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1 in 2007, air canada celebrated its seventieth anniversary. A notable achievement , if we think of the “Québécair, Transworld, Northeast, Eastern, Western, pis Pan American” that Robert Charlebois rolled off his tongue in the 1960s song Lindbergh, and that have all since disappeared. Since its plucky beginnings in 1937 as TransCanada Airlines (tca), this Canadian aviation company has evolved into one of the rare enterprises of its kind to have endured for more than seven decades, against all odds. If its aircraft have crossed oceans, skies and continents for such a long period of time, it means that its management was consistently successful in adapting to the technological, social and financial changes that helped define the twentieth century. Pierre Jeanniot was ceo of Air Canada for six years, from 1984 to 1990, after having joined the company as a humble technician in 1955. At a very young age, he too had crossed oceans, skies and continents, until his mother decided to settle in Canada,whereheaccompaniedherinhisearlyadolescence.Attheageoften,Pierre Jeanniot already knew the cities of Montpellier, Marseilles, Addis Ababa, Djibouti, Milan, Rome and Paris, not to mention the small family village of Lombard. The legacy of the Second World War’s military conflicts, and their repercussions , would remain with him always. Reflecting upon them, and on military history in a wider sense, he learned to appreciate the vital importance of a winning strategy. At the age of fourteen he landed in Montreal, one city among others, but the one that he would make his own. An involuntary globetrotter, he followed in the wake of his parents, and then just his mother, who twice married and twice divorced his father. He traveled by train, by air, on foot, or by boat, as fate—and his family’s displacements—decreed. After tempestuous years at Air Canada, which were briefly interrupted when he took time off to play a vital role, for reasons dear to his heart, in the founding of the Université du Québec at the end of the 1960s, Pierre Jeanniot became director general of iata, the International Air Transport Association. Having acceded to the highest of managerial ranks in the global aviation sector, he found himself in a strategic position during the tragic events of September 11, 2001, and had to cope with the outcome. Looking back on his remarkable story, we see that Pierre Jeanniot as a leader thrived on change, and that for him to embrace change was to Who Is Pierre Jeanniot? introduction Taking Aviation to New Heights 2 embrace life, to live it fully and to achieve success. “What are we going to change this year?” he used to say to his colleagues when they showed signs of resting, even for a moment, on their laurels. At the Pierre Péladeau Leadership Chair, we have always maintained that leadership comes from within, and that it is intimately associated with a desire for change. We believe that every leader harbours a strong drive that leads him or her, one day, “with some devil egging him on,” to quote Jean de la Fontaine, to become fully conscious of this and to accept the consequences. Why do some people dare to transform this appetite for change into action? How is this desire born? Why does it manifest itself in some individuals and not in others? How, once it is lodged in the heart, does it come to express itself? Why does it take one form rather than another? Why does it resonate in one environment and elicit no response elsewhere? Why can some people find in their environment the foothold they seek to propel them into action? The answer is not simple; it is manifold, because it is at the heart of our societies and of human nature. Pierre Jeanniot’s career path shows this clearly. Why was he not beaten down by the trials he had to face when he was very young? Why, once he was a manager, did he decide to act according to his own lights, and to prevail, shrewdly and intelligently, over the resistance he faced, in full cognizance of the explosive political situations with which he had to contend, especially during the Gens de l’air protests of the 1970s, the ‘Airbus affair,’ or the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001? At the core of leadership there is a mystery, which is what draws us to any in-depth study of a leader’s life. In the course of the many interviews...

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