What should a good leader be like?

A lot has happened since the famous "Y2K". At that time, we prepared ourselves in all fields, being even more aware that, in order to face the new challenges, people were needed to help companies to carry out that differentiation, to be trained to be a good leader.

The human resources departments worked on finding, attracting, retaining and developing talent, creating human resources policies focused on safeguarding or optimizing that talent.

At the same time, the term "human resources", which was more associated with the Taylorian era, gradually became too narrow to encompass the dimension that was to be given to people management. This encouraged some companies, the more daring ones, with the idea of reinforcing in substance and in form the value of taking care of the team of professionals they had, to venture to be the pioneers in changing the name of human resources department to people department.

How do the things we tell ourselves impact our behavior?

If we stop to reflect on how the things we say to ourselves impact our behavior, the aforementioned change makes sense, in the same way that the meaning of words evokes a sensation, which in turn triggers the triggering of certain hormones in our brain.

Chemistry explains this phenomenon: there are words that trigger hormones such as cortisol, the stress hormone, or dopamine, the well-being hormone. Which of these two words do you think generates more dopamine: human resources or people?

In this line, the focus has been placed on considering emotions and how they are experienced by internal and external customers within the actions carried out in the strategic plans, whose impact is evident in the work climate surveys and in the customer experience.

The digital transformation, another of the challenges that came with the Internet, brought to the table concepts such as immediacy, speed, agility, creating a combination that is confused with the true sense of "here and now". This is a concept of humanistic psychology that implies being present in body and soul, putting the consciousness, the focus, in what we are doing. It is showing the best version of ourselves; the rest is noise.

How can we help the people around us every day to find the best version of themselves?

What characteristics does a good leader need to have?

When we undergo dramatic life experiences, we reset our priorities and find a way to realize where what is important is. Could we invest two minutes every day before going to bed, what I call "tenderness", to rejoice for what we have?

It is possible to train our mind to use energy well and not be distracted by that which does not add up, by those thoughts that we ruminate on and that trigger our cortisol and increase stress.

These are the leaders that are needed now: leaders who know how to create environments of peace and tranquility to avoid the noise that subtracts, so that interdependence within companies flows harmoniously and all the people who make up the ecosystem of organizations can contribute that value that we bring as standard and that we have been developing through learning, putting into practice, evolving and changing, because every day is an opportunity to make it easier and better.

Today's leaders must know how to manage teams with calmness and compassion.

Leaders in any department today more than ever need to be able to be at the service of their team, using the tools they have to manage people, to inspire and make their teams want to tap into the potential they have every day to be that "better self". And this can be done if leaders have a positive attitude and solid personal values, such as kindness or compassion to avoid the suffering of those around them.

Regarding the latter, I want to clarify that empathy and compassion are not the same thing: "They are associated with different patterns of brain activity" (Tania Singer, director of neuroscience at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and BrainSciences).

With empathy, the areas of the brain related to pain are activated, which makes the situation unsustainable for a prolonged period of time, because in the end we would end up burning out with it.

In contrast, compassion is connected to feelings such as love, and this sets us up for success. In addition, research focused on a gene known as DRD4, whose mission is to process dopamine, has shown that the higher the environment of compassion, the higher the level of learning increases.

Today's environment requires agile professionals who are able to learn from their own experiences and incorporate them every day into the best version of themselves. These leaders must be compassionate and, at the same time, know how to create peaceful environments so that their teams can focus on what is truly important.

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