2 BECOMING BILINGUAL

Before his retirement, Alberto Weisser was the CEO of Bunge, a global food company. In his eleven years as CEO, the company grew by a factor of ten. Between the time it went public in 2001 and the time of Alberto’s retirement in 2013, the stock price increased fivefold.

Alberto’s story would appear to be a saga of uninterrupted success. It was not. In fact, his first year as CEO was one of the most difficult of his life.

Alberto’s career was in the field of finance. He was a master of the conventional economic perspective, and that mastery carried him up the corporate ladder. He believed that an organization is a hierarchy of authority. The person at the top gives orders, and the people below follow them. If there is resistance, the CEO has to be tough. Alberto was tough; but he still sensed that he was failing. As he applied his conventional ideas of hierarchy, authority, and toughness, the organization did not move forward. Looking back, Alberto states, “I was overwhelmed and I was scared.”

We tend to think of CEOs as people in positions of power who are immune to being “scared.” Yet, the role of a leader is to face uncertainty and to engage unique challenges. This often means learning how to do what we do not know how to do, with the threat of failure always lurking. Scenarios like these often bring feelings of isolation and fear.