Being the locomotive: setting the heading and the momentum

The podcast's name is already a definition of leadership: a locomotive pulls the rest of the train. Domitille Kiger, who built her life around large formation records, that human puzzle assembled in mid air, gives a very concrete version of it, then connects it to her work as a keynote speaker and to her keynote “De l'Audace”. Leading, for her, is nothing abstract.

The leader sets the trajectory

The image comes from a skydiving exercise. On certain jumps, Domitille explains, there is a leader and participants who come line up on their trajectory, their angle and their speed. The leader is responsible for taking them on a ride. The whole principle of leadership sits in that sentence: offering a heading clear and steady enough for each person to adjust to it, and taking responsibility for where you are taking the group. Nobody can follow without a readable trajectory.

The momentum you pass on

A locomotive does not just point the direction, it supplies the energy. Domitille speaks of a vital drive, the impulse that carried her from elite sport into entrepreneurship, and that she finds again every time she steps on stage. Taking the lead on a project was, she says, her first real act as an entrepreneur. The message for a team is clear: leading is as much about giving energy as about giving instructions, because that energy is what sets the rest of the convoy in motion.

Pulling people along by desire, never by force

One limit remains, and Domitille states it sharply: you do not pull anyone along by dragging them. Trying to push someone who does not want to produces nothing good. A locomotive makes people want to climb aboard, it does not tow reluctant cars. That meets the base of “De l'Audace” and the idea of a collective you follow out of desire rather than obligation: performing together starts with a desirable direction and contagious energy, not with constraint.