Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Preface to the English Edition
- Preface to the Portuguese Edition
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 Fierro and Sombra Head for Mexico
- 2 The Unquenchable Thirst for Honor: The Gladiator
- 3 Martín Fierro Inspires Perón's Leadership Style
- 4 The Siege of Montevideo
- 5 Fierro and Sombra Discuss Leadership Theory
- 6 Fierro and Sombra Follow the Federalist Revolt in Southern Brazil
- 7 The Unquenchable Thirst for Honor: The Bullfight
- 8 In Venezuela, Fierro and Sombra Assess the Marcha Restauradora
- 9 Panama Secedes from Colombia, and Fierro Looks for Heroism in Costa Rica
- 10 Fierro and Sombra Discuss the Leadership of the Mexican Revolution
- 11 Contrasts with American Military Leadership: The Punitive Expedition
- 12 Epilogue
- Glossary
- References
- Index
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Preface to the English Edition
- Preface to the Portuguese Edition
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 Fierro and Sombra Head for Mexico
- 2 The Unquenchable Thirst for Honor: The Gladiator
- 3 Martín Fierro Inspires Perón's Leadership Style
- 4 The Siege of Montevideo
- 5 Fierro and Sombra Discuss Leadership Theory
- 6 Fierro and Sombra Follow the Federalist Revolt in Southern Brazil
- 7 The Unquenchable Thirst for Honor: The Bullfight
- 8 In Venezuela, Fierro and Sombra Assess the Marcha Restauradora
- 9 Panama Secedes from Colombia, and Fierro Looks for Heroism in Costa Rica
- 10 Fierro and Sombra Discuss the Leadership of the Mexican Revolution
- 11 Contrasts with American Military Leadership: The Punitive Expedition
- 12 Epilogue
- Glossary
- References
- Index
Summary
At saladeros people are sapped of their energy, of their will, of their desire to become; there, all creativity is beaten off them until mediocrity is installed through conformity. This is why I have called such places saladeros, places where people jerked beef while they unwittingly salted themselves out of life in the process. The preserving technology may have changed, but the slow kill process has not.
Leadership is about life, and yet too many workplaces are about the living dead. At living dead workplaces, people are sapped of their energy, of their will, of their desire to become; there, all creativity is beaten off them until mediocrity is instilled through conformity. This is why I called such places saladeros, places where people jerked beef while they unwittingly salted themselves out of life. The preserving technology may have changed, but the slow- kill process has not.
I contrasted the saladeros with the unbounded freedom of two gauchos, Fierro and Sombra, who roam across the continent drawing leadership and management lessons from popular revolts. I chose revolts because they can be viewed as organizations, and I chose mostly nineteenth- and early twentieth- century revolts because they preceded American Scientific Management and thus showed how Latin Americans used to manage themselves before business schools and multinationals set foot in the region and required conformity to foreign management techniques mostly designed by observing foreigners, not Latin Americans.
Subsidiaries are foreign in that investment decisions, including those pertaining to innovation or strategy, are mostly made abroad, excluding local managers from the challenges that might allow them to develop to their full leadership potential. The result is stunted bosses who offer poor inspiration for younger, upcoming managers. The arrangement produces foot- dragging and cynicism among followers, who remain deprived of a learning process that could generate authentic leadership rather than conformity to an inglorious, slow and long death.
Not all is wrong with the management by multinationals, except that, for all the modern talk about adopting local physiognomy, their subsidiaries remain foreign. They are foreign in that their investment decisions, including those pertaining to innovation or strategy, are mostly made abroad, excluding local managers from the challenges that might allow them to develop to their full leadership potential.
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- Gaucho Dialogues on Leadership and Management , pp. 177 - 188Publisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2017