In this edition of the Managerial Excellence Masterclasses, we had the immense honor of welcoming Jean-Pierre Lanzetti, an entrepreneur and former executive of major restaurant and distribution groups. With him, we explored how to transform managers into true leaders in a context of continuous business transformation. Ready to discover the secrets of authentic leadership?
The Fundamental Difference: Engaging vs. Supporting
Jean-Pierre began by sharing an essential distinction with us: “The leader engages, the manager accompanies.” This seemingly simple difference reveals the full depth of the necessary transformation. The manager will be beside or behind their teams, while the leader will be in front, showing the way and inspiring through their example.
This ability to engage is based on a combination of high standards and benevolence that Jean-Pierre considers fundamental. In a world where business complexity is exploding, competition is intensifying, and tools are multiplying, what truly makes the difference is human interaction and customer experience.
The Art of Transcending Missions
The forklift operator’s anecdote perfectly illustrates this philosophy. Jean-Pierre recounts how he challenged an employee who was dragging a box with his forklift: “You are not transporting a product; you are initiating the first chain of final customer satisfaction. As a customer, would you like to see your future TV being dragged around the warehouse?”
This approach consists of transcending the mission of each employee by giving it a broader meaning, another dimension. What is more legitimate in all businesses than the customer? You just need to make the translation: “As a customer, would you like…?”
Scaling Leadership
With nearly 8,000 points of sale at Casino Proximité, Jean-Pierre experimented with deploying leadership on a large scale. His method: making sure it “trickles down” from the executive committee. If the leader engages their executive committee, who then become leaders, then everyone will become leaders at their own level.
The goal is not to have a large ocean liner but a fleet of 8,000 corvettes capable of moving very quickly. This approach requires adapting one’s discourse according to the audience: with integrated entities, we talk about creating customer satisfaction and delight; with franchisees, we speak owner-to-owner with the same concerns and worries.
Identifying and Training Future Leaders
Jean-Pierre emphasizes a crucial point: the best salesperson will not necessarily be the best manager. It requires meticulous work with HR to identify the right profiles at the right time, avoiding casting errors that are costly for the organization.
Management training is not learned in business schools. “There is no school for management,” states Jean-Pierre. Management is learning on the job, learning about life. It can be built through experimentation and pathways to verify talent identification.
Key Skills of the Modern Leader
Three essential skills emerge:
The quality of listening: Jean-Pierre understood that “listening leadership was much more powerful than speaking leadership”. This ability to absorb one’s environment allows for a better understanding of complex situations.
The ability to synthesize: In increasingly complex and systemic environments, it is necessary to understand and integrate these environments to identify the true causes of problems.
Integrity and humility: Humility is an extraordinary leadership factor. It allows one to remain open to listening rather than being anchored in one’s convictions.
The Entrepreneurial Experience: Lessons Learned
Jean-Pierre shares a crucial lesson from his entrepreneurial journey: never undertake alone. “It’s terrible because you bear all the responsibility, it’s constant, but you never celebrate victories because you celebrate them with yourself.”
Entrepreneurship with a partner allows for healthy disagreements, intellectual enrichment, sharing difficult moments, and celebrating successes together. Creating value is something extraordinary, and this creation is even more beautiful when it is shared.
Work-life Balance
A painful but essential lesson: Jean-Pierre believed for too long that “the soft would be stronger than the hard”, that intellect and desire would be enough, and that the body would follow. This fundamental error led him to neglect his health out of passion for his work.
Today, he emphasizes the importance of taking care of oneself, refocusing, and returning to the essentials. An exhausted leader cannot sustainably engage their teams.
In a nutshell…
Here are the major takeaways from this Masterclass with Jean-Pierre Lanzetti:
Transitioning from management to leadership: Engaging rather than accompanying, being in front to show the way and inspire.
Cultivating listening before speaking: Listening leadership is more powerful than speaking leadership for understanding complex environments.
Transcending missions: Giving meaning to each role by linking it to final customer satisfaction.
Developing humility: Humility is an extraordinary leadership factor that allows for continuous learning.
As Jean-Pierre says: “The essential thing is to have seen the light turn on in the eyes of your teams, to have very modestly contributed to their development.” Because, as Nietzsche, whom he likes to quote, says: “Noble men are creators of value.”
Don’t miss the next Masterclass!