{"id":2033,"date":"2026-04-22T17:52:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T14:52:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/?p=2033"},"modified":"2026-04-22T17:52:00","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T14:52:00","slug":"kyriakos-pierrakakis-leadership-means-making-decisions-in-uncertainty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/?p=2033","title":{"rendered":"Kyriakos Pierrakakis: Leadership means making decisions in uncertainty"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kyriakos Pierrakakis<\/a> discusses contemporary leadership <\/b>in an environment of uncertainty<\/b>, technological changes <\/b>and geopolitical challenges <\/b>that require quick decisions<\/b>.<\/p>\n

In the framework of an international environment that is changing with unprecedented speed<\/b>, the Minister of National Economy and Chairman of the Eurogroup<\/b>, Kyriakos Pierrakakis focuses on the new demands shaping the role of leadership<\/b>, noting that continuous technological developments, geopolitical upheavals<\/b> and increased uncertainty<\/b> necessitate a different approach to decisions<\/b>, with a focus on speed, adaptability and effective management of complex challenges<\/b>.<\/p>\n

The Stanton Chase event “Leadership in the New Era”<\/b>was addressed by Minister of National Economy and Finance Kyriakos Pierrakakis<\/b>. noting that “people of my generation want to do even more<\/b>, even faster and even better<\/b>“.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Summary of the speech by Minister of National Economy and Finance Kyriakos Pierrakakis
<\/h3>\n

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for your warm welcome and for your comments. Of course, I will not say any of this in the following sense: the issue is leadership and inviting someone who holds or is in public office to talk about leadership is a bit like inviting an athlete to talk about his sport in theory or a football player to talk about football. Our job is to do that, not talk about it. However, I have broken the rule I just set and will share some thoughts with you, based on the topic of the talk. I have a very good advertiser friend who has stuck me with a phrase that says “content is king, context is queen”: content is “king”, context is “queen”.<\/p>\n

And I think that to have any conversation about leadership in the age we are in, it is impossible not to comment on context. That is, the major global dynamics that set the context in which, whether we are talking about politicians or whether we are talking about business executives, we are called upon to make decisions that have this “leadership super-value”, this sign of transformation at their core.<\/p>\n

And I would summarize four (dynamics):<\/p>\n

The first is that we have a shift of power globally from the West to the East. The second is that we have a diffusion of power, in the traditional sense, from the state as a whole, internally within countries, to the private sector, non-governmental organizations, citizen initiatives, the individual citizen as a whole, catalyzed by the third great change, perhaps the greatest of the transformations: the digital transformation and the high speed of technological change, not only within what we would describe purely as the digital sphere, but more generally, changes that define, from the great changes in the Artificial Of course technology always changes in an exponential mechanism, but the human mind works linearly and political systems are usually sub-linear. That is, we have difficulty responding even to what we perceive. And here the huge difference is that the exponential curve moves at even greater speeds.<\/p>\n

And the fourth big change is what in politics we would describe as a violent return of geopolitics. We are seeing it now in the Straits of Hormuz. But I would say to you that we are seeing it more globally.<\/p>\n

You mentioned my new role as President of the Eurogroup, and now I feel at every meeting that we have a new crisis to manage. There is such a density of events now, but let’s look at it more globally. In the context of the government that I represent and of which I am a member, how many things have we been asked to manage since 2019. If someone had described them to me before I took over as Minister of Digital Governance in 2019, I have to admit that I would not have believed it: that we would have a global pandemic, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, an energy crisis, a hybrid crisis on the Greek border, energy challenges ahead of us…<\/p>\n

There were too many events and we as a country and as a government had to respond to them with a particular dualism. Because on the one hand we had not resolved historical issues that needed to be resolved, such as the fight against tax evasion. It was the pan-European title for Greece. Non-state universities… Issues that all countries around the world had solved. So on the one hand you had to solve these and on the other hand you had to have the responsiveness, the speed and the mindset to be able to respond at high speed and to all these challenges that you could not have foreseen.<\/p>\n

So talking generally with everyone and summarizing from experiences and from courses, some of the first thoughts that come to mind are:<\/p>\n

First, speaking of context, in leadership courses there is a very big dilemma: what is the role of the individual in the story? Do the persons make the difference or do the circumstances? Marx says that everything is conditions, that we move within conditions that have been handed down to us, that there is a role for the individual in history, but basically he is a “implementer” of social conditions. Carlyle begins his history of the French Revolution with a phrase “All histories but the history of great men” – in the non-inclusive vocabulary of the time. But this is to say that we have two schools of thought: Individuals make the difference or individuals come to implement general mechanics. Bismarck says of the role of leaders, of ‘statesmen’: ‘The role of the leader is to listen to the footsteps of God in history and to pull himself out of his clothes for a while,’ so read the great historical development and move there.<\/p>\n

And within that dilemma, you mentioned before the role that circumstances play, even in a company and more broadly… I would say that this dilemma is very much alive and very much powerful in every major social condition that we are called upon to read or respond to, whether we’re talking about the macro scale or the smaller scale.<\/p>\n

There is a well-known phrase that the role of the leader is to synchronize his historical clock with the clock of history. But I also remember Constantine Karamanlis saying that when he became Prime Minister he felt that he had to wave his finger at both the clock and the ends of the clock to be able to make any change in this country.<\/p>\n

I think both are true. That is, it is true that we are in a framework that is not too tight, that you have to be able to read it, which is why I started off by talking about four macros, but on the other hand, the role of the individual is too big and the role of the individual becomes even bigger when you talk about groups, you mentioned that before. As a country we have to learn even more to operate within them, to move within them.<\/p>\n

I remember many typical stories that I could share from the podium. But I’ll make this experiment. Anthony Tzortzakakis, send me a message before – Anthony if you’re here raise your hand. So, Mr. Tzortzakakis was Secretary General of Telecommunications when I was Minister of Digital Government. And I remember in the first lockdown, the Prime Minister had called us into his office and told us that, just as France went into lockdown, within 24 hours Greece would go into lockdown. France was then making, if you remember from the reports, a sheet of paper on which they would write “My name is Kyriakos Pierrakakis and I am leaving my house for this reason – to walk the dog” and so they would use tons of paper. The Prime Minister asked the following question of me, having just taken over the ministry: Can we think of something else, because I would not want us to use up tons of paper, and it doesn’t seem like a very nice solution? So going back to the Ministry, Mr. Tzortzakakis, who is in the room, had a thought: could we use a five-digit number that would simply bounce back the content that we send? And so 13033 was created by this man.<\/p>\n

Thank you. I mention it because it takes, I think, a lot of insight to be able to build teams with people like that.<\/p>\n

And I personally was very, very lucky with Anthony on that team.<\/p>\n

But no one could have predicted that we would have a pandemic. But you know that when you want to digitally transform Greece, you need the best people around you. Whether it’s this stake or it’s any other big stake which has been generally pending for many, many years in this country.<\/p>\n

Third observation. What the business card says doesn’t matter very much. Headlines don’t play too much of a role in life. I recall anecdotally a story where Talleyrand, a very well-known French foreign minister of Napoleonic times, has gone to the theatre and has sat in the back seats and the usher says to him, “Mr. Minister, why don’t you come and sit in the VIP seats?” and he says, “Excuse me, but where I’m sitting is the VIP seats.” Meaning that power is where power goes, as a well-known writer, Robert Kammer, says.<\/p>\n

What I mean by that. The people who have managed to change either companies or governments or countries or families or whatever, it doesn’t matter so much what their title is. It plays a huge role in what they actually feel, believe and are able to implement with others. And especially for politicians, I would say that this requires being able to understand how one can accumulate potential, which can then be spent on so many beneficial changes.<\/p>\n

It is, if you like, the currency, the currency of politics, how you accumulate power, but then you spend that power to achieve very large social results, which come and accumulate over time because they work beneficially.<\/p>\n

You mentioned before how the Greek economy has succeeded. And I want to tell you that as Finance Minister I now experience this as President of the Eurogroup. It played a big role as a recognition of what the country has achieved to be able to elect someone from Greece to this position.<\/p>\n

But at the end of the day if you look at what we have achieved these are things that 10 years ago were the absolute stakes.<\/p>\n

In the first meeting that I attended in my capacity as President of the Eurogroup, I was informed by the people from the institutions, who were there, that it was the same room in which we were meeting, in which – just a little bit – in 2015 the country to leave the Eurozone. And they were saying to me with emotion, “look 10 years later, look at the distance you have covered, not you, the country and its citizens.” And that in itself shows and says something about how collective efforts find a reflection.<\/p>\n

Of course, here let me say that to a very large extent a rule applies that a teacher of mine in politics taught me when I was studying in America, he told me that the most political lesson in the world, the most political game you can get from Tetris. And when we asked why Tetris is a political game, he said it has superpower, it’s the fundamental political lesson. The successes disappear, the mistakes pile up.<\/p>\n

And let me say that he was right, because that’s exactly the double image that I experience in my capacity as Minister of Finance now.<\/p>\n

Why is it that abroad and in the International Monetary Fund, which you mentioned before, the image of Greece as a country that is decelerating its debt faster than any other country in the world is dominant. Which has primary surpluses, such as the one we will announce tomorrow, larger than expected and overall surpluses, whose growth rate is twice that of Europe, whose unemployment is on the verge of reaching an all-time low – it will achieve this very soon with good reason. But at the same time, the public debate is dominated by problems. I am not telling you that one ought to negate the other. Nor am I saying that one ought to override the other. But one must be able to see both the big picture and the small picture, to zoom in and zoom out. To stand on the conquests and for each of them to know that there are still loose ends to be tied up. Yes, mistakes will be made. Part of being able to exercise public leadership properly, in my opinion, is being able to admit them honestly and also use the terminology “mistake” and “sorry”. But fundamental is to learn from them. And even more fundamental is to be able to metabolize it into better practice.<\/p>\n

I think we have shown that in recent years as a country. And if we want to look at the country in terms of 2019 or 2015, we will find that we have come a very, very long way. Whether we talk about what the public measures are financially or whether we talk about how the state has been digitally transformed or whether we talk about changes in education and in other areas, in health.<\/p>\n

We still have a huge amount of unfinished business. But we need, if you like, the conviction, the will, the willingness to overcome them. And the only way you can do that is to be able to perceive the world in a positive light and with the fundamental conviction that you can ultimately succeed. Not by being petty and miserable, but by saying I have achieved these things, this is the lesson, this is my dowry, I have made these mistakes. And I will build on the good ones and correct the mistakes one by one. Because at the end of the day, especially for those of us in politics, and this is the fourth and final lesson that I would say that I have personally tried to absorb and listen to is that vocabulary, speeches and a lot of talking for us politicians is from secondary to unnecessary.<\/p>\n

Strategy should become synonymous with delivering, making changes and doing things on the ground. In English we would say “strategy delivery”. You have to be able to make the word “to” synonymous with the word “the”. And that in itself is something which is a potential conquest overall, it has not yet been conquered, either for Greece or for Europe, but certainly as far as our country is concerned I can tell you that we have learned our lesson. Certainly my generation has learned it. And we certainly want to be able to do even more, even faster and even better. And I think we can.”<\/p>\n

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