Some long-standing entrepreneurs, leaders or managers have difficulty changing their bad management habits, believing that it’s “part of their personality.” A fatality? Axel Oreste, HR consultant and creator of the podcast “Ta Fking Culture d’Entreprise,” suggests that leaders depersonalize the issue to approach it instead from the angle of “communication patterns.” Explanations.
Axel Oreste makes no secret of it: he doesn’t like psychometric tests to help leaders become better managers.
“Psychometric tests put people in boxes,” he explains. “They tell you if you’re blue, yellow, red… As humans, we are very complex beings. We have lived experiences. There’s genetics. I prefer to approach the question through an evolutionary communication model like the Process Communication Model. It’s a communication approach that comes from psychoanalysis and gives you a concrete foundation to understand how we limit our communication.”
Management as a communication challenge
When Axel Oreste and his team intervene with a company leader or manager to help them resolve a management irritant, the first step is to make them aware of their communication biases or quirks.
“The leader has a strong identity, but they also have their own reality. They have their own vision of entrepreneurship. They have strengths and weaknesses that are their own. My objective is to understand their biggest problem in their communication, then to make them aware of it.”
For Axel Oreste, management is primarily a communication challenge. The PCM approach opens the door to exploring new ways of doing things.
“Our way of communicating has nothing to do with our strengths and weaknesses. It has nothing to do either with our qualities, our principles, the fact that we’re a cheerful person, introverted, extroverted, etc. Of course, there’s a predominance in the way we think, reflect and interact with the world. However, we have room to maneuver to adopt different attitudes, in different circumstances. When we talk to our children, we smile more than with a colleague, for example.”
A recurring problem for SME leaders? The difficulty in delegating. By choosing their words and attitude better, the exercise can be experienced in a more positive way.
“If you take a negative or annoyed tone, the employee will immediately sense that you don’t want to delegate,” he confides.
In a recent publication, the HR consultant recalled the importance for managers to learn to manage their stress:
“You are the first stress factor for your team. Not the economy. Not the difficult client. You. Because your team doesn’t follow your strategic plan. It follows your state. You want them to stay calm when things heat up? Start by stopping exploding, getting agitated or fleeing at the slightest friction. You think you’re piloting your company with your vision. But what people pick up first is your nervous system. A leader self-regulates. Not to play the zen monk. But to offer a reference point.”
Conclusion: if leaders can learn to “see” their stress, if they can learn to “see themselves” interacting with their employees – while avoiding defining themselves by the behaviors they adopt – they will take a big step forward in connecting with their employees and managing to mobilize them.
training.isarta.com 
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