Building a different kind of company requires fostering a very different mindset among its leadership. To accomplish this, we at Abarca have developed a 12-week boot camp to train leaders of others in fundamental managerial skills and new thinking about personal development. We also designed the program to reinforce our core values by teaching them to think boldly, and go “off road”; treat coworkers “like family”; and be “all in” in everything they do.
The Abarca family follows a philosophy made popular by Dave Logan in his wildly popular book, “Tribal Leadership.” Based on a 10-year research study, the book explains that a tribe is a group of 20 to 150 people, and its leaders are those who focus on upgrading the tribal culture. This kind of thinking — the right culture will inspire employees and, in turn, drive business results — is fundamental to Abarca’s approach to leadership and culture, and are at the heart of the Leadership Journey program.
Over the course of 3 months, the Leadership Journey includes class sessions, workshops, team exercises, a learning lab, and self-study — fairly conventional techniques for a corporate leadership training program.
But here is the difference: The program emphasizes making our leaders more self-aware, helping them recognize their personal blind spots, encouraging self-reflection, and coaching them on how to build rapport, trust, and psychological safety. Some call it emotional training. These are the soft skills that are hard to put an ROI on but mean everything to our corporate culture.
The Leadership Journey is, as the name implies, a process. In fact, many view the 12-week program as just the beginning of what many say is a lifelong process — a new way of thinking about themselves, their personal and professional relationships and, of course, their careers.
“We put our corporate culture — how we treat one another — as our highest priority,” said Mercibel Gonzalez, Abarca’s VP of Talent Strategy. “When we work as a team, treat each other like family, and have shared values, business success is almost inevitable. That’s the thinking behind our Leadership Journey, and that’s exactly what we see at Abarca.”