Fuelling Innovation through Collaborative Leadership and Learning

Virginia Bastian, Head of People & Culture, Roche

Virginia Bastian leads People & Culture at Roche Germany. She brings together diverse teams under a shared strategy while adapting to the needs of the local market. In her dual role, she also serves as Labour Director and board member, shaping people policies and fostering a culture of collaboration, purpose and care. She ensures Roche’s people agenda is both locally grounded and forward-looking.

Through this article, Bastian emphasises that effective leadership fosters collective impact by aligning people and continuous learning while staying human-centred and grounded in the evolving realities of technology and change.

Driving Strategic Impact Built Around People and Shared Purpose

Effective leadership begins with bringing the right people to the table. Identifying individuals with the right mindset, skills and a shared understanding to collaborate at eye level creates the foundation for trust and purposeful dialogue within the organisation.

Once the right people are chosen, the focus shifts to impact. Progress happens when one thinks beyond immediate tasks and views challenges holistically, considering implications and long-term outcomes. For example, delivering a competitive benefits strategy across countries requires cross-functional collaboration. Who needs to be involved? Who leads? Who is impacted, and how do we ensure alignment? These questions shape our ability to drive intercultural goals effectively and sustainably.

“When technology is constantly updating, leaders must cultivate a learning mindset. Investing in their learning fosters environments where their teams can learn and adapt”

This approach also demands transparency. When teams understand the “why” behind a goal, what we’re trying to achieve and how we define success, they are far more likely to contribute meaningfully and remain aligned. Transparency fosters shared ownership and a stronger sense of purpose. Defining roles and responsibilities ensures people know where they contribute, where support is needed and how their work connects to the broader vision. In environments where collaboration is essential, this clarity becomes a powerful execution enabler.

Leadership is about taking a holistic view, fostering alignment and creating the structure for collective impact, where every part of the system understands its role in delivering a shared vision.

Cultivating a Shared Learning Culture for Collective Growth

In today’s interconnected world, collective leadership becomes crucial. No single person, even a single team or department, can deliver meaningful results in isolation. What drives meaningful outcomes is the ability to collaborate across the value chain, align around shared goals and leverage diverse strengths.

As technology reshapes how we work, the human side of leadership has become important. Empathy, authenticity and emotional intelligence are essential to create trust and connection in increasingly digital environments. The ability to connect on a human level to listen, relate and lead with compassion is the differentiator.

At the same time, leaders must model a continuous learning mindset. When technology is constantly updating, leaders must cultivate a learning mindset. Investing in their learning fosters environments where their teams can learn and adapt, further shaping the conditions for high performance. This includes providing a clear vision, defining roles and responsibilities and building the capabilities required to navigate complexity.

This culture of continuous improvement is one where innovation is encouraged, and feedback is valued.

Navigating Change by Understanding the Tools

AI and everyday tech are quietly making decisions, managing tasks and collaborating across teams. It’s happening on a very practical level, and as leaders, we need to stay hands-on. We need to build our own understanding of these tools, experiment with new ways of working and support our teams in doing the same.

But the impact goes beyond daily operations. These technologies open the door to rethinking how we deliver value through new services, smarter products or better customer experiences. They invite us to think beyond incremental improvements and ask, ‘What more can we create? How can we use these tools to bring added value to the people we serve?’

At its heart, it’s a leadership one. It’s about being curious, staying open to change, and helping people prepare for what’s next.

Embed Learning as the Core Part of Leadership and Culture

One must understand that continuous learning starts with recognising that it applies to everyone, including leaders. In a constantly changing world, the ability to learn and adapt is essential.

As leaders, we have a role in encouraging and modelling that mindset. Learning shouldn’t be seen as something extra or optional. It must be part of how we work, grow and define success. That means making space for it, recognising it when it happens and rewarding it as part of performance. When learning is embedded in how we do business, it becomes something people feel safe doing, proud of and motivated to pursue. And that’s when real change starts to take root.

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