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Foreword to the English edition

“Your goal as a lead should be to become redundant”, – in fact to build such a strong team that they don’t even need you anymore. You will tell me: isn’t it a bit extreme to associate leadership with redundancy? How can a leader aim to be redundant?

It is quite a shift from the image you had in your head growing up when you overheard your parents talking about their work; their “boss” or “manager” certainly made sure they were visible and controlled their area of responsibility. This has been and to some extent still is the reality in most organisations, especially in the public sector.

Nowadays, more and more organisations are discouraging titles like “head of”, “director of” in favour of role descriptions such as “team lead”. This is definitely a step in the right direction because that’s what the role is supposed to be all about: the team.

So how should we go about leading then? At trivago, we assess leadership capability using four attributes: 1. business driven, 2. empowering, 3. strategic, and 4. team building.

“Empowering” is a word that is difficult to translate into other languages, yet it perfectly illustrates my vision of leadership. Being an empowering lead involves exposing your team to new experiences, topics, challenges, and people. The more you are exposed in this way, the more equipped you are to understand the bigger picture, to connect the dots and therefore to add greater value to your role.

So your role as a lead is to provide your team with this exposure; to give them the context, provide the tools, connect them to the right people so that the team can understand the challenges it faces and consider solutions creatively.

Whether you are aspiring to become a lead, are a lead in the making or have been leading for some time, this book will enable you to see the connection between business results and empowerment. It will provide you with an understanding of what good and fair management actually is and, last but not least, will give you examples of practices to put in place in your organisation so you can stop ruling and start leading.

Enjoy reading!

January 2021 Lucie Ledoyen