Christine Lagarde

Lawyer, French Politician, President of European Central Bank

About The Leader

Christine Lagarde is a visionary and dedicated leader who is known to have navigated her teams and organizations through tough issues and, with hard work, has reached great heights

Christine Lagarde is a French politician and lawyer who is the current President of the European Central Bank, a position she has held since November 1, 2019. Prior to this appointment and between July 2011 and September 2019, she was the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Lagarde previously held various senior ministerial posts in the French government: Minister of Foreign Trade (2005–2007), Minister of Agriculture and Fishing (2007), and Minister of the Economy, Finance and Industry (2007–2011).
Lagarde was the first woman to become finance minister of a G8 economy and is the first woman to head both the ECB and the IMF. A noted antitrust and labor lawyer, Lagarde was the first female chair of the prestigious international law firm Baker & McKenzie between 1999 and 2004. In November of 2009, the Financial Times ranked her the best finance minister in the Eurozone.
In 2019 and again in 2020, Forbes ranked her number two on its World's 100 Most Powerful Women list.

Her Purpose

Lagarde's purpose was to always challenge the status quo and to take up challenging problems and address them with energy and attention.

In 1981, Lagarde joined the law firm Baker & McKenzie in Paris and was promoted to partner in 1987. She was made chairman of the executive committee in 1999 (reelected 2002) and moved to Chicago. After helping the law firm increase its profits significantly, Lagarde returned to France in June 2005 to join the government as trade minister before becoming minister for agriculture and fisheries in 2007. Later as trade minister, she encouraged foreign investment in France. She promoted opening new markets for French products, particularly in the realm of technology exports. In June 2007, Lagarde became finance minister.

In June 2011 Lagarde was appointed managing director and chairman of the board of the IMF. Her major challenge during this period involved dealing with the Greek debt crisis. Lagarde took an a second term at the IMF in 2016. In September 2019, she moved on to become the president of the European Central Bank.

Case for Change

Most women are given hard and difficult problems to solve for. These problems are hard and require hard work

Growth Gap

In constantly changing times, leaders need to keep themselves updated with the most recent needs to be able to lead effectively

Investment Portfolio

Women leaders need to constantly keep learning and growing to be able to equip themselves to solve these problems

Her Leadership Qualities

Lagarde was a team player and believed in leading with empathy, compassion and ensured that every decision she made was well aligned with her team

Pick Your Fights

Christine Lagarde believed that often when people fail they hang onto their failures for too long. She believes that people need to move on fast to better things in life. Twice in her life, she had major setbacks. Once when she was rejected admit by her school for performance.

Key Actions

When she first interviewed with a law firm in Paris, the managing partner made a sexist remark about women working at the law firm
Lagarde without any questions walked out and joined another law firm which she went on to lead

Leadership Behaviors

Font hang on to your mistakes
Go bold and big

Lesson Learned

Life is unpredictable with different situations
Whenever you make mistake don't cling to it

Be Focused

Lagarde believes that most women are given an opportunity to solve tough challenges. Whether at the IMF, Baker & McKenzie, or as the Finance minister during the 2008 financial crisis Lagarde was responsible for making some tough decisions which she overcame because of her dedication.

Key Actions

Lagarde recollects a message from a family whom she stayed with in the US who said "Dont let the bastards get you"
While it sounds like an abuse, she was quick to clarify that it was all about not giving up
She feels women are often put in difficult situations to be able to drive and navigate through the turbulence

Leadership Behaviors

Back your decisions with hard work and dedication
Never give up!
Stay focused

Lesson Learned

"Its not been easy.. whether at Baker Huges, IMF or at the Government of France"

She has learned to navigate her way through the challenges and drive growth
She learned to never give up and stay focused on her goals to achieve great results

Align Your Team

Lagarde believes that for leaders it is important to be team players and put the emotions and feelings of the team at the forefront. It is important for leaders to lead with empathy to ensure that the team gets aligned to the vision

Key Actions

When she was the managing director at Baker & McKenzie she wanted to bring about an organizational change that would reduce the risk in the organization
20 Partners decided to not vote in the favor of the legislation
Being the Managing partner she could have exercised her right to implement the changes but she refrained from pushing the law through and instead worked for a year to convince all the partners who had refused the change

Leadership Behaviors

Teamwork & Collaboration
Empathy & Compassion
Honesty & Justice
Fairness

Lesson Learned

“We failed to convince you all and we are going to spend the next year convincing you all”.

Being a leader is not about exercising powers but using your persuasive best to convince your team and align them to your vision
A great leader is able to align her/his vision with the team goals and communicate to create strong alignment

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