The Contradictions of Inclusive Leadership: The Case of Elisabetta Franchi

In addition to reaching business goals, leaders should have a moral obligation toward the community they serve. Thus their words can never be spoken by chance, nor can they be considered a gaffe to be corrected the next day.

Emblematic from this standpoint is the speech given on May 4 by Elisabetta Franchi, a successful entrepreneur and Knight of the Republic.

In the collective imagination, women are expected to play a “feminine” role, based on values and conduct of listening, empathy, and inclusion, and thus consistent with the category to which they belong. This viewpoint is reflected in the recent statements by the President of the Constitutional Court, Giuliano Amato: “What is happening with the Russia-Ukraine conflict is pure madness. I am convinced that if there were more women heads of government, we would not see madness such as this.”[1]

This approach, the result of an essentialist vision of male and female (based on stereotypes, we expect that women are more feminine and men more masculine), prevents us from observing, for example, that Margaret Thatcher went to war with Argentina due to the invasion of the Falkland Islands,[2] and in a more recent example, that Elisabetta Franchi made statements that were not very “feminine” at all. Her intervention on May 4 at the theater of the PwC Italia Tower at City Life in Milan, took place in the context of a debate aimed at supporting female work in the fashion sector, and promoting the presence of women in Italian companies in the sector, in particular in management roles. Franchi used her own history as a “self-made woman” as a model and stimulus for female entrepreneurship, to that point that last June she was named a Knight of the Order of Merit of the Republic.[3] Her words, that have gone viral,[4] were striking for two reasons: because of her role, and due to the context in which they were pronounced.

The first point of reflection is that Elisabetta Franchi has a position of leadership in both the company and the labor market. Some have commented that Franchi simply said what many people think and say. So why criticize her? Leaders are not neutral, but due to their role they have the responsibility to construct a business and managerial culture, both facilitating change through the proposal of new values, and reaffirming the fundamental values of a certain status quo. Thus, a leader’s words can never be spoken by chance or be considered a gaffe to be corrected the next day.[5] In addition to reaching business goals, leaders should have a moral obligation toward the community they serve, because they would not exist without it. The moral standing of a leader derives from the ability to recognize and reflect on their values and convictions, integrating them into their identity. Only this internal path of growth can allow a leader to be authentic and credible. In her speech Elisabetta Franchi may have been guilty of a lack of awareness (a bit like what happened to Guido Barilla[6]), speaking without having thought enough about the issue. Even if assume she was in good faith, the reaction of the community indicates that lack of awareness cannot be considered an attribute of a leader, because their words are never neutral or lacking in effect. If, on the other hand, Elisabetta’s words were spoken entirely consciously, the values she proposed would have an ancient flavor, one of restoration. This is why the attack in her regard was ferocious. She proposed a Fordist work culture, linked to physical presence, and total work; she proposed a model of a neutral worker, without social connotations, able to provide the best contribution and thus repay the effort and generosity of the entrepreneur. An idea of work that no longer responds to the needs and values of many workers today; a vision of work that has been amply superseded by both the results of research in the field of management, and the emergence of new organizational models based on space-time flexibility and leadership aimed at creating trust, participation, and responsibility towards the goal, independent of the calculation of the hours worked.

The phenomenon of the “Great Resignation”[7] teaches us that workers have in fact changed the hierarchy of their values and the way they think of life and work and what they expect from both. Financial reasons, despite being important, are giving way to emotional, motivational, and social reasons: workers want to feel appreciated and not like part of a transaction; they want to be considered people, not resources, profiles, or algorithms. They want an organization that cares for relationships and takes people’s mental and physical wellbeing to heart; an organization that does not discriminate but includes and manages each worker fairly and justly.

The second point for reflection regards the context in which Franchi’s communication took place: a public conference on the gender gap, i.e. the exclusion of women from the labor market. To address this theme in a dignified manner and avoid the prevailing simplistic and unproductive rhetoric, we need more mature reflection, and not the type of clichés and prejudice we heard. In a speech, it is important to accept diverse positions on a subject, such as that of gender equity, where data does not leave doubt regarding objectivity,[8] if substantiated and examined carefully. Appealing to motherhood and attributing lower effort to female workers who have this role is not a justified argument. The most serious flaw in the reasoning presented by Franchi is that she did not speak of parenthood in a complete way. Parenthood regards not only fathers in heterosexual couples, those that are recognized by the system culture today, but the assumption of a role of care by those who, apart from their sexual orientation or gender identity, wish to take responsibility for raising and educating a child. This is a theme of social responsibility that every company should encourage and preserve, if nothing else because our country has one of the lowest birthrates in the world.[9]

Lastly, a final consideration regards the absence of an opposing view during the debate. Perhaps it was difficult to intervene in the discussion without creating an argument, but was it not desirable to express dissent in a civil tone? The silence of the Minister for Equal Opportunities, who was seated at the table, was quite perplexing.[10]