Generating and maintaining a good working environment is fundamental for a business to be able to face the crisis. This was stated by José Luis Zunni, director of ECOFIN and professor at the European Business School, at the framework of the I meeting 'Academia y Sociedad', organized by the Institute for Culture and Society (ICS) of the University of Navarra with the sponsorship of Zurich Insurance.

"In the moments of greatest turmoil, panic tends to set in. A good leader knows how to coldly analyze the status, sets the objectives that his team must achieve and makes the most appropriate decisions to achieve them," he stressed.

In this way, he stressed the importance of emotional intelligence for leadership. In many companies," he said, "there are highly qualified teams that sometimes fail due to a lack of communication among their members or between them and the management. The true leader does not impose himself: his team follows him because they share his values and vision of things, he puts himself in the place of others when it comes to resolving conflicts and manages to unite everyone under the same goals".

To this end, he considered it essential to have an adequate management of emotions, since "it helps to generate trust so that communication flows and so that everyone feels committed".

A change of culture for work-life balance

Professor Zunni also emphasized that companies should take care of aspects that directly influence the emotional states of their professionals, such as schedules and family reconciliation. "In the most developed countries, employees leave at five o'clock or five o'clock and average in the afternoon. There is also great flexibility to be able to work from home. In Spain we need a change of culture to put on internship all these measures that can improve our productivity."

José Luis Zunni made these statements on the occasion of his discussion paper 'Business leadership and applied emotional management ' in the roundtable 'management emotional and work environment in the business', the third of the three planned within the I meeting 'Academy and society'. This forum, open to all citizens, was organized by the project 'Emotional culture and identity' of the ICS and counted with the sponsorship of Zurich Insurance. It analyzed the construction of healthy emotional contexts both in the field educational and in the medical attendance and business.

"Leadership and emotional competencies."

download article PDF