Condor: a reflection on a company’s history, memory, and leadership

In this article we propose to discuss the importance of authentic leadership for the success of a company. We focus our study on CONDOR, a company from São Bento do Sul, Santa Catarina, Brazil. We explore the history of the company since its foundation and the importance of the founder´s leadership. In addition to this, we show how the leadership of founder's successors, especially during the transformation process was essential to the company´s success. Our study is based on scholars such Avolio and Gardner, (2005) among others who discuss changes in companies which start as family companies. Besides, we explore the history of Condor company based mainly on the work developed by Baumgarten (2015). Our research leads us to a conclusion that in the transformation process from a family company into a joint-stock company the leader who conducts the changes plays a very important role.