“Caring” in order to do and grow better
A recently published book summarises a different approach to the reality we are all facing
Resilience and complexity, but also care for others, without losing sight of goals and targets (corporate ones included) to be met. This is the essence of the difficult balance required to sustain production organisations, social systems, families and also individual life. The kind of balance that Valeria Cantoni Mamiani discusses in her latest book, Leadership di cura. Dal controllo alle relazioni (Caring leadership. From control to relationships), recently published with a great foreword by Pierluigi Celli who, while earnestly stating not to always be in agreement with the author, finds this work “one of the most well-reasoned and inwardly engaging attempts to untangle, going beyond current trends, the jumble of perceptions and, often, stereotypes that characterises management literature and practice.”
The book begins with a statement: as well as marking an era of resilience, 2020 has also seen the rise of a new awareness, that of vulnerability considered as a universal condition, a standpoint from which we can restart and reconceive society, organisations, employment, power and its hierarchies. The author calls for a particular requirement: those in power must create a new range of values that will make organisations sustainable for everyone.
The book then demonstrates why and how nowadays we could practise a new kind of caring leadership, mindful, present, engaging and able to listen. A key feature is the ability to care for people while giving them sufficient space to be autonomous: the new leadership favours collaboration rather than competition and focuses on the interpretation of real needs, in such a way that their definition will include the recipients of the organisation’s beneficial aims.
Hence, according to Valeria Cantoni Mamiani, it will be possible to move beyond concepts that juxtapose authoritative paternalism and nurturing maternalism in order to give space to an attitude characterised by the ability to listen, thus shifting from a control culture to one where relationships flourish.
Thus, readers are offered a framing of the “context in which we live”, followed by an analysis of needs and feelings that delineates the guidelines of a culture focused on “care practices” and thus to the definition of a “new kind of authoritativeness”.
Celli is right: we are certainly not obliged to agree with everything that the book asserts, but we should definitively read it, to realise what a precious guide it is for reconceiving consolidated organisational behaviours and models that, due to the their vainglorious fatuity, have now become obsolete.
Leadership di cura. Dal controllo alle relazioni (Caring leadership. From control to relationships)
Valeria Cantoni Mamiani
Vita e Pensiero, 2021


A recently published book summarises a different approach to the reality we are all facing
Resilience and complexity, but also care for others, without losing sight of goals and targets (corporate ones included) to be met. This is the essence of the difficult balance required to sustain production organisations, social systems, families and also individual life. The kind of balance that Valeria Cantoni Mamiani discusses in her latest book, Leadership di cura. Dal controllo alle relazioni (Caring leadership. From control to relationships), recently published with a great foreword by Pierluigi Celli who, while earnestly stating not to always be in agreement with the author, finds this work “one of the most well-reasoned and inwardly engaging attempts to untangle, going beyond current trends, the jumble of perceptions and, often, stereotypes that characterises management literature and practice.”
The book begins with a statement: as well as marking an era of resilience, 2020 has also seen the rise of a new awareness, that of vulnerability considered as a universal condition, a standpoint from which we can restart and reconceive society, organisations, employment, power and its hierarchies. The author calls for a particular requirement: those in power must create a new range of values that will make organisations sustainable for everyone.
The book then demonstrates why and how nowadays we could practise a new kind of caring leadership, mindful, present, engaging and able to listen. A key feature is the ability to care for people while giving them sufficient space to be autonomous: the new leadership favours collaboration rather than competition and focuses on the interpretation of real needs, in such a way that their definition will include the recipients of the organisation’s beneficial aims.
Hence, according to Valeria Cantoni Mamiani, it will be possible to move beyond concepts that juxtapose authoritative paternalism and nurturing maternalism in order to give space to an attitude characterised by the ability to listen, thus shifting from a control culture to one where relationships flourish.
Thus, readers are offered a framing of the “context in which we live”, followed by an analysis of needs and feelings that delineates the guidelines of a culture focused on “care practices” and thus to the definition of a “new kind of authoritativeness”.
Celli is right: we are certainly not obliged to agree with everything that the book asserts, but we should definitively read it, to realise what a precious guide it is for reconceiving consolidated organisational behaviours and models that, due to the their vainglorious fatuity, have now become obsolete.
Leadership di cura. Dal controllo alle relazioni (Caring leadership. From control to relationships)
Valeria Cantoni Mamiani
Vita e Pensiero, 2021