21 MAGAZINE We live in uncertain times. In our personal lives, every one of us is facing new set of rules to live by on a pitch where a pandemic had never been part of our game plan. We have also had to reorganize and rethink our day-to-day. In our professional lives, with luck, we will also have had to (almost) entirely ditch our plans for this year and come up with new targets, a new plan, a new direction. I say “with luck” because my intention is to underline something everybody already knows: That which remains still, perishes, withers, and slumbers. We needed a pandemic to put us to the test, to bring out our resilience, our drive; that which we like to call leadership. Because what is leadership for a CEO at the moment? It is influence capacity, indeed, but it is also the responsibility to give every one of their employees responsibility to lead themselves, leading them with empathy and, perhaps more than ever, with transparency, assertiveness, and humanity. We all deserve more human leaders, and everything suggests that a more human leader has arrived to stay; one that is necessary for the upcoming and current generations. In one of consultancy firm McKinsey’s most recent reports, titled “From a room called fear to a room called hope: A leadership agenda for troubled time,” they accurately talk about how when people believe a leader is concerned about their wellbeing, commitment, and success, they move from fear to hope. Skillful leaders demonstrate their concern by expressing compassion about the emotional damage and anxiety inflicted by the crisis at hand, as well as through the actions they and their organization take in response. They acknowledge that the news is bad and that things might get worse before they get better. And they are present, both physically and emotionally. Along the same lines, people are more willing to accept and implement tough or complicated decisions when they believe that their leaders are worried about them and are trying to do their best for the common good rather than looking out for themselves – even when that decision for the common good fails to meet their objectives directly. COVID-19 has brought us major life trials, and we do not yet know whether we will emerge from them better or not. However, what we do know is that we are all different already. We therefore need every member of the organization to take up their position and apply that self-leadership to fully expand their capacity, define targets, trace a route to follow, and pull in the same direction. Without clear self-leadership, we will Francesc Noguera CEO Banco Sabadell / Mexico Therefore need every member of the organization to take up their position and apply that self-leadership to fully expand their capacity, define targets, trace a route to follow, and pull in the same direction