Surely many of you, throughout your working life, have met all kinds of professionals in the companies you have worked for. Highly experienced executives, others who are newer but highly proactive, and others with a great capacity for work, who in the course of their activity as heads of their assigned areas, have been able to achieve success or failure.
This problem is very common in all types of organizations, and it usually happens to all professionals who, by luck or misfortune, have had the fortune of having a great team, or conversely, a mediocre one. We see the example in sports; there is no professional, not even in the world of golf, who has achieved success without the support of a great team. We can find examples in most team coaches across different disciplines, and we see that if they do not have a group of professionals around them fighting with common objectives and a common goal, the organization does not work.
Is it so difficult to motivate your team? Is it necessary to have not only a professional but a professional profile that constitutes a “team”?
I do not dare, nor do I want to dare, to give a masterclass on what type of organization is ideal. All this depends on many factors such as nationality, the idiosyncrasy of the organization, work habits, and the social environment. In short, a series of peculiarities can make a company decide whether to design vertical or horizontal command structures. We are clear on the vertical ones: the boss or manager executes, and their team obeys and complies with the guidelines. The horizontal one gathers the consensus of the different opinions of its team to propose and determine decisions.
Now, there is a common detail to all organizations with “success” in their corporate structures, which sometimes many companies do not take into account, getting lost in the parameters of the training and experience of their managers. We are talking about “leadership” capacity. And not leadership in the strict sense of the word, much less in the psychological sense, since that would lead us to expand this article and present all its characteristics. We are talking about those who have the gift of forming a “team.”
How many managers or executives have we come across with great training, an excellent resume, and mediocre results in their work teams? Although they stand out for their notable skills, they lack the right attitude towards their teams, and above all, they lack “empathy”.
Defining Empathy:
Also called interpersonal intelligence in Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences, it is the cognitive ability to perceive in a common context what another individual may feel. It is also a feeling of emotional participation of a person in the reality that affects another.
It is a peculiarity that is undoubtedly difficult to identify, much less in a professional resume put on paper. Nevertheless, this quality will differentiate the manager who makes the most of the skills of their human team to achieve their business objectives, from those who simply limit themselves to commanding.
The equation is clear; it is only necessary that those who assign these positions of responsibility are coherent:
Manager with a lack of empathy in their teams = Failure.
