The True Leader and His Leadership Practices

Let's take a look at the different processes in company management, with a focus on the leadership process.

For a long time, for example in the 1980s, people in companies pursued "Excellence" with great vigor and determination. In the 1990s, a new trend emerged in which organizations encouraged a balance between strategies and innovative advances, cultural values and corporate policies, and seeking stability and security but making changes and taking advantage of opportunities. The process was made more flexible with structured systems.

Given the complexity of the business environment in the 1990s, we had to grow our leadership practices and models under pressure, change and competition — fierce competition. Many companies sought cost reductions, driven by production in China. The high demand for competitiveness was centralized in the reduction of costs, and to survive amid the fierce competition, it was necessary to develop a "robust structure" and "high level of collaboration."

Companies needed to think about which path they would follow. Are you still in manager development? Would they increase leadership at work? The truth is that companies needed both. The question was how to balance both management and leadership.

Let's jump forward. In the post-pandemic world of today, I am sure that you will agree there is aggressive competition among companies to retain and maintain their management and committed leaders, especially for those companies that have had to deal with “nearshoring,” or relocation of product manufacturing processes, as if to propel the company to greater success. Many companies have contributed innovation, product quality, unbeatable customer service, unbeatable attention to detail in the service for something specific or they have focused on reducing and keeping costs to a minimum to survive. Surely you have heard many stories of companies going smaller and other stories but many of those stories that you have read could also be about companies that have supported and developed the "leadership" of their people.

Today, companies talk about their vision and their mission. We display the concepts and the values and we insist and ask the people in the company if they understand. When a crisis arrives and, in some cases, just to survive, we have to seek a change in attitude, beliefs and habits throughout the company, from top to bottom, without exception. When a crisis hits, many companies immediately implement specified practices and the first action is to lower costs by cutting people. Such a decision causes other practices to surface in the company. In today's world, they reflect serious signs of weak leadership practices. This could cause the company to erode its market share, lead to lower morale among the staff, who will then exhibit a lack of initiative (you can already hear people saying, “this is not my job”), gossip spreads, and there could even be elements of sabotage. There will be obsolete ideas, internal competition will die out, and the lack of urgency will be common, resulting in further actions to cut costs: firing more people, lobbing threats and more gossip … oops, it seems that all these are signs that we did not do the right thing.

This is where the challenge appears: changing these practices, such as firing people as the first action. It is time to stop and choose the path to move forward. Just firing people or reducing headcount does not solve the situation. We need to practice better leadership communication to engage people. The leader must present the reality of what is happening, and create a hierarchy of things, to put in black and white what is happening and the trend that exists. The leader must encourage the heart. When the leader communicates with his staff, he must do so with passion for the company, for the people, for the situation, and without hiding anything.

This is the key moment for managers. By exercising leadership from the heart and leading with passion, the result will be a very profitable working environment, but not a controlling environment. The idea is to create an atmosphere where people and work teams make things happen, instead of just waiting for external solutions to arrive. Remember, as a leader in the company, your task is to open minds and focus on reality, this is how you can influence people.

For top managers, you must put your heart into analyzing and talking about the subject. There are no training programs for this nor is it something we can learn quickly. It will always be easier to make improvements in customer service or product standards, because for these areas there are seminars or programs and things that can be expressed and measured to explain what is happening.

But let's go back to the tasks of the leader. The true source of leadership never changes and you must believe that. This starts in your heart, in your feelings. It is multisensory. Only then will you show true leadership. True leadership is found in your heart, in your beliefs, which you must remember when guiding others since it is only in this way that the leader can nurture and cultivate his staff on a daily basis. So, the first task of the leader is to keep his heart pure, but what does this mean? It means that you must maintain integrity in your heart, always with the truth and practicing win-win situations in your tasks, and if you commit to doing something, do it with love, and do not judge.