The bastards go brown, they hang medals, they are selfish and they take advantage of the people without scruples. The “cabronazgo” is an evil that affects every day more companies in our country. During the presentation of the book “Do you have to be a bastard to become a General Director?” At Cesma School of Business, the co-director of the Senior Management Program for Directors and Businesswomen of CESMA, Pilar Gómez Acebo, referred to the lack of leadership as the main problem of the business class of our country. “The Merco report reveals that more than 80% of employees have a bad opinion of their boss. These data should make us reflect on our ability to manage companies “adds Gómez Acebo.
The bastard boss is born, is made and is also contagious
There are several types of boss bastard but the reasons behind each of them are almost always the same. Incompetence, insecurity, low self-esteem and fear of failure are factors that influence in most cases. This explains that over the years you learn to be less of a bastard. Knowing each other, knowing which are the limits of each one and identifying the strengths are key requirements for team management.
But age is not always a positive factor. An old acquaintance of the “cabronazgo” is the general director whose only merit to occupy the position is to have accumulated more years working in the company than the rest. The biggest defect of this professional is insecurity. He works surrounded by people younger than him, with technological and language skills. This general manager pays for his lack of trust with his subordinates, not taking responsibility for the mistakes of the team.
The climbing is another classic of this section, the bastard par excellence. The scale of values of today’s society has changed. The consumer society rewards the one who has more and transmits a distorted vision of ambition. Competitiveness is one of the most promoted characteristics and should be encouraged in university centers. However, competitiveness misunderstood or taken to the extreme is harmful. In this sense, Miguel Valiente Blanco, CEO of CESMA comments: “Our business school works very hard to adapt the courses that it imparts to the changes of today’s society. Instilling ambition for students is part of our work but from a positive point of view. In Cesma we transform the ways of directing and educating so that professional merit is the result of effort and the desire to excel,
What you have to do to be a good general manager
The good general manager demands, dismisses and gets angry but is frank, goes forward and is very predictable. The authors of “Do you have to be a bastard to become a general manager?” Antonio Agustín and Sofía Delclaux relied on the experience of five CEOs to prove that being a climber can work but only in the short term.
In this sense, Bill Berrenguer, former CEO of Kellogg’s and one of the protagonists of the book, insisted that “if you do not love your people and if you do not have respect for them, you will never be able to become a good general manager”.
For his part, Benito Vázquez, CEO of Everis, explains that in his opinion “being a leader is being honest and recognizing your limits, letting employees participate with their knowledge of business strategy. The first thing a boss has to know is that he can not and should not know everything, he has to be able to trust his team for the things he can not reach. ”
In this line, Miguel Valiente Blanco, CEO of CESMA, maintains that a boss “no bastard” is one who does his job well, has talent and knows how to manage the people in his charge. This type of manager encourages the collaboration of its employees and strengthens their self-esteem, to achieve the best results.