lead and learn

For Professor Álvarez de Mon, leadership is a dynamic process that influences behavior, thoughts and feelings, releasing a flow of energy and human talent towards a common goal. In this context, leading and learning are almost synonymous verbs. Hence the importance of coaching, of the Socratic dialogue through which a person is helped to discover and use his inner value. From his intervention-dialogue with the audience present at the event, four key messages stand out, which are summarized below.

1. New leaders for new times
For this university professor at the Department of Human Resources and Organization at IESE in Madrid, PhD in Sociology and Political Sciences from the University of Salamanca, we need leaders adapted to the new business reality, which is increasingly turbulent and global. These are the right times to discover new leaders. Leaders capable of managing in uncertainty, with a more global mindset and more informed. Leaders who:

• They are not looking for certainties, but rather the wisdom to manage in uncertainty;
• They are committed to permanent learning, by themselves and their team, to maintain adaptability and agility in a changing world;
  they make the lucid management of mistakes that lead to learning, rather than looking for perfection that doesn't make mistakes, doesn't learn and doesn't evolve;
• They bet on creativity, which does not arise from brainstorming, but from a deeper debate that stimulates and releases the teams' talent;
• They ask free, challenging questions and listen to the answers;
• They are ambitious and optimistic by nature;
• They free talent from the orthodoxy and bureaucracy of inherited structures.

2. Character is a fundamental element of leadership
The combination of his vast professional experience as a consultant for large companies and coach of top managers with academic research, including an analysis based on the classics, leads Professor Álvarez de Mon to conclude that leadership is based on character. the great pillars that sustain permanent creation and renewal are talent and character.

Human talent, if not guided by a straight, free, enthusiastic and responsible character, is wasted. character supports the will and daily discipline that give meaning and creative productivity to talent. This character, so important for any person, but even more so for a leader, is built on the past, intimate and genuine history of each person and on the way in which that person encountered, resolved and overcame adversities.

Additionally, the idea of ​​leadership cannot and should not be stripped of its moral dimension. The goodness of the goals that motivate a leader, the values ​​associated with him – freedom, solidarity, justice, tolerance – as well as the means he employs to achieve them, give him or take away legitimacy to lead.

Professor Álvarez de Mon mentions the exemplary example of Nelson Mandela, Nobel Peace Prize and first president of post-apartheid South Africa. Despite having been in a prison designed to destroy his spirit and will, with continual attacks on his dignity, he never renounced his convictions, lost self-respect or stopped believing in a better future. Despite having every reason to be bitter and hateful, on the date of his release he showed extreme tolerance towards his jailers. The serene way in which he overcame an extremely adverse experience, how he maintained his humanity, further strengthened his character and gave him added legitimacy to lead the country in the post-apartheid period.

Character, which provides the strength and determination necessary for Action, are strategic and central virtues for top managers in an increasingly turbulent society in terms of values, changing contexts, conflicts, innovation and uncertainty .

“The little man only remembers the harm done to him. The big man remembers the good, and for that little good that he receives, he forgets so many evils that he received ”, anonymous, quoted in the book“ Desde La Adversidad ”, by Santiago Álvarez de Mon.

3. Willpower
Most companies are overloaded with plans, rules, committees, hierarchies, systems of procedures and controls that constrain talent. They lack intensity, passion, enthusiasm, imagination. When things go less well, they increase the dose of organizational tools, which are useful, but do not replace the need for leadership.

Investment in new working methods and new tools is sometimes lost due to a radical lack of interest and motivation on the part of people, bumping into apathy. the excess of logic, analysis and planning does not add anything, on the contrary. Only the will to achieve a joint vision, which has meaning for the recipients, can energize an organization. When something makes sense, when my role is relevant, when I have vital space to grow, it's easier for curiosity and passion for work and action to take root in the corporate culture.

In this context, career plans, training plans, 360 degree assessment, coaching and training programs are important supports, but fall short of what is needed if they are not supported by effective leadership. If you offer employees a noble and attractive cause, you will be surprised by the response. For this, it is necessary to know the reality of those around you, understand them, challenge the status quo, innovate, dare to be different, trust in talent, allow mistakes, learn and celebrate together, building highly motivated teams.

4. Leadership begins with self-knowledge
The beginning of the process is self-knowledge. In the new era of knowledge, it will be individual skills that will make the difference, not just the brilliance of top management. In this context, the first step towards training and developing leaders is self-knowledge, identifying deficiencies and strengths. This is a field in which everyone, without exception, can work. In fact, the entire competence development process – something so widespread today – must be centered, as the main starting point, on one's own knowledge.

But the key moment of leadership is action, acting on oneself first, changing oneself before changing others. Leadership has to do with each one of us's ability to be better, not just with an innate characteristic. This leadership is not born with us, it is not studied. Practice and learn in everyday activities. It doesn't result from a big "bang". Living, working, we are gradually approaching or moving away from it.