“Leadership in a world of constant change”: interview
“When uncertainty sets in, some leaders transform doubt into momentum. However, their success is never a solitary affair: it depends on the collective energy of the teams that follow them,” note Jacques ANGOT (IÉSEG) and Isabelle DEPREZ (expert in human transformation and leadership), the authors of a new book* (published in French).
12/10/2025
5 min
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Their publication offers seven key actions to help managers, coaches, and entrepreneurs understand, step by step, how the “leader-follower” tandem functions and evolves. In this interview, they explain their motivations for writing this leadership book and some of the key takeaways…
Can you briefly explain why you decided to write this book? And who is it aimed at?
JA & ID: We wrote this book because uncertainty is no longer a temporary phenomenon: it has become the backdrop for all collective/teamwork. Leaders and managers alike find themselves navigating environments where key reference points are shifting, teams are under pressure, and traditional—often ‘heroized’ —leadership models no longer work. In this context, we wanted to offer a deeply human, accessible, and realistic book that helps working professionals find ways to move forward when everything around them seems ‘stuck’.
This book expresses a strong conviction that runs through our work as coaches, trainers, and teachers: ‘a leader never transforms alone’. When uncertainty sets in, the way ‘followers’—employees, colleagues, partners, citizens—engage, interpret, challenge, or develop momentum becomes central. Leadership is a relationship, an exchange, a shared movement.
We therefore wanted to write a book aimed at all those people with collective responsibility—formal or otherwise: executives, managers, coaches, entrepreneurs, association leaders, teachers… but also those who want to understand how to contribute in other ways, without waiting for “the boss” to find all the solutions. The book offers a mirrored perspective. For each chapter, we propose one story, and two angles of analysis—from leaders on one side, and followers on the other. It is this dual approach that makes it a useful and innovative guide.
In summary, our book is for those who want to:
• Better understand what is at stake in human relationships in times of uncertainty,
• Motivate their teams in different ways,
• Pick up on weak signals and adjust their approach,
• Transform their own discomfort into a positive resource,
• And generate powerful collective energies.
The book is not a manual of recipes or theory: it looks to accompany those people who want to take action in changing contexts without losing their consistency or their humanity.
What are the key lessons from this book for managers, coaches, or entrepreneurs who want to turn uncertainty into positive momentum?
We highlight seven major lessons, each illustrated with an example. These lessons answer the same question: what does a leader do, and what do their followers do, to turn a moment of instability into a positive transformation?
Here are the key points:
Leaders don’t provide certainty, they provide consistency.
In times of uncertainty and chaos, leaders need to be present for their teams: to have the ability to clarify what matters, what is non-negotiable, what remains possible. Teams are not looking for perfect answers: they are looking for psychological direction.
The message matters as much as the action.
The way a leader formulates their intention—its clarity, empathy, symbolism, and rhythm—determines buy-in. A good message is not an inspiring speech: it is one that makes action simple and desirable.
Followers are not passive executors: they are active participants.
Followers transform, and sometimes challenge—and it is this movement that gives a team its strength. Understanding their expectations, doubts, and motivations is essential.
Collective energy is built through micro-gestures.
Team rituals, subtle signals, signs of attention… It is these small, visible acts that give teams breathing space and get them moving.
Discomfort can become a lever for transformation.
Effective leaders do not seek to eliminate discomfort: they use it as raw material to regulate, learn, and open up new possibilities for action.
Stability whilst moving forward is a key asset.
This means maintaining a stable presence while remaining flexible and being able to adjust without collapsing. A leader who embodies this stability helps teams hold on, even during the storm.
Collective/team mobilization is based on trust, not individual performance.
In times of uncertainty, teams need an environment where they can admit what they don’t know, propose alternatives, make mistakes, test, and adjust. The leader creates this psychological space, and followers actively use it.
To summarize, to transform uncertainty into momentum, leaders must accept that they cannot control everything, be present rather than control, and foster shared responsibility. Followers, meanwhile, become key drivers of stability, commitment, and creativity.
Throughout the book, you draw on real and fictional stories. Why? And how did you choose them?
We chose to include stories because they embody what concepts can never fully convey: tension, courage, fear, creativity, the tiny gestures that change everything, cultural misunderstandings, the places where leadership really comes into play. A story depicts humans with their strengths, limitations, intuitions, and contradictions. That’s what makes learning come alive.
We selected stories based on three criteria:
1: Their ability to reveal a universal leadership mechanism.
• Shackleton illustrates emotional consistency.
• Jacinda Ardern shows how to “be present” in times of crisis.
• Nicolas Chabanne reveals the power of the right message and citizen mobilization.
• Serbian movements show the strength of weak signals and emerging mobilizations.
• Game of Thrones reveals the symbolic and cultural dynamics between leaders and followers.
2: Their complementarity.
We wanted very different stories: extreme explorations, political crises, citizen movements, public governance, fiction… This diversity helps us understand that human dynamics play out everywhere, regardless of context.
3: Their power of projection.
A good story allows the reader to say to themselves:
“Ah, that’s exactly what I’m experiencing with my team.”
“That’s what I do without realizing it.”
“That’s the disconnect I can’t quite put my finger on.”
Our ambition was not to tell stories for entertainment, but to choose powerful material to unfold leadership from within, where everything happens; in relationships, in micro-choices, in the subtle shifts between leaders and followers.
In this sense, each story is a gateway to a deeper understanding of what, in times of chaos, can transform doubt into collective momentum.
This is an English translation of an interview originally published in French.
New book published in French
*Discover their book, “Leadership dans un monde de changement permanent: Avancer sans carte, ensemble” (‘“Leadership in a World of Constant Change: Moving Forward Without a Map, Together) which is available in French.
Isabelle DEPREZ is a public speaker, author, and executive coach. Ranked among the top 8 LinkedIn Influencers on the topic of work (2018) in France, she is widely recognized for her expertise in two areas: leadership and diversity & feminization in business.
Director of the Incubator and Professor of Practice, Jacques ANGOT is a trainer and coach working with companies undergoing transformation and transition. As an individual and team coach, he helps companies turn their employees into agents of change and create value in a constantly changing world.
