Josep Puyuelo: "Today’s leader is an agile, empathetic person with great emotional intelligence".

Companies have changed and so have leaderships. We talked to Josep Puyuelo, from EEC Catalunya.

The last decades have meant a great change in the culture of many companies. The implementation of new technologies, and the emergence of companies dedicated to the creation and optimization of software, has revolutionized companies in many crucial aspects.

An important part of the study of group psychology is dedicated to these processes of change in organizations and, in particular, to the most effective leadership styles that can be developed according to the context and certain conditions.

Interview with Josep Puyuelo, Project Coordinator at Escuela Europea de Coaching

We have gone from a rigid and hierarchical corporate culture to companies governed by very different values. One of the most interesting aspects of all this social and organizational change is precisely how this new ecosystem has affected leaders. Are today's leaders different from the leaders of one, two or three decades ago? What are the key skills for leaders in the current context?

We met with Josep Puyuelo, Project Coordinator at EEC, to get his views on this topic.

Bertrand Regader: How has the concept of what it means to be a leader changed in recent decades?

Josep Puyuelo: Because technological environments and markets are constantly changing, in recent decades we have gone from hierarchical leadership to the need for agile leaders, who generate in their team the look of continuous adaptation, and with a leadership at the service of the team.

Organizational structures are becoming increasingly flat, which requires intra-entrepreneurial, committed and adaptable teams. This agile leader must be a leader in a digital and multigenerational context, in which agile tools are generating a real revolution as a management philosophy.

From your experience with people who are being trained as leaders, what are the skills that are most difficult to learn in order to effectively lead teams of people and organizations?

Although it always depends on each professional, empathic listening is one of the skills to which we dedicate most effort in training. This is a skill that helps the leader throughout the entire employee journeyIt helps to strengthen the bond, build trust, enhance the understanding of the other and, therefore, improve our communication. Empathic listening is essential to give feedback, taking into account that the leader needs to generate continuous and agile learning environments.

If you had to highlight the importance of three skills that a leader must have, which ones would you choose?

As I mentioned earlier, empathetic listening. It is essential for the leader-coach to turn the employee into a protagonist by understanding and accompanying his decisions and thus contributing to his development. However, we tend to listen more to answer than to understand the other person.

The question is another tool that allows the leader to open a space for reflection, to understand the other and to generate responsibility and different possibilities for action. And finally, the leader must have "responsibility-ability", understood as the ability to take charge of one's own "ability to do" and leave space for that of others.

What role does coaching have in the training and theoretical formation of managers, department directors and other positions that occupy a high or intermediate position in the organization chart?

Executive coaching training serves as the lever from which the professional begins to identify ingrained limiting beliefs that are hindering them from achieving their challenges. Questioning these beliefs leads to the discovery of new approaches that were previously out of sight.

Executive coaching also helps to go through the emotions that are blocking the achievement of a vision and helps to distinguish which emotions will facilitate the achievement of results. In this process, and anchored with the new "insight", the leader puts into action new dynamics that enable him to achieve his objectives.

It is often said that a curriculum is not as important as it seems if there are no social and communication skills to support it. Is it possible to lead by relying only on technical and practical knowledge of the work to be performed, but without being too skilled in dealing with others?

In my opinion, there are very few environments where achieving results depends only on technical skills and does not require collaboration and coordination with others. People are the most important asset of organizations and proof of this is that HR Departments are evolving in its name and are now called People Departments, People & Culture, etc..

We can even find Happiness Managers in some companies. Leaders can be better or worse technicians, being able to rely on people from their team for certain issues or details, but they must have highly developed soft skills. soft skills to inspire, lead by example, empower, align and drive change.

Sometimes the fact that there is no work without workers, and that they are human beings like any other, with emotions and feelings, is also overlooked. What role does Emotional Intelligence play in team management?

Emotional management is fundamental to self-leadership and to lead other people. Knowing and understanding my emotions and those of others helps in our communication and to improve relationships at all levels.

Knowing what emotion is driving or restraining our own actions or those of the team members is a differentiating element in the transition to the transformational leadership to which I referred at the beginning of the interview. A leader is one who is capable of generating the emotional space necessary to achieve results. If the team is afraid to make mistakes or to change, it will be difficult to achieve sustainable results over time.

Do leadership skills tend to make themselves felt only in the area in which one holds a position of authority, or are they also expressed in other areas of life, albeit involuntarily?

We all have the possibility of having leadership in our lives. This implies taking responsibility and acting on the basis of our personal values with authenticity and coherence between what we think and what we do. We always have the freedom to choose how we want to live, taking responsibility for the consequences of our choices and being aware of our emotions. If you change, the world changes.

What do you think the leaders of the next decade should be like?

The leaders of the future must operate in a context of accelerated change and increased complexity. This is already a reality in today's organizations. Agile Leadership is a trend that revolves around three fundamental concepts: communication, engagement and collaboration. The ultimate purpose of this leadership style is adaptation to change and transformation. To achieve this, it is critical that leaders have consolidated digital competencies such as collaborative learning, networking or strategic vision.