Information technology and the Internet have allowed a greater dissemination of knowledge after the second wave of globalisation. The development of educational systems and training programmes has also helped increase the number of qualified graduates and potential leaders. Executives are therefore building a new world of business in which competitiveness has reached a peak and today, young managers are more prepared, with higher skills than in the past. Moreover, they can be found all around the globe due to the fact that the growth of certain countries has brought about an unexpected parity in terms of quality and cost, whereas not so long ago Europe and America were the main suppliers of high-level performance management. This context creates a profile of young business workers whose competence and talent are gained during their years of research and study.

However, experience shows that leading a company is more than just applying theoretical knowledge or academic success. Running an organisation requires years of practice and professionalism that cannot be taught – it is by failing and succeeding that mature leaders develop their careers. Building leadership also means establishing a net of influential relationships among leaders and followers. This is possible after a long period of work and success in the sector. From this perspective, leaders have been carrying out organisations’ objectives all the time and they are usually fully developed, mature executives capable of reading the market and its needs due to their professional experience.

“Leadership involves influence, it occurs among people, those people intentionally desire significant changes, and the changes reflect purposes shared by leaders and followers”. According to this definition, by Richard L. Daft, professor of Management at the Owen Graduate School of Management, Vanderbilt University, influence and change are the key ingredients for creating leaders, and both of them are brought about by qualities linked to experience and innovation. Yet people in organisations around the world are feeling the impact of trends such as e-business, telecommuting, virtual teams or outsourcing that are undoubtedly changing the world of business and the concept of leadership as a result.

Paul Gauci, Group HR Executive at Bank of Valletta, has been working for over 30 years in the sector – 20 of them as leader – and he thinks that experience and innovation are both vital to develop a leader’s profile: “Experience helps you take rational decisions and hold the emotional side in terms of peoples’ behaviour and actions. It enables you to communicate, motivate and lead more effectively”. From his point of view, innovation is critical “because if you do not innovate, you remain in the status quo and it does not bring success. Leaders should seek to create and initiate innovative changes to achieve organisational development and business results”, he says.

In this regard, Computime HR Manager Sandra Azzopardi says: “Innovation is necessary in terms of finding the right solution for any problem that you might face”. She has been working for three years as a manager and knows the importance of experience in building the leader spirit. “Experience is important but it is not everything because you also have to go through the learning process of acquiring skills.”

The unpredictable environment of this century in terms of political and economical difficulties has turned attention on to how leaders can create learning organisations in which each person is intimately involved in identifying and solving problems so that the organisation can grow and change to meet new challenges. There is no recipe for this other than combining the experience gained by mature business leaders with the innovation brought about by young executives.

Angel Luis Martinez Cantera is a Spanish journalist at the Foundation for Human Resources Development