What if the style that got you to the top is exactly what's now pushing your team away? In this episode of Jugando en Serio (in Spanish), Eva Díaz, an executive with over 25 years on leadership committees, explains why command-and-control has stopped working and how authentic leadership turns obedience into loyalty.
Authentic leadership: the meeting where nobody obeyed
A year and a half after her gender transition, Díaz became managing director of a tech company caught in typical startup chaos. She came from big consulting, all pyramids and hierarchy, and did what she had always done: observe for three weeks, gather everyone and set the course. Nobody paid any attention.
On pure intuition, she tried something new: listening. She sat down with the team, told them who she was, and they shared their stories. Two months later she gathered them again: either we generate business or we close in three months. They reached the same conclusion she had, but this time the solution was theirs. The team had granted her the leadership: they were no longer obedient, they were loyal.
When you really listen to people, when you let them understand you as a person and not as an executive, something magical happens, because they start to believe in you. And if you're then consistent and steady, that creates loyalty.
What you can't see from the top
Why didn't they listen the first time? According to her, because she was a woman, a consultant among technologists and an outsider, in that order. The same gap shows up in the gender equality culture surveys she now runs in companies: according to Díaz, men rate their company's culture 20 to 30 points more optimistically than women do.
Why hierarchical leadership no longer works
For Díaz, the best leadership is neither female nor male, but the one that takes its organization to success, like the coach who wins the league. Hierarchy made sense in the 80s and 90s, when leading meant controlling costs with stable operations in a familiar market: that required obedience.
Today technology runs operations and the market changes at breakneck speed. In that world, talent is the only thing that matters, and younger generations don't respond to discipline or hierarchy. It isn't a trend, she insists, but a business imperative: the talent walking out the door is the talent that knows what to do with AI, and it won't obey, it will follow.
What younger generations really want
According to Díaz, younger generations want to be inspired, to do meaningful work and to have their values respected: they don't mind working 12 hours if they know why. To executives who call them lazy or fragile, she reminds them who were the first to go out and help after the DANA floods in Spain: young people.
For her, the responsibility lies with executives, who don't listen honestly, and it can't be delegated to HR or consultants. What young people ask for is simple: to know why they do what they do and the freedom to do it, respect for their values, and leaders who guide rather than command. That said, Díaz rejects labeling every leader as toxic, and she doesn't believe in talent without effort either.
Vulnerability as a leader's strength
The biggest barrier is fear of failure: leaders are used to never being allowed to get it wrong. But their strength no longer lies in knowing more than anyone else; it lies in knowing how to lead and in people believing in them as individuals. Díaz lived it: when her transition became public, what seemed to be her weakness made her very strong, because there was nothing left to attack her with.
Where to start? Find another leader you trust and talk to them from the heart, including about what isn't going well. To lead authentically, you first have to look after the person behind the mask.
When a leader is able to say «I don't know about this, explain it to me», they gain tremendous strength with their teams. But for that, they have to know themselves very well, find their essence and know what their strengths are as a person.
