Carlos Rey García: "Leadership is a dynamic process".

In this interview with Carlos Rey García we delve into the concept of leadership.

Leadership and motivation are two indispensable ingredients in the success of any project, and both are necessary for the personal and professional development of an individual. in the success of any project, and both are necessary for an individual's personal and professional development.

But, can the ability to lead be trained? How important is emotional management when it comes to leading teams? How important is motivation when it comes to making a change in our lives?

Interview with Carlos Rey García, co-founder of UPAD Psychology and Coaching

To solve the above doubts and some more we talked to Carlos Rey García, co-founder of UPAD Psychology and Coaching, one of the most important therapy and personal development centers in Madrid.

Good morning, Carlos! It is common to find the popular belief that psychology is focused exclusively on the abnormally negative part of the human psyche, that is, on the treatment and prevention of mental disorders. However, you have made a strong commitment not only to that part traditionally linked to the psychologist's work, but also to the part that appeals to the population without diagnosable mental problems or even to the abnormally positive population, as an example of psychological excellence and improvement. What motivated you to do so?

In fact, we have never liked this cliché of problematic professionals, and we come from a field, that of sports, which is more oriented towards this type of overcoming problems.

Positive and humanistic psychology have been very influential in our methodology, we like to think that people give the best of themselves when they focus their "problems" as challenges to overcome and not as problems in themselves. In this way and after years of working with athletes, we understood the importance of working by objectives and we came to the conclusion that there are many areas of our experience that may require the advice of a professional to optimize their performance, but at the psychological level all these areas share psychological variables and objectives to be met, in our case it all boils down to three; performance (behaviors), welfare (feelings) and satisfaction (thoughts). Aligning and optimizing them is our biggest challenge.

When you talk about different areas of performance that may require your professional advice, what exactly do you mean?

I am basically referring to the fact that normally, as in sports, we usually act in competitive environments, in interaction or opposition with other people and, therefore, there are parallels when it comes to addressing the challenges of different types of users.

In UPAD we have worked with athletes of all kinds, with professionals from different fields who wanted to improve their skills or better manage different situations. We have also prepared opponents to face such a complex challenge as overcoming a competitive examination. Musicians, artists, dancers, professional poker players, introverted and insecure people who wanted to improve their way of relating to others... I don't know, an endless number of scenarios, which after all, share a base. The way we manage our thoughts, feelings and behaviors. That is where we offer our help and try to generate value.

In your work you advise athletes and workers helping them to improve themselves, and surely one of the most important psychological variables in personal growth is motivation. In fact, if a person is not motivated to change, it is impossible for them to do so. But what role does motivation play in achieving our goals, both personal and professional? Why is it that there are people who, despite wanting to change, never take the step to do so?

That's right. Personally, I like to compare motivation to the engine of a car. We all have one, but we don't always know where we want to go. Sometimes, even knowing it, we choose the wrong fuel. If we fill the tank with pressure, we will be subjected to a negative motivation, because we will do whatever we have to do to avoid something unpleasant. However, if we learn to fill it with enthusiasm, we will be able to focus more on the positive character of motivation and we will get to enjoy the journey, even before reaching our goals. Knowing how to manage this fuel well is essential to persevere and enjoy, whatever our destination.

Regarding those people who want to change but do not end up doing so, it would be necessary to analyze the case in question, but we usually find that openness to change is subject to the underlying expectations. Depending on these expectations, we can find people who see these changes as opportunities to achieve something better (motivation to succeed), while others may see them as a potential threat to themselves (motivation to avoid failure - comfort zone). In this sense, it is very important for the final decision we make, which way we perceive the balance is tipping, whether it is towards motivation or towards fear.

One of the services you offer at UPAD is Business Coaching, and one of the most talked about topics in companies is leadership. Research on work stress concludes that the relationship between superiors and subordinates can be a stressor or, on the contrary, can increase a worker's performance and keep him motivated. What characteristics do you think a good leader should have?

We usually find a clash between different leadership styles within the organizational world, which invites us to decide on the suitability of some styles over others. Excessive control exercised by a manager over his team of experts can be as negative as the absence of clear guidelines needed by a trainee. What I mean by this is that leadership is a dynamic process that changes from person to person and from objective to objective.

Each situation has different characteristics and will require the leader to adopt different positions in order to achieve the objectives set. Therefore, I personally consider that a good leader has to meet some requirements among others such as proactivity (sow to reap, follow to be followed), coherence and integrity (to lead by example and be aligned with what is said and done), flexibility in style (to adapt to the changing needs of situations), communication (to project credibility and influence and transmit faith in the achievement of objectives), emotional intelligence (to manage difficult situations and handle conflicts), listening and delegating (to generate commitment, contemplating diverse points of view and involving the team in decisions or actions), and giving feedback, giving direction and motivating so that they feel part of the achievements.

There are many courses and workshops on leadership, but... can this skill be trained or is it basically innate?

Well, as in any other field of knowledge or any skill, I believe that we all come with a potential talent as standard, although it needs to be developed in the social environment, that is, in living with others. As we are essentially born alone and necessarily need others to be able to lead, I consider innatism in this case as an inappropriate approach, since it is during social interaction situations where we can increase learning about the action of leading.

Another thing is how we define leadership. If we consider it as a mere ability, in a certain static or innate way, or on the contrary, as a dynamic and interactive process.

In my personal case I am inclined towards the second option, that is, I consider leadership a process that is composed of a series of underlying skills and of course, susceptible to development, although there are different levels of potential in each person.

There may be more and more information on how to lead others, but what about self-leadership? It is undoubtedly a key element in personal and professional development, allowing us to overcome adversity and stay organized and motivated over time. How can we improve this mental capacity?

I would even say that in order to be able to lead others, you have to start with yourself. If you are not in a position to offer it to yourself, how can you offer it to others?

The requirements for its development also imply an effort of self-knowledge, of setting goals and persevering in achieving them. All of this is aligned with the above mentioned characteristics.

One of the great paradigms of today is Emotional Intelligence, which plays a key role in our personal development. And in the company, what role does it play? There is more and more talk about emotional leadership.

Emotional intelligence is a basic ability to achieve adequate self-regulation. Knowing how to understand how I interpret the situations I face and, based on this, what feelings I experience and the consequences they have on my attitudes and final behaviors, is essential to achieve any kind of goal I set myself.

Sometimes it is necessary to learn to modify my thoughts about a given situation in order to adapt to it in a functional or valid way, renouncing other types of thinking criteria more focused on the criterion of truthfulness than functionality. In those cases, where people find justifications for their dysfunctional reactions to achieving certain goals, I like to comment to them the following words... "It's true. You're right and what's it good for?". If the answer is "to keep me from my goals", emotional leadership is failing.

In an increasingly individualistic society, companies value their employees' ability to work as a team. Why do you think teamwork is so important in the workplace?

We could get into a fabulous "conspiratorial" debate about the interests of creating individual-centered societies, but that is certainly not the purpose of this interview. I will limit myself to recommending Adam Curtis's documentary for this purpose, The century of the self for a better understanding of the prevailing individualism.

Regarding the importance of teamwork, I think my answer may even be trivial, but I will basically limit myself here to the concept of synergy. Synergy is a concept drawn from biology, which reflects the importance of the joint action of a series of elements on a general function. Any self-respecting company acts like the human body, for example. We have a head, lungs, heart, kidneys and a long etcetera of organs that fulfill certain functions. It is useless to have the best Heart if it does not work together with the rest of the body's organs. Well, the same thing happens in an organization; if there are no synergies, we lose sight of the general objective of the body, which is none other than to survive and function as well as possible.