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Jean-Pierre
Bal
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Quotes
(excerpts) from Prof. Bal
“For many
leaders, the business world of the 21st century generates three
inescapable challenges:
. to be able to face the
increasing flows of information and transactions that
evolve very
rapidly;
. to ensure a continuous
evaluation process of the leadership vision and
style;
. and a constant sharing
of the objectives, by all people and parties
involved.
(...) In daily
practice, to be a leader entails:
. to remain alert to
changing currents;
. to be flexible,
adapting vision and strategies;
. and, to listen, to
reflect, then to communicate.
Active listening,
consequential thinking, and coherent communication are part of the most
elementary competencies in the practice of leadership” (excerpted
from a conference held in 1999, "Le Leadership au 21eme siècle",
translated from French).
"Leaders should focus on
the survival of the whole world, by transcending the drive for survival of the
fittest " (in
a press-statement about leaders, society and war, quoting the opening
paragraph of his lecture at the United Nations University's International
Leadership Institute, in Amman, Jordan - August 2002)
"One of the
primary tasks of a leader is to define reality. Ours is a world with dark
skies, we want to improve it. I chose the year 2025 as a long-term goal" (about what leaders could do to improve a
given situation, and how much time it can take to achieve it - March 2003)
"(...) In
other words: he is realistic, pragmatic, and uses a great deal of creativity.
But his greatest competency is the one our present-day organizations miss the
most, the one that is far more stronger than team-spirit: esprit de
corps" (about
Ernest Shackleton, the Polar explorer, in the foreword Jean-Pierre wrote in
August 2003 to "Leadership
sous 0°
the French translation of "Leading at the Edge" authored by Dennis N.T. Perkins et al.)
"By 2025...
Imagine how our world will be. Imagine how -your- life would be. And your
children's. If you want a better world... Care for OUR world, act TODAY"
(his response when asked about the major
challenges in the two to three decades ahead -- September 2003)
"No other set of experiences in my
career has brought me such a wealth of learning and sharing as the drawing,
the initiating, the growing, and the leading of the Thierry Graduate School of
Leadership"
(in open conversations, and informal
Q&A's, with executives and public officials in Brussels -- March to June
2005)
"Leading is an art, the one art
that involves the six senses in the relationships with, and in the influencing
of and by other people"
(in
open conversations, and informal Q&A's, with executives and public
officials in Brussels -- March to June 2005)
"We all make some errors, have some
failures, and some successes in life; it all demonstrates the imperfection as
well the courage of human beings, of leaders in particular "
(in open conversations, and informal
Q&A's, with executives and public officials in Brussels -- March to June
2005)
"I hear some of my colleagues say that
leadership is a relatively young domain of study or learning. I disagree. It
is as old as mankind itself (...). But the legacy from our ancestors is, sadly
enough, rather futile; we repeat our mistakes time and over again."
(in open conversations, and
informal Q&A's, with executives and public officials in Brussels -- March
to June 2005)
"(...)
Many resources that we delve, mine, log, transform... are inappropriately
called resources - they are non-renewable since they cannot resource
themselves by themselves. The true 'resources' better be coined 'renewables'.
The other ones we should perhaps call 'unreplacables'. On the subject of
forestry, for instance, the speed at which trees are felled in some regions of
the world generates nothing more than barren fields. The fact that some of
those newly created fields are transformed into areas of intensive agriculture
and production of commodities for mass export, causes a competitive imbalance
in another part of the world where a similar commodity is produced. One man's
gain is often another man's loss (...) on a worldwide scale these
revenue-shifts are dramatic, leaving far too many people uprooted, and they
occur increasingly faster" (in a meeting held in February 2006 with
senior corporate leaders, and officials from the European Union)
"My major work of
art?.. It is found in another field, where many people are involved during the
work, the field is leadership, the art of leadership. That one work takes a
lifetime to make, it is a shared one, with all the people, the artists, that
contribute to it. It is dynamic, vibrant, it cannot be affixed onto a wall. It
is the Thierry
Graduate School of Leadership
." (in an interview for a French classical arts magazine, in relation to his
paintings -- April 2006)
"Individuals, organisations, life
in general, go through cycles of adjustment, sometimes caused by external
events - trigger events. One should seize those moments as an
opportunity for rejuvenation, the process by which one accelerates the
readiness for "things to come", say for the next decade."
(in an open conversation with government
officials, in relation to the upcoming structural change of the school
-- May 2009)
"Repairing
on old object is like mending an organisational problem (...) Most often the
key to success resides within. On deciphering how the object, how the
organisation, was built, how it has acquired its present shape, the human
element comes to the forefront (...) initial aims and goals, and actual
outcomes, become overwhelmingly obvious -- if time is given to such a process.
Nowadays, in crisis-prone environments, solving internal challenges with
external solutions is faster, more convenient, or cheaper. But I doubt these
"quick fixes" would really last. Can you replace a piece of brass by
a steel equivalent, seemingly as strong, unless you really know all of the
reasons why the brass one was used at the very basis? (...)" (with
senior staff of a major museum, re. TV broadcast tribute of Jean-Pierre's art
hobbies - Oct. 2009).
"It grieves me
to witness that a person experiences a need or strange pride in finding something of
particular use, on doing research about
authentic leadership concept, to somewhat transmogriphy
the model, by classifying other people's
work as being pseudo-authentic, worse even: that the author (of the
blog) compiles dissimilar, fragmented, incomplete, and unverified
information from various sources into a self-arranged
composite befitting the author's agenda or purpose of establishing an
alleged truth (...).
Such way of doing is, least to say, very unprofessional, irresponsible,
and damaging (...) That the author (of the blogs) therewith alludes
or believes to have proven that someone or something therefore not meets
the description of authentic leadership, and then connects it with,
for instance, the recognition of our school or programmes, has many
persons raising serious questions about the blog's author
(...)" (to queries from colleagues in other
institutions, in relation to a former student who posted several libellous
blogs on the internet - Dec. 2009).
"I
will support the renaissance of Haiti, in
the same way I undertook it five years ago after the devastation caused by the southeast
Asia tsunam : countless and pro bono hours and resources invested during
several years in providing the educational means for the grooming of new
generations of local leaders. (...) I'm extremely happy to report that our
Haitian faculty member, and student, have both survived the earthquake
(...)" (to United Nations staff, re.
earthquake Jan. 2010).
Other
(pre-2004)
interviews/docs.:
--
Naît-on leader ou le
devient-on ? (in French)
--
The Mind of a Leader (courtesy
AACSB)
--
Leadership
sous 0°
(courtesy Wharton School)
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