Leadership and Negotiation: How PwC Luxembourg Is Transforming the Approach of Its 750 Team Leaders

PwC will be exposing 750 team leaders to the art of negotiation: does this skill form part of the critical skills?

Yes, fully. Organized by Laura Iftime, sponsor of the Team Leader initiative, this conference is part of a clear ambition: to help our leaders develop the skills they need to exercise their role with confidence in a context of profound and lasting change.

Today, our benchmarks are changing rapidly and profoundly, whether in terms of market dynamics, the regulatory framework, customer expectations or the growing impact of AI on our businesses. In this complex environment, the ability to negotiate, decide and influence is becoming a key lever of leadership. It enables team leaders to preserve the trust of their teams, structure the quality of their judgment and stay on solid reference points, even when all the information is not yet available.

This conference provides a strong anchor for a broader ambition: to support our team leaders in developing a core of essential skills, and to give them the tools and posture they need to evolve serenely in the face of uncertainty, while bringing clarity to their teams.

This foundation is based on :

• The right posture: staying the course, remaining stable, embodying confidence without overplaying certainty;
• Managing ambiguity: moving forward with hypotheses, testing, adjusting, developing an entrepreneurial spirit without losing sight of responsibility;
• Emotional regulation: decode tensions, defuse sensitive situations and preserve the relationship between the team leader and his colleagues;
• Clear and transparent communication: formulating an understandable direction, even when everything has not yet been decided, saying what you do and doing what you say; and
• A strong analytical mind and professional judgment: distinguishing facts from interpretations, especially in feedback, and preserving the excellence and ethics that lie at the heart of our service provider business.

It is precisely this foundation that PwC wishes to reinforce in its team leaders, to enable them to guide their teams with confidence, discernment and impact in a constantly changing environment.

In what way do negotiation logics in a context of rapid and lasting change really displace traditional managerial practices (feedback, arbitration, decision-making)?

They don't replace the fundamentals, nor do they displace them: they make them finer, faster and more "contextualized". Take feedback, for example. The twice-yearly ritual of feedback is now part of a much more continuous practice, throughout the year. As such, it becomes more immediate, more concrete, and more focused on intent and impact.

Beyond pure performance, the team leader's role is to ensure that the messages are clearly understood, and that everyone has clear reference points and the tools they need to progress. The same logic applies to arbitration and decision-making.

Above all, our responsibility is to preserve trust, both within our teams and with our customers, while maintaining a high level of quality, even under economic pressure. To achieve this, every decision must be structured and courageously taken. The team leader's role is also to make risks explicit, to set safeguards and to readjust direction if necessary.

In this context of rapid transformation, it is also essential to remain agile and to be able to see the opportunities that change can offer. Transformation is not just a challenge to be managed; it is also a lever for rethinking our practices, reinforcing the impact of leadership and creating new performance dynamics.

Finally, the managerial posture is evolving in our businesses: less purely rational steering, and more ability to stay the course while bringing clarity, stability and meaning to teams. From this perspective, being able to call on an international reference like Laurent Combalbert to address these issues is a real lever for us: his viewpoint and experience enable us to fully echo the realities experienced every day by our team leaders, and give even greater force to these messages.

Initial feedback from the various stakeholders, well in advance of the event?

Early feedback has been very encouraging, and shows a high level of expectation for the system. Team leaders say they are both surprised and curious. Above all, they expressed a very clear expectation: to have an experience that really reflects the complexity of their daily lives, far removed from a theoretical or standardized approach to leadership.

For internal leaders and sponsors, the conference is seen as a concrete lever to support teams in an environment undergoing continuous transformation, which gives rise to uncertainty, changing expectations and the growing impact of AI.

Partners and team leaders are also delighted to be able to call on an internationally renowned speaker like Laurent Combalbert. His experience of negotiating in high-tension contexts arouses real interest, not least in understanding how these lessons can be applied concretely to our reality, that of PwC as a service provider, where relationships, trust and professional judgment are central.

We also see a strong cultural message in this: PwC chooses to invest in skills that are not always immediately measurable, but which are absolutely crucial in today's context. This sends a clear signal about the importance attached to managerial posture, professional judgment and the ability of leaders to give meaning and stability to their teams.

Even before the event itself, the program is generating high expectations in terms of its realism, high standards and immersive nature.

What measurable changes are participants expected to make in the short or medium term?

In the short term, we expect very concrete changes in the posture and managerial practices of our team leaders. These include

• greater ease in dealing with complex or ambiguous situations ;
• greater ability to manage emotions, both individually and collectively; and
• enhanced ability to structure analysis, reasoning and decision-making, including in AI-driven environments.

In the medium term, our ambition is more sustainable and structuring. We are aiming for :

• leaders who are more confident in their professional judgment ;
• a more assertive, stable and aligned managerial posture; and
• a greater ability to reassure, frame and bring clarity to teams, even when everything is not yet fully defined.

These expected changes are part of a dynamic of continuous progress. Over the long term, they should result in more solid managerial behavior, a better quality of dialogue within teams, and decision-making that is clearer, more assertive and more consistent with our values.

This type of scheme relies heavily on collective commitment. How does it go beyond the individual to become a structuring experience for the organization?

By simultaneously exposing a large group of team leaders to demanding and comparable situations, this experience is above all a collective one. It helps create a common language in the face of tension and uncertainty, and aligns our 750 team leaders with what really matters when procedures alone are no longer enough.

Sharing this experience also reinforces a strong sense of belonging: "we've been through this together".

This nurtures cross-functional trust, develops genuine managerial solidarity and facilitates interaction across silos and hierarchical lines.

More broadly, the system helps to anchor a shared culture of responsible leadership, based on clarity, stability and discernment, even in complex environments. It fosters the emergence of collective reflexes that reinforce managerial coherence and the organization's ability to move forward in an aligned manner.

Ultimately, this type of event not only develops stronger leaders; it also helps shape a more mature organization, capable of tackling complexity with confidence, without becoming fragmented.