Forbes: 5 Lasting Leadership Lessons From Italy

1. Know how to combine beauty with function

“A big part of Italian culture revolves around creativity, taste, history and the ability to combine beauty with function,” says Riccardo Ocleppo, founder and CEO of social learning platform Docsity. “These traits shape a way of thinking that can be very powerful in leadership. Italy has a long tradition of building products, brands and institutions that are both technically strong and emotionally meaningful. Italian leaders often understand that people do not connect only with efficiency; they connect with identity, trust, quality and purpose.”

There can be a downside to prioritizing creativity and taste, Ocleppo acknowledges. “Italian leaders can sometimes be too attached to craftsmanship, personal relationships or family-business dynamics,” he says, “which slows down difficult decision-making, professional management, internationalization and scalability.” Nevertheless, he believes that a new generation of Italian founders and managers is becoming more international and data-driven, seeing the opportunity to combine Italian creativity and distinctiveness with a more scalable, global mindset.

Ocleppo cites confectionary manufacturer Ferrero as a good example of an Italian company that turned a brilliant product idea into a global success story. He says that Nutella, the hazelnut and cocoa spread, is an extraordinary example of an evergreen product: “simple, recognizable, emotionally powerful and almost unchanged over time.”

2. Take a human-centered approach

In Italy, leadership is relational before it is transactional, says Francesco Profumo, rector of higher-education institution OPIT – Open Institute of Technology. “Italian leadership is built on people, context and judgement,” he says. Trust, empathy and long-term relationships are not soft skills in Italy – they are hard assets.”

Relational skills are even more important given the rise of artificial intelligence (AI), Profumo argues. “AI is redefining the nature of knowledge, work and decision-making,” he says. “In this context, leadership cannot be reduced to efficiency or control. It must rediscover its core function: giving meaning and direction. We are moving from a world where knowledge was scarce to a world where meaning is scarce. In the age of AI, the real competitive advantage is not technology; it is the quality of human thinking that guides it.”

Adriano Olivetti, the late founder of the eponymous typewriter company Olivetti, was a good illustration of the Italian approach to leadership, according to Profumo, because he understood that a company can be both technologically advanced and socially visionary. “Long before ESG became a global framework, Olivetti was already practicing it,” Profumo explains, “investing in innovation, design, education and the wellbeing of workers and communities. He understood something that is still not fully understood today: that economic value and social value are not in conflict but reinforce each other.”