REFLECTIONS ON CHARACTER AND LEADERSHIP

THE NEW EUROPEAN BUSINESS LEADER 275

for new European organizational leaders is analogous to that of being a
‘ good - enough ’ caregiver in a child - rearing situation. Leaders need to
provide what psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott refer red to as ‘ transitional
space ’ (Winnicott, 1975 ) (see p. 232).
So, how can organizational leaders create such an environment?
Some suggestions are:

• increasing tolerance for cultural diversity in organizations and
  societies;


• being prepared to give up the not - invented - here approach;


• adopting new and progressive industrial relations;


• preparing for constant learning, unlearning, and relearning; and


• developing a tolerance for ambiguity.

Some degree of confusion when operating in a new environment is
inevitable and, in fact, is fi ne, as long as confusion time (think of it as
play time) is spent constructively and creatively.
Organizational leaders who make room for the creation of confusion
time will be at a great advantage because their employees will be better
prepared to survive in a world of global competition, have the ability to
deal with a high level of diversity, and be ready for future challenges.
Not all European leaders, however, will be able to create and maintain
such space in their organizations. Those who want to be effective in this
new world of work will have to make sure that the right conditions exist
for playfulness and creativity, as well as the provision of safety for doing
new and unusual things.
Claiming a European identity for an organization, its goods and
services, its leadership style and practices, and disseminating this identity
to the outside world is a challenging task and cannot be accomplished
in one step. Time is needed to experiment and play with the develop-
ment of a European identity and its presentation to the outside world,
and leaders need to be helped to play their parenting role.
I will now briefl y consider how leaders who will do this can be
created.

The making of the European leader

It goes without saying that a leader ’ s job will be made much easier if he
or she speaks more than one European language, comes from a mixed -
culture family, or has spent signifi cant time living outside his or her
country of origin. However, there are other things a leader can do