UMBRAGROUP PRESENTS AT THE FIRST NATIONAL LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE

On June 20^th, over 500 representatives from institutions, the academic word, industry, research, and defense met with high ranking officials from the Italian Air Force for the “National Conference on Leadership Training” at the Institute of Aeronautical Military Science in Florence.

The conference was organized around five important, closely connected themes:

-      The context: Leadership and complex environments

-      The Actors: leadership and Neuroscience

-      Developing the Actors: Leadership and Training

-      Case Studies of leadership in complex organizations

-      Organizational Development: leadership for innovation in organizations

In the last thematic sections a question was asked.  How can an organization that cares about its future resist the impacts of a constantly evolving reality, continue to keep up with the times and prosper while supporting, instead of resisting change, and, at the same time, maintain its own sustainability and “competitive advantage”?

With regard to this question, CEO & President of UMBRAGROUP, Antoni Baldaccini, and Professor. Carlo Odoardi, the company’s Human Resources Director, presented two reports to share their practical experience. CEO Antonio Baldaccini discussed the theme of “Servant Leadership for Innovation” stating: “Being a leader, requires you to activate a continuous assertive approach with a great ability to listen, and t always be ready for challenges and oriented toward discovery and the creating value. Leaders take responsibility with courage and have a strong awareness of the context and the balance of the system in which they operate. You need to be resilient, adaptive, and visionary, with the ability to motivate yourself and others. A leader is attracted by the intelligence of others aby by human beings as a whole, and continuously works to broaden knowledge, potential, and talent.  Developing and enhancing people is the main mission of the servant leadership process. Achieving the best results and the best performance by creating a distinctive professional community (community building). The characteristics or the dimensions of the servant leader can be defined as follows: listening, empathy, caring, awareness, persuasion, conceptualization, farsightedness, and commitment.”

Professor Carlo Odoardi, on the other hand, discussed the theme of “Leadership for Organizational Innovation in Highly Complex Contexts”. He stated “Effecting leadership means being able to guide, support, value, and encourage others to experiment with new and useful things by celebrating their successes, but also making the most of mistakes and failures by sharing their learning and experience with their colleagues.  In recent years, research has shown that activating a leadership process for innovation requires a deep knowledge of prior events and inhibitors of innovation at the individual, team, and organizational or managerial levels. Innovation leaders are women and men who have the courage and sensitivity to manage uncertainty while, at the same time, having the strength to shape the future by becoming almost invisible by empowering people and supporting them and, when necessary, by fostering a sense of autonomy and responsibilities based on mutual trust in order to fight the worst enemy or inhibitor of organizations: the status quo”.