Lubna Alli

Today the handsome Francesco paid another visit to our class. This time, instead of speaking about leadership with regards to the contradas, he spoke to us about leadership within the university. As the newly elected Rettore for the University of Siena, Francesco spoke about the need for collaborators in order to successfully achieve his goals. One of the main personal strengths that he so humbly said he had was that he was a good listener and that he generally got along well with other people. As a good leader, similar to Romulus from Rome, the ability to be a people-oriented leader is a good skill to have. Without happy and motivated employees, results will not be as excellent. This is because employees need an incentive to motivate them and make them feel appreciated.

I think its quite interesting that you can be both a people-oriented leader and a task-oriented leader. I say this because I clearly remember Francesco identifying himself as a task-oriented leader, even though he also identifies one of his strengths as being good with people. What this suggests is that balance is key in making a good leader. As the saying goes, too much of one thing is good for nothing. Francesco also states that he is a good leader because he is able to be enthusiastic and remain uninfluenced by anything outside the university (such as politics or any other outside institutions or groups of people).

These strengths or attributes mentioned above could both hurt and harm Francesco when it comes to situations involving collaboration. They will work in Francesco’s benefit because he always has an eager, positive and ready-to-please attitude. Likewise, he is strong-minded while still remaining attentive (exactly what defines a good listener). These same qualities can also pass for weaknesses because sometimes good listeners get too emotionally invested, something that he, himself acknowledged as a weakness of his. Getting too emotionally invested as a leader is problematic because it takes away from your rational decision making skills when you end up making decisions with the heart. This may have a negative effect on technical things such as budgeting or student services. Another skill that may work against his favour when it comes to collaboration is being strong-minded and choosing to not be influenced by outside sources. This may be a bad thing because others may have good ideas that the University could adopt in order to make improvements. Additionally, being aware of current world and political events is also important so that members of the university who are affected by a specific issue are attended to.

Francesco carefully recited the 4 strategic themes he hopes to achieve during his presidency. They are as follows: a) student services, b) internationalization c) research, and d) positioning. These are all very important things required to run a successful university. They also face the possibility of being jeopardized if Francesco makes the fault of choosing the wrong collaborators for his team. In order to pick well, seeing that Francesco is a task-oriented leader, he should be on the hunt for collaborators with qualities that include being hardworking, punctual, persistent, and direct. Aside from this, he should also diversify and pick a few collaborators that are different from his leadership style. Hence, he should also be on the lookout for people-oriented leaders who are empathetic, creative and thoughtful. With this mix, there is no doubt in my mind that Francesco will achieve his 4 strategic themes during his presidency.

Wishing him well,

Lubna