Opinion piece / Outdated management is slowing the development of Finnish companies

The challenges of Finnish leadership keep appearing in headlines, repeating the same problems: an overemphasis on engineering skills at the expense of sales and people skills, a lack of innovation and courage, and even inappropriate behaviour.

This raises the question: how value-based is leadership really? Are values just warm words?

When I talk about values, I do not mean phrases repeated once a year in ceremonial speeches, but a value base that guides everyday practical leadership. Values matter especially when financial pressure grows, customers' needs change or mistakes are made. Values are put to the test when choices cannot be made to please everyone. It is in these moments that leadership either fulfils its promises or reveals that the values were only empty talk. 

Organisations develop and change, and leadership should change with them. Yet many leaders lag behind. Much is said about employees living in constant change and needing to learn new skills continually. The same should apply to leaders, who must be able to let go of rigid patterns: sometimes even those that have once been found to work.

The true, value-based quality of leadership is revealed when something goes wrong. How do we react? Do we spot the mistake in time and dare to admit it openly? Good leadership is not being faultless, but the courage to face problems and take responsibility for them. A leader must dare to look in the mirror so that a culture can emerge in which openness and learning go hand in hand.

I myself would have liked to have learned two things faster as a leader: the value of informal conversations and the fact that I do not always need to be right. The most important signals lie in small side remarks and unspoken messages that are easy to miss if you do not truly listen to the other person. Leadership is not a quiz; it is the ability to make decisions in uncertainty and to correct course if the direction is not right.

Every organisation should stop to ask what really guides our decisions. Have the structures and practices of leadership developed alongside the organisation, or are we clinging to old, familiar ways?

You do not learn to be a good leader just once. Leadership is continuous evaluation and learning new things. That is why it deserves as much development as the business itself.

Juha Huttunen

Chief Executive Officer, Rakettitiede

This article was published in Talouselämä in October 2025.