Blog

You will find here a variety of topics, all related to people development and leadership. Here are all my posts. Happy reading!

If you are interested to have a talk about any of them, please contact me.

Empathy / Empatía

Empathy

Empathy is defined as “the ability to recognize, understand and share the thoughts and feelings of another person”. It helps us work with others, build relationships and, as it shapes…

Managing by values / Gestión por valores

Managing by values

In today’s dynamic and rapidly evolving business landscape, effective management practices go beyond mere profitability and performance metrics. Organizations are recognizing the significance of aligning their actions and decision-making with…

Purpose / Propósito

Purpose

I’ve talked of purpose many times over the years. Today, I want to return to it and offer a different perspective. For many of us, the purpose provides us with…

Self-sabotage / autosabotaje

Self-sabotage

This scenario may sound familiar. You have an important meeting to present your work to your colleagues and managers. You have been working on the presentation for days and still…

bias / sesgos

Bias

Last week, I was on the subway on my way to work when a couple of people got on. Immediately, the woman next to me moved to a seat farther…

Valor / Value

Value

“Software is just a tool to help accomplish something for people – many programmers never understood that. Keep your eyes on the delivered value, and don’t over focus on the…

Women / Mujeres

Women

Yesterday, March 8, was International Women’s Day. While I think there are still many reasons to mark this date on the calendar, I also think that we, women and men,…

Boundaries / Límites

Boundaries

Conflict is inherent to human relationships. And yet, there are people who can’t deal with it. Our approach to conflict depends on, among other things, our willingness to take care…

Accountability / Corresponsabilidad

Accountability

The definition of accountability is “an obligation or willingness to accept responsibility or account for one’s actions”. But that’s not all. Because we’re social animals, we tend to feel obligated…

creativity / creatividad

Creativity

Creativity is one of the evolutionary forces. Without it, humanity wouldn’t be able to solve problems or come up with new ideas. Robert Fritz, in his book The Path of…

Thank you / Gracias

Thank you

Today is my birthday. To be honest, I was actually considering skipping my writing today and spend this time doing nothing as a birthday present. But I finally decided to…

Blind spots / puntos ciegos

Blind spots

We are terrible evaluating our performance. It amazes me how blind we can be when considering self-assessment.  If you are interested in growing, you should pay attention to these three…

Perception / Percepción

Perception

Perception is a process by which we gather information coming from our senses, organize and interpret it to give meaning to our environment. The amount of information around us is…

Intuition / Intuición

Intuition

Does intuition play a part in a decision-making process? Making decisions is generally hard due to the inherent uncertainty and the complexity of the problem and the pressure of time. Nevertheless,…

Stoicism / Estoicismo

Stoicism

When Epictetus, the Greek philosopher, stated that “that alone is your power, which is our own work; and in this class are our opinions, impulses, desires, and aversions. On the…

Journaling / Escribir a diario

Journaling

Awareness is the first step for personal development and having some clarity of thoughts is key in this process. Without having an accurate picture of what we think and believe,…

Focus / Foco

Focus

In 2019, Daniel Goleman wrote an article at HBR about how having focus and direct attention is the primary task for a leader. It is not only about getting distractions…

Self-care / autocuidado

Self-care

We don’t usually talk about the importance of self-care in leadership, but it’s like other things in life: nobody can take care of others if they are not in a…

Being proactive / ser proactivo

Being proactive

Weeks ago, I talked about autonomy, a sine-qua-non condition to intrinsically motivate people. On the other side, organizations need proactive people to make things happen. Being proactive is an essential…

Burnout

Burnout

Burnout refers to a phenomenon where employees suffer a mix of physical and psychological symptoms due to a continued stress in the working environment. According to the State of the…

Conflict / Conflicto

Conflict

Many people fear conflict, and yet it is part of life and part of our long-term relationships. Every time we are surrounded by people, there’s a potential occasion for conflict…

Autonomy / Autonomía

Autonomy

Motivation, when lasts, is not an external stimulus. According to the “Self-determination theory”, intrinsic motivation mainly depends on 3 factors: competence, relatedness and autonomy. It is when we feel that…

Prioritization / Priorizar

Prioritization

When everything’s a priority, nothing is a priority. That’s why prioritization is essential, and yet many times we get caught in the trap of start working without a decision on…

Luck / suerte

Luck

I have luck. Last Friday I was invited, jointly with a friend, an executive in a Swedish company, to give the closing lecture in a leadership course. The professor, another…

Digital leaders / líderes digitales

Digital leaders

Digitalization changes the nature of organizations. It changes business dynamics, work requirements and needed skills. A more democratic access to information may cause hierarchy and silos to break, and blur…

Persuasion / Persuasión

Persuasion

When I work with managers developing their leadership skills, we usually talk a lot about how they make decisions. Complexity, non-linearity, and uncertainty shape a context, in which making decisions…

Stories / Historias

Stories

The first time I clearly understood that I should start telling stories, I was in my last year of college. An accident waiting to happen I had been working in…

Toxic workplace / trabajo tóxico

Toxic workplace

Picture a place where only titles, job descriptions, and levels in the hierarchy matter. A place where communication doesn’t flow, and silos are part of the landscape; a place where…

Assumptions / Suposiciones

Assumptions

And two years ago, COVID-19 came to change everything. Or that’s what it seems. In my opinion, this pandemic only has accelerated things that were already happening. But, anyway, leaders…

Flexibility / Flexibilidad

Flexibility

From time to time, I talked about how leaders should assess the context before they make any decision. This context, non-linear and incomprehensible, calls for adaptation and flexibility. We have…

Real purpose / Propósito real

Real purpose

Leaders need to deal with uncertainty. To make that, they aim to a desired future chosen among all the possibilities. A destiny strongly dependent on what the organization’s purpose is….

Ethics / Ética

Ethics

Last week in Spain, we learnt that, during the worst of the COVID-19 crisis, the government of Madrid awarded a facemask-supplying contract to a relative of Madrid’s regional president. Last…

Reasons / Razones

Reasons

Two years of the pandemic after, we are tired. The future looks more uncertain than ever, and many have lost their motivation.  In the middle of the mist, people need…

Commitment / Compromiso

Commitment

Tomorrow, it will be a year since I started this blog. Maybe because of this, I feel like talking about commitment and how it shapes our relationships. Meeting you here…

El largo plazo

The long run

Being a successful leader today is, among other things, a matter of endurance. Surrounded by uncertainty, what can make the difference is to focus on the long run. A time…

Good feedback

Good feedback

Last week, I recorded a new podcast’s episode talking about feedback. The topic is interesting enough to devote also some lines here. Giving good feedback is an important skill for…

Shared purpose

Shared purpose

September is the back-to-school month (at least in the Northern Hemisphere). Either if you’re a student or you’re a worker, you came back with, maybe, some new school year resolutions….

Humour

Humour

“I think being funny is not anyone’s first choice”. Probably Woody Allen is right. Changing a bit the context (he was talking about his occupation) and considering life, I wonder…

Fear and ethics

Fear and ethics

People develop their ethics as a result of an accumulation of values transmitted by family, friends, culture, religion and experience; and ethics are what tells us ‘this is a right…

News

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