Impact Leadership by Joël Tronchon

Interview with Joël TRONCHON, Sustainable Development Director Europe at L'Oréal, by Anne-Laure PAMS, Director of Leadership Development and Executive Coach at Grant Alexander.

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What is your definition of an Impact Leader?

“An impact leader is a leader who cares about a triple impact, in short, the consequences of his decisions. First of all in terms of the environment, but not only carbon. There are also resources, water, biodiversity. Then, there are the impacts that he must be aware of on the social side, and therefore on internal teams, on ethical decisions, on decisions to share value; and outside the company, in particular, what positive impact it can have on an ecosystem of associations, for example, NGOs. And then, the last important impact is the economic one, since all this must also be done with an economic equation that generates value for the company to be sustainable.”

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What are the characteristics, in terms of postures and skills, of impact leaders?

“What is common to all impact leaders is the alignment or coherence that impact leaders have between their personal value, a base of values that they have developed and their actions. That is, after all, the fundamental trait.

After that, there is a second skill that they share, it is knowing how to work in an ecosystem, knowing how to work in partnership with different professions, and breaking silos. That, too, is one of the things that are extremely common among impact leaders.”

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What promotes the emergence of leadership with impact?

“Impact leadership is emerging in organizations where, of course, there is a culture, in quotation marks, benevolent, that facilitates the emergence of these ideas or approaches. Of course, in cultures where managers and shareholders — I want to say this, because there must be both — are open to these topics, it certainly facilitates the emergence of an impact culture and leaders.

But there are also impact leaders who, themselves, with their beliefs and the help of the external ecosystem, who will bring these issues into the company and move management committees and shareholders. So it works both ways. Nor should you expect everything from shareholders or from the General Management; you must also propose approaches yourself. So there's a mix of top-down and bottom-up that you absolutely have to have.”

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Any advice for those who want to assert themselves as leaders with a positive impact?

“I would say that, already, you have to choose the right angle in relation to your own legitimacy of skills. Clearly, impact leaders do not necessarily all need to be called “managers” or “sustainable development or CSR directors”. Clearly, in each of the professions, you can make an impact. So, my advice is rather to say to yourself: “In my current job, how can I manage to make a social or environmental impact, within a job that I know very well, and for which, moreover, I have legitimacy.”