Leadership, Impact
The ARENA leadership model: Demand with purpose, leadership with impact
We talk about leadership when we seek the ability to influence and guide a group of people to achieve a common goal.
At ARENA, we understand leadership not as a matter of hierarchy, but as an active attitude of responsibility, vision, and example. Our leadership model is based on three essential principles that make a difference in our way of working and the results we achieve: 1. Demand with purpose; 2. Leadership with impact; and 3. A high-performance culture. These serve as a reference and drive our common purpose: “conquering the future of the financial sector together.”
These are increasingly valued skills in the professional environment and are undoubtedly important at ARENA.
What are the qualities/competencies of a good leader?
We talk about competencies when we refer to the combination of knowledge, behaviors, and skills that a person possesses when performing a specific role.
In the case of leaders, they must also possess a series of common competencies that facilitate team cohesion and the efficient achievement of objectives based on the company’s standards of excellence.
1. Demand with Purpose
At ARENA, we lead with a clear purpose: to push the team to grow, improve, and always deliver with excellence.
2. Leadership with Impact
The leader at ARENA aims to multiply the team’s capacity, anticipate challenges, and make decisions aligned with business and client objectives.
3. High-Performance Culture
We are a company that focuses on talent, but also on attitude. Therefore, we look for leaders who remain committed even in complex times, and who maintain the technical, organizational, and relational levels of each project.
Leadership at ARENA also involves building culture: conveying our values and acting as role models for the type of company we want to be.
These competencies are directly related to ARENA’s culture, vision, and leadership model. This culture guides us as ARENA members to work as a team, with individual and shared responsibility, guided by role models who, in turn, inspire us to achieve goals.
The key role of self-leadership
Before leading teams, at ARENA we believe in leading oneself. Self-leadership is the foundation of our culture of responsibility: it involves taking ownership of one’s own development, being aware of the personal impact on others, and acting with judgment, autonomy, and discipline.
A self-leader doesn’t wait to be told what to do: they observe, propose, improve, and maintain the standard. It is the starting point for any form of effective and sustainable leadership at ARENA.
Types of leadership
Throughout history, there have been different types of leadership, largely shaped by social and cultural circumstances.
It was Daniel Goleman who determined that a good leader is not one who follows a specific type of leadership, but rather one who can adapt to a style or combination of several depending on the specific needs of each situation. Therefore, there is no one type that is more correct than another, but rather moments that determine which is most appropriate. Based on this, he proposes six different leadership styles:
• Visionary or Orientation Style: Based on a clear, forward-looking vision, as well as constant motivation to achieve established goals. It focuses on the quality of responsibilities, creating cohesion and a horizontal perspective toward the goal.
• Coaching Style: Focuses on the perspective of developing workers with long-term autonomy, taking into account strengths and weaknesses to develop individual potential.
• Conciliatory or Affiliative Style: Seeks harmony and collaboration within the team, seeking to improve communication and even a good working environment. Therefore, it focuses on the emotional bond that fosters team/company loyalty.
• Democratic Style: Seeks to take the opinions of the entire team into account when making decisions and requires meeting and discussion processes to gather information for new projects or proposals.
• Exemplary or Steering Style: Seeks to be an example (of quality and high performance) and to maintain this within the team.
• Coercive style: based on more autocratic styles, where what is essentially valued is, to a greater extent, the content of the message.
As we’ve been pointing out, each leadership style has its own specific characteristics, and it’s the combination of several styles or adapting each situation to a specific one that makes it sustainable.
It’s balance that allows us, at ARENA, to lead with flexibility and, in turn, allows all ARENA members to share the same vision and focus on the same common goals.
