(Expansion) – Permanent change, the globalized economy and the universality of information have increased the level of competitiveness between countries in general and companies in particular. Technological changes force them to learn, to adapt, to change their mentality; To survive, organizations need to have flexibility and the ability to adapt to change. Without a doubt, in Mexico, companies and their business organizations have important challenges.
It is interesting to reflect on the following question: Why do companies that compete in the same market, with similar technology and comparable resources, differ significantly from each other in terms of results?
Considering that technology and access to capital are similar for different companies, the way of managing human resources is what makes the difference; We are in the age of knowledge and those companies that can obtain the maximum potential of their employees will be the ones with the best development prospects.
The theory that companies should seek only short-term profit for shareholders is being rethought. This search for profitability must be sustainable in the long term and must include not only the shareholders, but also all the stakeholders, which are all those parties involved with the company: customers, shareholders, employees and the community; the boom that the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is taking is an example of this.
Companies that only care about short-term profitability for shareholders run the risk of seeing their long-term profitability compromised; at the other extreme, those that dedicate themselves to carrying out social functions above all will end up bankrupt.
Leadership is one of the most developed topics in management literature. Hundreds of books and articles have been written about it, and yet there are still various conceptions about what leadership is and the differential attributes are what distinguish leaders from the rest of the people. Some associate leadership with people who have a vision, that is, who sense what paths the organization will take in the medium term.
What sets companies apart are the people who make them up, the knowledge they possess to be increasingly efficient and better at their tasks, and how to try to capture the maximum potential of people. The scarcest resource in any organization is efficient and trained people; Finding the right people for each position is crucial to the success of the company.
The absence of leadership can determine that the institution remains adrift and exposed to pressure, since the leaders avoid assuming responsibility for the activities carried out. A company requires a formal organization for its proper performance and authority is the primary means to have administrative control; the company structure is a hierarchy of authority relationships.
A few decades ago, the use of authoritarianism as a means of control was more accepted and the threat of dismissal was used as a means to obtain results from the people. Today, modern companies take more into account other factors such as leadership for the permanence of their collaborators.
Companies are migrating towards social responsibility and face great challenges in this 21st century in an increasingly changing world and in the face of the return of nationalism. Without a doubt, in Mexico, business organizations such as the CCE, Coparmex, ABM, among others, have important challenges among their members because it is important that the new leaders have an efficient capacity to be able to solve the challenges they have in an economy that has changed. from the pandemic and Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Editor’s note: Jorge Sánchez Tello is Director of Applied Research at the Fundación de Estudios Financieros-FUNDEF AC Independent “Think Tank” based at ITAM, on the Financial System. Follow him on and on The opinions of this article are the sole responsibility of the author.
