Michelangelo’s leaders

Legend has it that Michelangelo sculpted his masterpiece, the statue of David, in a block of marble that had been wasted for decades. Today, it has become the emblem of those leaders who are able to see all the inner potential in one person: the Michelangelo leaders.

The word “potential” has become a magnificent and undetermined claim of many counselling professionals. Coaching promises to “unlock people’s potential so that they can perform at their best”.

But why don’t people just release all the potential they have and need the support of others to find it?

The disconnect with our potential

Let’s rewind to the beginning of our lives. Children do not question where their limits are or whether or not they can do anything. They simply try it and try it until they get it.

As we grow older people forbid us to grow up, and they put their fears on the children so that they limit their ability to develop and reach their full potential.

There is an explanation for all this. A curse follows us: beliefs about a person’s abilities have a direct impact on his or her performance.

If you think someone is capable, they will be capable. If you don’t believe it, it won’t be.

Attention parents: the best gift you can give your children is to believe and trust them!

The first step, therefore, to unlock a person’s potential is to believe that they can achieve it, to trust them.

Michelangelo’s leaders

The prerequisite for improving the performance of a team is the belief that they can achieve it. Therefore, the performance of an organization’s employees reflects the beliefs of its top management.

The first step in the digital transformation of a company is that its main manager begins to see the organization with the same eyes that Michelangelo saw the David in a block of stone.

The world is no longer complicated and has become complex: we do not know what will happen tomorrow, let alone next year. The answers of the leaders of the past are not valid for digital times. Planning doesn’t make much sense. What matters is learning fast. To do this, you have to trust the team and that they have the potential to respond to the area of expertise for which they were hired.

What potential do people who work with you use?

One of the main attractions of hiring the people who have the most IT knowledge and digital skills is to create places where they can grow personally and professionally. That is, they can unleash their full potential. Is it the place where you work?

There are three main obstacles to the full potential of a team:

• Lack of stimuli and opportunities. If you think a person is worthless, you’ll never give them a chance to prove it.
• The hierarchical structures in the company, in which obedience is rewarded over creativity.
• The management style, reflecting the beliefs of its main manager.
  To realize the potential of a person or a team, it requires trust and freedom from control.

But we do not want to cultivate victims, on the contrary: beings responsible for their actions. There is also something inside you that prevents you from reaching your full potential. It’s called lack of self-confidence and often has as friends the fear of failure, perfectionism, lack of confidence or insecurity.

Create safe spaces to show yourself

The mission of 9brains.es is to create safe spaces where people can show the truth about themselves. Through individual coaching sessions, or group facilitation, using egalitarian methodologies such as Lego® Serious Play®, Design Thinking®, you can reconnect with your full potential and release it. He’s inside you and he never left.

(Los líderes Miguel Ángel: Artículo publicado en español en 9brains.es )