knew it you have been fired and I was like thank you for the I knew it I mean like I mean and then I explain oh it's a lecture as if it was my last and she said cool but don't get fired I mean so immediately and then I said okay maybe I am a philosopher I teach philosophy and business ethics and various things so I can look back at the history of philosophy specifically history of western philosophy and it came to my mind Aristotle the famous book the Nicomachean Ethics right in which Aristotle gave wrote one of the most influential books on ethics in the history of western philosophy and who was Nicomachus as you know Nicomachus was Aristotle's son so the Nicomachean Ethics is a book that a father brought to a son full of advice on how to live an happy life and for Aristotle you know happiness is not something that happened but is something that you need to cultivate is about fulfillment flourishing and so this seemed like a pretty good topic I can do something like Aristotle problem is that I'm not a father not yet and I'm not Aristotle so I mean all that was this cancelled and then it came to my mind this quote now look I am really against extrapolating quotes out of context but sometimes you can and I remember that I read somewhere this quote by Martin Luther King by the way this year is the 60 from the famous speech I have a dream in which Martin Luther King said if I knew that tomorrow the world will go to pieces I will still plant my apple tree beautiful beautiful I can end the last lecture now you know because this is a quote that captures a lot of things but outside interpreting there is to say look don't even if this is your last day on earth do not try to finish what you have already started or don't try to still perfection it what is your best product but start something new plant an apple tree so what I'm going to talk about today is my ongoing research on leadership and leadership studies that is the research that I started I mean I think one year ago so it's still an ongoing process but because my point is that the last lecture is not me giving you my wisdom so that you go away with this gift you know made by me you know of paul's wisdom you know something the idea how I interpret Martin Luther King is this quote is it's more important to initiate process even if it's your last day or your last lecture than occupying spaces so this is why today I'm going to talk about something that I'm not entirely sure about even if I did some research upon and and I really hope that during the discussion maybe you can have some concerns questions doubts you know some not to put pressure on you right but just to say that this is a collective endeavor and then the title I gave the title of my last lecture the 25th hour I don't know if you have ever watched the movie the 25th hour or read the novel on which the movie is based is a is the story of these men that is convicted with a sentence for seven years and he received the notice the notification of his conviction one day before he actually needs to present to jail and start the seven years so the 25th hour is the idea that you have one hour more before the day ends and what really impressed me about this novel and movie is that of course in this day he looked back at his story the mistakes he made the choices he made that brought them brought him there but what the what really is interesting is that he spent the last day going to the people that he knew that are part of his history his girlfriend his brother and what I understood is that the 25th hour is not it was not for him was for them so my point here is to say that this lecture I mean of course I'm giving it to you and it's something that has to do with my life as my girlfriend and friend suggested but it's still something that is really related to you and then there is something more I like also this image of the 25th hour in the sense that it's a I mean at the end of the day at the movie it still goes to jail nothing changed for him and I mean the 25th hour is also the idea that something is going on that is too late for changing but that still we are given a bit of an additional time to try at least to be aware and make something about it and here we come to the topic of my of my lecture which is about leader and leadership theories I know I've noticed and I'm not alone in this worrisome tendency in contemporary western society and is the tendency about these over emphasis on the role of leaders and leadership theories now you need to know that in the last few years I have been in a long distance relationship so my girlfriend she's portuguese so I traveled back and forth from here to porto but also my family I'm Italian I don't know if you guessed it but anyway uh so I mean I traveled a lot now living aside the environmental impact on that and the fact that I'm totally scared of flying but this is not relevant I had the chance many times to go to the airports and do you know those kiosk where you in the airport see a lot of books and newspapers those are one of my favorite plays in the world because they're just having a look at the newspapers and the titles of books you get an impression of where the world is going or where a part of society is going and now I put in picture what what I found so these are not the books that I actually see there but I mean a good representation so first how to be a good leader winning techniques and secrets to exceptional leadership leader as healer you know the world needs every leader to read this book and his words and then how to be a good boss and a leader so team building time management and communication skills for effective leadership in the workplace okay I said people are interested in leadership that's fine but this is not over all the last lecture is me showing you titles of these books start with why how great leader inspire everyone to action the inspirational leader inspire your team to believe in the impossible how to be a leader of Plutarch an ancient guy to wise leadership how to be an effective leader that you hold here right the power develop leadership skills and build effective teams how to be a better leader you know sky or the future leader like with the lighthouse so now this is not a moment of book shaming like me because these are these are of course books that are the result of some research is and probably I didn't read them all but there are many interesting things in them but then in parallel there is also a lot of publication more scientific more coming from academia leadership theories so again self leadership the art of becoming a leader international bestseller self leadership deserve a leader how to build a creative team develop great morale and improve bottom line performance tribal leadership leveraging natural groups to build a thriving organization moral leadership the theory and practice of power judgment and policy quiet leadership six steps to transform performance at work lives of morals leadership leading gracefully a woman guide to confident authentic and effective leadership the leadership star because you need the star right I mean a practical guide to build engagement lead like a woman gain confidence navigate obstacle empower others boundless leadership boundless I mean no no limits the servant a simple story about the true essence of leadership compassionate leadership because you have also that ethical leadership and ethical leadership again again this is not a moment I mean I could have continued really for 45 minutes with this so so I picture myself with with this huge library when all this book of leadership are falling on me right I mean and what I notice what is my first claim I saw a correlation between the number the really growing number of this publication and the courses that inside academia also here and outside are about are given are offered on how to become a leader so you you go in various business schools but you go also in a civil society and spiritual organization whatever there are a spread there is a spread of courses on leadership that you really cannot imagine and of course this is correlation that as you know is not causation I'm not saying that one element cause the others not that we have more books because we have more courses of the other way around but together these two things signal a tendency something that that is happening and also I don't know if you noticed many of these books of leadership are not about leadership in politics but mostly in organization and in business okay so it's there that this this thing is is growing and then I said to myself maybe there is a huge demand right for leaders in all spheres of human and human life we need more leader and we need to form this leader to educate people to be to be leader now what is a sorry what is the idea but what is the kind of leadership that a bit is behind all these reasons and very growing stream of literature well the idea comes from the german sociologist max Weber and is the idea of the charismatic leadership who is for Weber a charismatic leader a certain charisma is a certain quality of an individual personality by virtue of which he is set apart from ordinary men and treated as endowed with supper supernatural superhuman or at least specifically exceptional powers or qualities these are such heads are not accessible to the ordinary person but are regarded as of divine origin or as exemplary and on the basis of them the individual is concerned and is treated as a leader I think that this idea of charismatic leadership and there are also books about charismatic leadership that I didn't show you all those books that we saw both in leadership theories and in this book about self-development how you can be a better leader are more or less based on these intuition by Weber Weber didn't give any qualitative judgment on this he was not saying it's good or bad because he was a sociologist but what I notice is that this modern leadership today is spreading and is very popular in business business people really like this idea of charismatic leadership what is the idea of charismatic leadership that the leader should elicit the actions of the followers so if you are a leader if I am your leader you should be you should want to follow me I should not force you to follow me okay and the idea is that these new forms of leadership overcome another form of leadership of the past century still in business in which leadership the charismatic leadership is given by the hierarchy you know so do you know these last century big firms or corporation where there is a precise hierarchy and structure and so there is the at the top you know that the owner of the the board and then there are all the employees until the last will of the chariot these form of leadership somehow is a go it is not working anymore the the idea what people in business especially in an organization understood is that it's better to have leaders that are charismatic in some way can elicit the action of the followers give the followers the impression of freedom that they are in charge so this is a picture from an italian movie it's called fantaz is a tragic comic movie and is about capitalism in italy in the 60s and 70s where you had this huge corporation like la mega dita the mega corporation kind of a mordor thing like with the with the head the mega galactic director that is at the top like you know the eyes of sauren and this is a leader and when fantaz is an accountant this character meets this leader it's again tragic comic is like bowing to him because it's this leader the person is at the top is kind of like a saint you know is there like praying you know asking for his advice and also it's funny when the leader passes all the employees scream is a beautiful leader is is a saint is an apostole right i mean very enthusiastic but what this makes you see in short is that there the qualities of the leader were given by the hierarchy in the way in which the firms and the corporation were structured mostly in the last century is the hierarchy that gives the leader the quality that he has or she has or they have what is now my claim sorry for the long quote you know but uh these research that i'm presenting is based on a research that i did with another person and i show you in the end that this is relevant and what we claim in this paper is that and i read it the culture of post-modernity creates post-patriarchal young people who are less used to and less prepared for the virtues of obedience from superiors but more sensitive to the values of freedom equality consent and contract and this is how the leader figure is born the contemporary leader is born one that does not need hierarchy to make the organization work because the consensus and the adhesion from of the collaborators arise from the leader charisma their ability to convince their persuasion and authority or in the most recent form compassion at serve until this kind of thing from their moral values and communicative skills leadership appears to be post-modern egalitarian gentle liberal non-hierarchical and even fraternal than the old organizational theorist of the 20th century and also certainly more hetically respectful of everyone's dignity so my judgment our judgment of this new leadership for me is not immediately negative okay they are maybe better than that hierarchical model in which you know the the the workers needs to follow the command of the of the employer of the boss you know but there is a problem and what is the problem that yes yeah there is some maybe I stay away from the the slide now that's okay I can sorry that now I'm in front of the it is what it is so what can be a possible explanation of these um changing in the nature of capitalism and the the way of which corporations are structured well there are many but one that is very interesting comes from this book I don't know if you have already the new spirit of capitalism by two French sociologists Balthaski and Capello what they say in this book or how I summarize it is that capitalism is calm calm I don't know how to say it is like a chameleon and transform itself feeding on everything it finds in its path like an empire conquering the animal peoples and incorporated their cultural religion so they claim that capitalism and especially the structure of corporation changed because in the last decades of the last century there were some critiques coming from civil society in academia from worker from more socialist critique but also from intellectual and artists and somehow capitalism embedded these critiques and transformed and adapted itself what was the critique of the 68th generation of the intellectual that those hierarchical forms that that kind of job that is repetitive in which you have a a boss and you need to comply with the boss and its ease or her orders is something that we don't like anymore so we need something else and according to them this is why today we have also big corporations that are more built upon single teams they are more agile more fluid five six people you know with so they look like less hierarchical less vertical you know more more horizontal and egalitarian and of course leadership fits very well with this all these new normative leadership theories you can understand them in this narration that i'm giving now that i'm furnishing so these are ethical leadership moral leadership charismatic leadership servant leadership distributed leadership transformational leadership spiritual leadership contemplative inclusive leadership responsible leadership and of course Aristotelian leadership and Kantian leadership right i mean always to be Kant somewhere so what what is my claim here is that these theories are not descriptive they are not telling you how the leaders naturally perform but now the leader has to perform so it's they make a claim they say look in these courses within and without academia when you educate the people to become leader you need to educate them to acquire a certain charisma that can still elicit the response from the followers but still has also some moral or ethical or more inclusive elements and again nothing wrong this is i'm not saying that this is our bad research or something that we should ignore but there is a problem that today no one wants to be robbing what does it mean it means that these wave of leadership studies and leadership courses coming especially i think from the world of business and invading all the spheres of society they make the role of batman of the superior very salient very visible when i was young there was this cartoon of batman and i remember that there was the soundtrack that i wanted to sing but then i sang to my girlfriend she said it's better not i mean don't do it so because he's in italian okay i will know but but but i remember exactly the worst batman was the smartest the strongest the most just he fought with the ability charisma all this kind of thing so for me when i think about leaders i think about my personal experience about batman but in that in that cartoon there is also robin i mean there is also someone who helps the leader and here robin means the groups in organization there is a leader and there are groups that are led by this leader now the big emphasis even in good faith on this new ethical new leadership theories put the accent make very visible the leader the single person at the center of the stage and shadow the role of the groups and this is what we claim in this article the problem with leadership is not the is not the that you put an adjective a new adjective ethical moral servant inclusive compassionate silent quiet i can continue the problem is the noun there are some problems with leadership theories and i'm not we were not and we are not the first to have discovered those but now i will list some for example the fact that leaders you do not create leaders you do not educate leaders as you know leaders emerge from situations you see these most of the time in politics but also you see in real life you cannot by definition educate someone to be a good a good leader and to show those qualities that this person needs to have to be a good leader but it's not something that i argue there are thousands of books about it and also remaining with Weber that charisma that incredible qualities that this leader has they are not acquired or you cannot educate this is something that you receive Weber i demand the charisma like the god's grace that makes some profits the leaders or maybe you can think about natural abilities natural skills that make you that incredible person that become a leader but all of this is already in the literature what is our contribution and now i think it gets interesting after 27 minutes that i speak but it's okay i mean new leadership theories so the moral ethical all those hide in good faith the issue of control when you read the the papers and the books as i did of these new leadership theories you think that in the end the leader is really a servant of the follower and the follower are in charge but this is not the case the leadership theories by definition distinguish one person the leader and a group the followers and the leader lead and the followers follow and i'll show you this through an example with politics another problem new leadership theories they are normative they are not describing human beings as they are but as they should be in doing this description they downsize the recognition admiration motive in leaders and overemphasize their pro-social and moral motives i will explain it and then also and this is the big really worry that i have something that i really care about it is personal that that these new leadership theories shadow the role of groups and cooperation the emphasis is on the on the leader and the group is secondary and today this wave is bringing us all especially i think younger generation but not just young generation in a world in which we want all to be batman because we think that batman the leader has some qualities that make that person better is better to be a leader than a follower and then of course as i am not a philosopher who just criticize because it sometimes is easy to criticize like you know doing philosophy with the hammer yeah right now i did article shaming book shaming and say that they are all wrong i grouped them all together being totally unfair to them but i we brun and i i have a proposal for the 25th hour so i'm not gonna end saying oh it's too late this is already happening we don't have alternative i have my own normative idea on how it should be this issue of leadership in organization so now in the 15 minutes that i have left and for sure i will take 20 20 that's okay let's move to the control issue and i will explain this contrasting how leadership is in politics and how leadership is in organization now get ready because i'm about to introduce what we do in this paper we adopt the rational choice theory something that when i said to my colleagues in philosophy they say no rational choice theory no i mean we know that is wrong right this idea that people are rational and so far as they pursue their goal that we are all self interested so we are we not only are self interested but we always try to maximize our own utility our own goals so we are perfectly rational perfectly always focus on what we want to achieve and second this idea that is popular in rational choice theory that you can divide in many social contexts the people in principal and agent who is the principal the principal is the person who has authority who has the power who has the control the agent is a person that the principal delegates for pursuing the goal of the principal so now it's in my son abstract before showing you what this theory is about and how it makes sense let me say that of course in this paper we know that people are not really like this we are not rational machine maximizing our own utility but there is a difference i think when you endorse a theory and you think that that theory is saying something truth about reality in total and when you use a theory to highlight a problem that you spotted and this is what we are doing here follow me in this reasoning tomorrow you are going to vote many of you right there are the elections correct so how can you read politics through the principal agent moment and rational choice you have the principals and the agent citizens are the principal in democracy you might find this strange but we are in charge the people people who vote and the agent the politician is that person we that who we elect to pursue the goal that we think are important okay so you can read what you are going to do tomorrow through these lenses in representative democracy there is a kind of a contract between citizens and politicians now in the previous slide in the second point i said something i said look what rational choice theory understood is that sometimes the goals of the principal can be different from the goals of the agent sometimes the agent can have the wrong goal that do they want to pursue can happen so how do you control in politics the people you elect well the fact that elections are recurrent is a way correct so if you elect the politicians who promise you something promise you do advance the goals that you think are important that person then what once they start to promote the wrong goal then you the next election stop voting to him for him or them but also of course that politician that we elect he represented the democracy has no absolute power if something happens beyond constitutional limits i mean there are some mechanism of check but there is also leadership what is leadership here what makes an agent a leader in politics i'm reading the leader is an agent who shows attributes of knowledge talents skills virtues and merits that made them suitable to pursue goals set by the principal what does it mean that when you vote for a person who you think is a person that inspires you that you trust right because this person has some qualities you maybe value that person for those qualities but according to rational choice theories those qualities that the leaders exhibit are also a way for the principal to control the agent they help you in controlling why because if this person is not simulating and has really this characteristic that you think are good that it might be true that when this person got elected will advance the goals for which you elected them that is the idea in to say it better those qualities are useful for the citizen principal to control that the agent politicians will pursue the principal goals without diverting from it so in this example in politics who is the leader the agent the agent is the leader okay the one that was to show these extraordinary qualities the charisma but this the problem when we come to organizational leadership is that here is the other way around in organization think about a business the principals are the owners and the managers who has the power who controls are them and who is the agent the workers or the people of the group the followers and what happens here that the these new leaders the charismatic the ethical the servant but I read many the docile the spiritual leader I mean all these kind of new leaders they present themselves as caring specific attributes they want to be freely recognized and followed by the employee followers but the and here what seems is that the locus of control who is in charge are the followers because when you put all these these objective on the leaders that the leaders need to care about the group the good of the group inspire the group care about it you say oh so this leader is a really a servant of this group and is or her or them characteristic of leadership are something that are for the good of the group but this is not the case in organization leader she is probably the most important thing of these lectures that is not a tool to ensure that the manager will carry on or at least acknowledge employees goals but rather that the employees will carry on the goal of the manager leader without incurring the problems of hierarchical or authoritarian leadership that is the issue that of course there is no anymore hierarchy so you freely recognize someone as your leader but in the end who set the goals is the leader are not the followers so it's the other way around here the follower is the agent and the leader is the prince is the other way around of what should happen in politics so you see the point these new forms of leadership they present themselves as something to overcome hierarchy to overcome power but in reality and to to value the freedom of the followers are you the follower freely choose to follow the leader but in reality the issue of control the person who is in charge are not the followers are the leaders so in in a sense this to me seems even more pervasive like a more horizontal control you know on the actions of the person who are following you if you are a leader so this is the first problem the issue of control in organizational leadership in the new forms of leadership the emphasis of the moral qualities or attributes of the leader over shadow the issue of control it seems that the followers are in charge but this is not true because the leader is in charge the leader set the group of the goal of the group and then we move to the fourth point recognition and admiration what is here the idea that if you read those papers or book that I put there you get the impression that this leader is really a saint someone who is really disinterested always caring for the group the good of the group or helps the group to achieve a collective goal so the leader become someone who becomes someone who is endorsed with very big moral qualities like as if it's someone who is there to serve the group is there for the followers but these even if I understand that these are normative theories that they tell us how leaders should be and not as they are at this point forget something very important that people like to be in position of leadership you like to be in position and even the most one of the most absurd theory the rational choice theory recognize this they call it rational deference let me read and then I explain some individuals may supply deference to those whom they consider the more informed but at the same time those support put to be relatively better informed demand deference in the sense that they place a positive value on having other influence by their opinions and fundings for such people for these leaders the potentiality that others might be intellectual followers is positively positively valued either in and by itself or instrumentally why instrumentally because if I am a leader you are my follower the fact that you recognize me as a leader and you admire me helps me to direct better your actions toward the goal that I decided not you maybe that goal is also good for you I'm not excluding that that case but the point is that not only it's good instrumentally but also I like to be a leader I like to be recognized as a leader you don't need rational choice theory you know that people seek recognition and admiration you know that it is a now I don't want to be an essentialist like say that there is a human nature with these traits but for sure it's a common characteristics of people that they like to be seen and admired and these leaders are seen and admired by their followers for those exceptional qualities and this is a problem because if you again put a lot of value and stress on the role of the leader on these qualities that makes this person serve and compassionate ethical moral and all this kind of stuff then you overshadow that we are human beings and we like we have also this tendency of really like to be admired okay and this is a problem for me it's a problem because again read all those papers that I put no one acknowledged this right so just how the leader should be and then the fifth point and I'm going quickly to the conclusion it's not true but I say just leaders it's true that leaders provide a surface for the group the leader in the end helps the group of followers to achieve something so the leader can foster coordination and cooperation that is necessary for reaching a group goal so in this sense it's better to have a leader than a hierarchy especially what I said is true that today new generation but also my generation react not very bad to hierarchy or vertical relations and very good to horizontal relation I mean it's good that you have a leader that somehow is admired is recognized as someone who is caring for the group and helping the group to get where the group needs to go but what is the problem here I present you the only adjective that I like attached to leadership romanticized leadership this group of voters did something very interesting they show that groups tend to overemphasize the role of leaders in reaching group goals there is a narrative bias meaning that the big undue emphasis on the role of leaders in achieving group goals affect followers perception and evaluation of specific scenario if the role of batman is so full of all these characteristics of all these you know qualities that we attribute to him I mean then the role of a robin is ignored is uh downside but for in each episode if you watched batman robin is necessary I mean batman alone always fail or always get in danger you know but also real life not not really real life if you have ever been in an organization whatever kind of organization where there is a group of people you know that is not the leader that is the one that is decisive to arrive to a common goal each role is important each role of a group of a person in the group is important but we I think today there is this strong narration that tend to put all the merits on the leader I can do a parallel with meritocracy but I have no time maybe in the q and a what is my claim the great emphasis our society attributes to leaders and their quality makes them very salient in the followers eyes very salient very visible right the latter the followers might not be able to notice that behind every success that is the attainment of the group call hide the less visible yet crucial group work this is the point that this new amazing ethical sorry new leadership theories forget because they put everything on the leaders they they make society believe that what we need are leaders not groups but instead and this is our proposal for the 25th hour what is the message rather than looking for new objective for leadership get rid of the noun maybe get rid is a bit too strong right but at least downplay the role of the the noun of leadership how do I imagine a leadership group a course in for example a business school rather than saying how people can be good leaders tell to the people who are or rather than forming educating people for being leaders call the people who are already in position of leadership and tell them how to do the less possible evil in the so it's not more about virtues so traits of excellence of leaders but about this course it should be to help the leaders to recognize all the vices all the things that they can do wrong because these fact that we put all the moral value on the role of the leader create a lot of frustration also for the followers because the followers he's who one person by definition is not a leader is something less is something less is so for me leaders this new leadership theories today are a new form of in a ideology that legitimates a kind of inequality the division between the leader and the follower and is still hierarchical even if it should be horizontal so what is our proposal for the 25th hour the message normative it is back the ideal workplace but in every group is that of a community of people where everyone plays their part in a cooperative game in this team everyone follows everyone else in reciprocity in the equal dignity of different tasks if at a certain point someone has to perform coordinating governing and accountability functions because it can be they will simply do we be doing their job as I do mine they will not have to lead anyone they will not have to influence anyone they will only have to play their necessary part in the one collective game and endeavor so for me this is the narration that should be you know proposed today rather than the focus on the leaders I mean if you have ever been again in an organization you know that the group goal even without without the last wheel of the chariot the chariot will go not go anywhere so why today we put all our admiration value and even moral positive judgment to leader we should do we should eliminate the distinction between leaders and followers and respect in group the fact that there are people that simply are doing their job even if they are in position in which they have to govern or coordinate and that moment in which they govern and coordinate that moment does not make them leaders they are simply doing their job as other people who are doing something else maybe more focused are doing also their job so this is my message for the 25th hour stop putting all these emphasis on leadership and put the emphasis back on the group and now in the last three minutes as I remember my friends and girlfriend advice has to be about real life let me introduce you my co-author Lugino Bruni now Lugino Bruni he has been my supervisor when I did my PhD in Rome and before joining the PhD I never met him but when I met him that is the kind of person that you can easily imagine as a leader because it's really in that social group of academics he's great he's an economist who is very good in philosophy very good in theology very good in social sciences he's creative but he's also a kind person kind of caring in our relation and he's very funny much funnier than me no no that's true so for me that kind of relationship could have been easily that kind of relation between a leader and a follower and in these eight years since I first joined my PhD we published together nine articles and now we are working also on this on leadership but what he taught me and what this is also the real life when we were writing the first article together he told me Paolo if I don't give a contribution to that article I will not put my name on it and this is it in Italy something very uncommon because usually professors try to put their name you know even if they don't so what is what I learned from Brun is that our endeavor in writing papers and doing research is a collective job it's not that he's Batman and I am Robin sometimes he gave the ideas for the paper and I made more the work of writing it or structuring sometimes it's the other way around at the beginning in the first paper you can imagine that his role was more prominent but in the end what we did together was also something together for a common goal so also when others saw that I was publishing with my supervisor and they were saying so you are a follower of Bruni that was something that could have made me suffer if I took it because it's you know it's kind of follow so you are like you know the that person who follows the supervisor but thanks to him thanks to the fact that he doesn't want to be recognized as a leader I understood that this message that in groups each role the equal dignity of different tasks is very important and it's the same when I teach I mean you know that here I see a lot of my students my classes without you would not make sense I mean I have the tendency of doing the one-man show I know but but I mean for the collective goal of the teaching to be rich we are equally important and that that in the end this is not a captaincy of benevolence and me trying to get your favorites it's real I mean without your role there that endeavor will fail so it's not that I am the leader right as he is the leader I mean is a equal dignity of different tasks and so yeah this is my message for the 25th hour as a song from an Italian singer in this world of heroes no one wants to be robbing but I think that we need more robin and we need to praise more robin and thank you for your attention really now let's go to drink now there's a Q and no we're not going to drink yet first you have to be subjected to the Q&A so is there anyone who might have a question for Paolo well immediately thank you for breaking the ice thank you for the for the talk yeah I was I was running from my own experience from part-time jobs mostly no full-time jobs um often there is a Batman a leader pretending to also be a robin so the Batman is telling me like oh but you know don't see me as your boss don't see me as your leader see me as your friend your family but I've noticed for myself that once my fellow robin was secretly a Batman um is telling me things like one hour before I start my shift like oh I'm sorry we actually don't need your time I cannot get mad because it's very difficult to get mad at a friend or yes sometimes they even call it a family member so do you think that there's because I really like the the ideal of the the the equal workplace and not the hierarchical structure but do you think that there's also a risk of perhaps not called a new form of oppression when the leader starts to present themselves as also being part of the group yeah but but this is not so thank you first because your first person experience is very valuable right and what is my point that in that situation your leader there is a perfectly aligning with these new leadership theories a servant leadership like if he needs to be at your service needs to become your friend to sincerely care about and that is is okay right I mean I can believe that some people really care about it's nothing but what should really change is the social perception that in what you are doing with him you are doing something that will benefit both of you so that person trying to become your friend you give me the impression that he's trying even more to control you because you cannot get mad with that person because it's kind of friendly but he still is the one who decides he's not you who decides you see the point so I mean my point is stop calling him a leader if maybe he's a person who is in charge and is a governing and coordinator but and coordinated but what he read or she is a he is a who is this person had different experience different experience so let's say that this person needs to recognize in you is not someone who is behind because without you the collective goal cannot be reached that's the point so according to me you should not pretend him to give you equal dignity each e let's say there's any he should recognize your role that is important you know so these are these is a way to look at the society but also specifically the market as a co-collective endeavor for mutual advantage in the papers with that I wrote with Bruni sometime for example in this paper on leadership he had the first intuition okay on the I mean I saw all those books then I spoke with him and he had the first you know things and so let's say that he did the 60 of the job something that maybe I should have not mentioned now take all the glory for me but exactly because I'm not I don't want to be a leader I mean it's kind of or admired not in this case at least I'm saying that there what gives me dignity is the fact that I did the 40 percent and without your 40 percent and my 40 percent that collective goal cannot be reached so I mean these leaders that try to mass themselves as robbing which is something very interesting something to do for me they are still trying to you know to control you even more you know so for me all these are moral speech around the role in organization is problematic because there you have a role I have a role is different maybe I'll do a bit more than you maybe you'll do a bit more than me but without us a word with all leaders will achieve nothing a war because these these courses of leadership make us think that in the future we can all be leaders right and we can all learn to fall but this is not how the work will go we always need a group of people working in the equal dignity of different tasks but yes I mean the point is that some leaders must themselves as robin yeah thank you and I don't even think that it is conscious decision to present themselves as a friend and then secretly being an evil controlling leader I think they generally okay me to consider themselves as a friend yeah but yeah then the risk still yeah but but that is you know that is also something a bit different because is when personal relationships enters in the workplace that I think is also a slightly different topic and on that you can see positive sides because you can have truly sincere friendship even in work relationship I mean with many of my students if they are students I am the teacher and I'm giving election because also I get paid I have still sincere friend I'm a good I am their friend I mean at least from my side right and this ever but what I'm trying to say here is that there are also bad sides when too much too many too much the personal enters in the workplace so think about in Italy we have mafia mafia is exactly when personal relationships enters in the workplace all the mafia business I am not free to choose the person with whom I am trading because I am forced by a personal relationship that I'm not even free to choose to to trade with someone so I mean it is connected to leader followers but is also about I think a more problematic issue of personal relationships in the workplace but thank you thank you I wanted to make a comment about this new era of leadership and like I like for example I had a personal discussion with my boyfriend and he very embarrassed told me I want to be a follower I like to be told what I to do and I like to follow rules I'd like to be I don't want to be this new leader I don't want to be this new amazing person who gives orders I want to know what to what to do and I realize that we are told from small children to be leaders to aspire for more to be the best to be on the top of the of the scale blah blah blah and which is quite toxic in some sense at the same time I was wondering if this is if you have research on it if you this is a phenomenon you will saw universally or it's mostly in the western countries if industrialized and individualistic or also existing in collectivistic cultures thank you for the question because it's very pertinent and I apologize because I see that in some quotes I made universalistic play we are post-patriarchal post-modern people but that it was to give the impression these research that we have been doing still doing is based mostly on the western society so US Europe and and individualism can be a factor but what you I think the interesting point you raise with the example of your boyfriend is that that is a reaction right I mean it's a reaction in which you find this way that tells you that you need to be the best the leader not only the first because what is leadership in the end leadership is something to morally legitimize a social distinction between people between leaders and followers is a bit like meritocracy meritocracy is as this function of saying that there are the few meritorious that are worthy to be there at the top and the many non meritorious that deserve to be right but what is the problem what is one of the fear that I have also in these courses of leadership the kind of people that go there that want to become a leader I can really believe that many of them this is just speculation that many of them have sincere motivation to really care about the group but many of them are interested in rational deference this is what these theories do not notice I mean you can put the best objective only but there is an issue of power control there and power being the leader gives you something like that people observe you and like you and that and so what in economics these phenomena is called there is a phenomenon of adverse selection that this business school or this course of leadership in many business schools and in other places that would like to attract the compassionate the ethical the moral leader they attract the opposite they attract the person who wants to be a leader just because you know he wants to be recognized but yes I think that in the individualistic society this phenomenon is even more relevant I'm able to answer not answering so you talk a lot about the you talk about a lot about the like the difference in democracy versus like a capitalistic or just the general organization and that immediately reminded me of unionizing and collective bargaining do you think that the idea of a union so making the collective goal of a company no longer the profit of the shareholders but rather the interest of employees does this can this go too far can this become a distinction between the the group and the elites in a sense that it ends up severing these social ties in in a negative way or is it generally it should go further as it can kind of integrate everyone into this collective culture what do you think about so this is an interesting question so what is the point if I can can I go back to my slides here what I said in this point new leaders are disinterested I say they focus on the good of the group and of the good of the group is to achieve which is supposedly good for the group as well so as you say many times in organization these leaders manager they make the group perform but maybe for the interest of shareholders and that interest maybe also benefit that group but mostly I mean we cannot hide that we live in a word for profit okay regarding the unions there the issue is a bit more again I don't know if it's about leaders and followers but more about in group out group right which group are you part of you know are you part of the group of the of the workers but that that can I mean that separates I think too much you know the who is ruling the business and who is is working in the business you know for me what will be good for example is to have union representatives or maybe worker representative in the in the board as it happens in many in many companies already okay so I think that the point there is if you mark too much I mean that you ask yourself I am a member of this company of a man I am a member of this union right you so you have the double identity somehow right and that can create conflict am I wrong what do you think it makes plenty of sense to me yeah yeah yeah no so so I don't know I mean I need to think about it I'm sorry sometimes I'm not able to give answer like but yeah maybe you want to add something that that's no I I I I'm still developing my thoughts on this too but of course you're the you're the experienced one here so I didn't want to give too much of my that's true yeah yeah that's true anyway thank you but maybe let's get in touch after so when I have but this is honesty right I mean I cannot pretend that I know everything and just you know that's hi thank you so much for your presentation it was really lovely something that really kind of made me think was about how a lot of the issue with leadership and these roles and let's say disguising yourself as Batman or a lot of this is just this is how a lot of societal structures or organizations are structured where there is a mandate for a certain role of leadership or a certain hierarchical structure that is so intrinsic to organizations that it cannot be changed what is really interesting to me or like something I'd like to know is when you talk about your proposal for the 25th hour right when we talk about decision making how does decision making in such crucial factors work within a system that is a lot more horizontal or without a sense of leadership and where would that come from or what sort of process would that follow so this is an excellent question as also yours just all were excellent question what is my point my proposal our proposal for the 25th hour is not to say that we need to have a group in which everyone has the equal dignity of equal task in a group in certain business decision you need to have one person that takes responsibility that you can hold accountable right for certain decision that needs to direct the groups over what I really am fighting here is all the moral qualities that we attribute to this person because the role of this person in the decision making even if it's bigger does not make him some someone more necessary than the others that's my point so these new leadership theories you know why I don't like it because they do this scheme of thinking say oh you need to learn to listen the people of your group you need to be attentive caring but in the end is these things overshadow that is the person who decides so it's good if there is a more participative process when possible right my point here is that we should stop to put all this moral value and superpowers on this person right because this person is not the most necessary to reach in the group call everyone in a group is necessary even if you are I am making decision and you are not without you I cannot reach that call so why you should put on me all these values right all these and again now we are generalizing because but there are some business decision that actually really require one person that is in charge or that has a vision or that so I'm not saying that we can collectively you know always take decisions but but from these there is a gray zone from these to the fact that saying that there is this person with you know our leader our transformational leaders as they call it and in politics you can also make the parallel in representative democracy in the end is the the the the politician the agent who makes the decision but who has really the powers is us I mean this is at least the the the political system in which we live I like it personally but I mean say no it's true I mean it's not that the people that you are going to vote for tomorrow they are the leaders they are in charge and they hold the power and they are the source of the power the source of the power is the people who vote so and we have a lot of mechanism you know to check this so for example your your point can in politics can bring us more from representative democracy which the decision making is really up to one few people to a more deliberative democracy process but again it depends on the context I have a bit of experience in business and business organization and there sometimes you need one person to be in charge so I'm not saying that you need to always have the perfect but is the equal dignity of different task that really interests me I mean that the dignity of that even if you are the person who decides and is accountable for that decision for the group still without the group you cannot you cannot arrive to the goal that you set for yourself so the group has dignity so you can call it a coordinator you can call it a director you can call it but still if you call it as we do now and this is believe me is a tendency a leader with all these moral attributes that we put with this area of divinity that we put on this period this is very dangerous this is very dangerous because really overshadows the fact that even if that person makes the decision those decision will not be effective without the group that's the point and the group is necessary having a leader we claim in the paper does not make our choices less hard you need always the group thanks for the question thank you too many questions so you're advocating for equal dignity right yes are you also advocating for equal pay that's tough question I'm advocating for equal pay that's another of the question I need to think about as a first reaction I will say not necessarily but even if I did my PhD in economics and as I told to my students yesterday in political philosophy economists are very interested in poverty how to relieve people from poverty but not inequalities so I'm not interested in equal pay because people have different but when the inequality became too much in the pay that is the problem where the schisser becomes too much and these leadership theories the fact that you arrive in a firm after having done a course on moral leadership in the best business school in I don't know in the United States that will make your pay much higher for something that you don't let's say do you not deserve can we say that so I mean again not equal pay because it's the equal dignity of different tasks but at least our society in the recognition of social role there we need really to have equality because everyone is necessary you know this better than me and you are an expert in organization and I mean a group we a group of just leaders will not go anywhere will not now it will not go anywhere I mean that that's the point okay we have the last question which one of you wants the most no no no I'm kidding we can do more questions no she's she's not getting last question I I'm not in charge of not the leader of this that's fine that's okay I think one possible motive behind this theory is that like we perceive normal workers as lazy like we need we need a leader to push this normal workers to do more work like I'm like I'm from East Asia so like in Japan like there are many people who die because because of overload working like this also the case in Korea and in China so like I came to Europe and I'm fine oh these people these people are lazy assholes like so we need so one I'm just stating my my conjecture that we need leadership because we need to push these workers to do more to do more jobs like yes but what you don't need is to call this person a leader that's my point in the sense that this person let's suppose that we are all lazy which I don't believe by the way but that's okay let's suppose that we are all lazy and we have this person motivating us right say do your job like you know kind of let's achieve the group goal but this person first of all is not has not specific moral qualities that make he him or her subject of my admiration because in the end if we reach the goal is beneficial also for him it's not that he is disinterested he gets paid more right and most importantly this person when is in this position of power and you recognize him as a leader this person there is a risk of a perverse trap in which this person even if the workers are not lazy push the workers to get admiration because the if we continue with this narrative of the leaders and we form a society full of people who want to be leaders we need to stick also with the narrative the workers are always lazy right which again I'm not sure it is so so the the leader one of the things of the leader is the one when he's in charge let's say that is a when he's in charge he wants to stay in charge he likes it I mean people like admiration people like to be recognized as you know so in my point my point is let's say that are all lazy the worker well that person who is motivating them is necessary for the final goal as they are necessary so the the respect that we show to that person should not be major than the respect that we show to all the person of that group or the people of that group that is my point with these new leadership theories we are centering all the attention and even moral evaluation just on the person and we ignore that that person even if he's the best motivator ever that person is not enough to arrive to the goal without the other people that are working with him that is my point okay so I will stop calling it a leader especially here in western societies when now when you say leadership today means this make the make the experiment go to to some course I have linked in right if you want we can become friends but that's okay so nice I have linked all linked in you find a lot of this post with the quotes for inspirational leaders right I mean every time I wake up I see the oh my god I say you know be a leader listening your follower motivating the elicit the action I mean this is really a tendency it's not something that is my worry okay but good point and now it's done right