Leadership Comparison

1. Carlos Fernando Lega

1. Background

Carlos is the current CEO at Holasa, a Colombian company that manufactures and sales Electrolytic Tinplate and Teen Free Steel as well as providing the lithography service. (HOLASA, 2016). Holasa is a private company owned by Japanese and Mexican investors.

Carlos in mechanical engineer by formation, has been in the company for XXXX years and has been the CEO for the last XXXX years. Every member of the management committee that Carlos leads has been in the company for more than XXXX years.

1. Traits, skills and abilities

Carlos thinks that knowledge of your team is the main skill that a person should have in order to become a good leader. As he states that human actions are determined by the perception of benefits, costs and risk (we will explain this in more detail in the Relationship management section), he says that the understanding of these perceptions takes time and real interest to develop. Moreover, this way of thinking has to be understand and shared by most of the team members in order to obtain the desired results for the company.

Likewise, he thinks that transparency is a key ability that every leader should have. He argues  that when the leader is clear to everyone and expresses in an open manner his expectations and thoughts, it encourages its peers to behave in the same way and to develop trust. In addition, from his point of view, it helps to reduce the perceived risks and costs, thus making benefits more relevant for everyone.

The openness to learn new things from everyone is also something that he mentions as good skill for a leader. When people don´t want to learn and do not doubt of his or her own way of thinking, relationships can get spoiled over time or the development of new ideas and the achievements of the goals of the company could be hampered.

1. Relationship management

Carlos bases his leadership in defined by the following equation:

[pic 1]

Where:

• HA: Human Actions
• P: Perception
• B: Benefits (not only monetary)
• C: Costs (not only monetary)
• R: Risks

He believes that by understanding the different definitions that each person gives to the variables involved in the equation, he can guide the actions of the people in the company and align the benefits and interest of the different teams and people in the organisation with those of the organisations itself.

Additionally, he considers that it is not possible to work in an environment where the benefits for the company are costs for the employees or vice versa, as this would create a misbalance which will end up with a difficult situation where neither the company nor the employee will perform at the best of its chances. He illustrates this with one example related to labour unions in Colombia, at least to those which are developed under socialist beliefs. He mentions that  that type of unions perceive the amount of wealth as a fix number, thus the more of it they can get (the benefit for the union) the better, nevertheless this becomes a cost for the company and its shareholders, making it impossible for the organisation to succeed in the long term.