The Business Forum | To Drop or to Hold On?

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Summer is the perfect time to unwind and distance yourself from the pressures of the professional world, from the dictates of life. jobThere is hardly anyone left to convince of the virtues associated with a summer break, even the few who do not take enough of it are kicking themselves.

Despite this current leading us towards a slowdown, the last few months have been characterized by leaders who choose to hang on rather than drop out. It is true that the drop out that we would like for some would prove permanent, well beyond a beneficial truce until the return to school.

Two examples

In recent weeks, US President Joe Biden has been the most high-profile example of a leader who sticks to his guns. Of course, one can feel empathy for the man.

However, by remaining in office, he gave the best chance of success to the cause he was fighting, taking the progressive forces of America as privileged witnesses and hostages.

His ideas are vague and unfinished, his sentences end abruptly with aanyways imposed on us the task of filling the empty spaces with a stillborn thought. Incapable of vision or height, he sank into emphatic debates on secondary subjects, on his golfing skills. There is nothing wrong with showing combativeness, as long as it cannot replace the content expected of a leader.

The English language offers a formula as colorful as it is cruel to describe a man of power lacking substance, intended to distract us in order to better conceal his deficiencies: An empty suit.

A characteristic of the stubborn and dying leader is often paradoxical: he sends out signals that he alone refuses to see. Let us take another recent example close to home, the case of the former police chief Philippe Pichet.

As reported The Press¹we observe the carelessness of Mayor Valérie Plante in this matter in a disturbing plea to absolve herself of her responsibilities. “I am not a manager, I do not deal with human resources, I do not deal with day-to-day matters. Of course, it is under my supervision.” However, we are talking about tensions arising from the management of her police chief, not from the hiring of summer interns or requests for tenders for watering flowers.

The mayor has not read the reports dealing with this issue, justifying her ignorance and refusal to take responsibility with impatience. The mayor will certainly be judged on her entire body of work, but it is hard to believe that we would be enthusiastic about seeing our public services managed with such nonchalance.

Private sector also affected

The private sector does not operate in a parallel universe. Businesses, especially family or sole proprietorships, are not immune to founding leaders who are at the end of their resources, in need of introspection or stubbornly clinging on. They often share a common trait: they are difficult to dislodge. Especially when the company and its leader seem inseparable in the eyes of the community.

Many of them sense their finiteness and the urgency of a transition plan, going through the whole range of emotions: loneliness, early mourning, mistrust, guilt towards employees, suppliers and partners.

They begin takeover procedures, hiring a new management committee, consultants, advisory subcommittees, family members.

Very little used to delegating and letting go, they sometimes radically change their minds along the way, sowing whirlwinds of incomprehension around them, sometimes leading to the scuttling of the company they created. The saga of entrepreneur Louis Garneau is a well-known case, among many others, of a transfer of power that ends badly, with direct consequences for a multitude of people.

What are the options or safeguards to avoid such excesses, to provide dignified support to a leader at the end of the journey or showing warning signs? Is it possible to prevent unfortunate endings upstream, when everything is going well, to the extent that the leader and his partners would agree beforehand on the support and the process of initiating an inevitable future transition?

If the end is the only thing that is certain when one comes into the world, it is the same when one gains power.

Read the article “Philippe Pichet affair: Valérie Plante distances herself”

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