The challenge of being a leader
Little by little, and thanks to a program of mentoring, Madrid was climbing positions until occupying a launch management. As such, he had to launch the Ford Fusion and the Ford Fiesta in Hermosillo and prepare to lead work teams. “You prepare yourself to understand people and to create the conditions for the desired results to occur,” he says.
During his time in Thailand he was in charge of the plant. “It was very important for me as a leader because 10 area managers reported to me, from eight different nationalities. Making a group deliver results with diverse ways of thinking and training is very challenging and interesting”, he mentions.
He defines himself as a transformational leader, although he does not fit into a specific leadership style because, he says, every day you experience some type of crisis, organizational need, resources, and you have to adapt to these situations.
“In the entire manufacturing industry, not just the automotive industry, the most complicated part is developing high-performance teams, so if I have the ability to develop my organization, my leaders and my people, I can take them to a level where results are global and competitive”, he points out.
For Madrid, ‘throwing in the towel’ was never an option. The engineer assures that part of the charm of Ford is that it is a company that encourages the development of its talent and internal mobility. “My professional growth has gone hand in hand and that has made me not want to turn to other places,” he says.
The engineer has been working at Ford for 29 years. He is currently responsible for the Ford plant in Cuautitlán, where about 1,00 people work and the production of Ford’s first electric vehicle, the Mustang Mach-E, is carried out.
Roberto Ventura, founding partner of the recruitment firm Neos RH Consultores, says that nowadays one of the attributes that recruiters most value in a selection process is that the applicant has investigated the employer company, knows its values and shows that they want to be a part of it.
Despite this, he adds, it is very difficult to come across candidates of this nature, who, like Marcos, dream of joining a company and direct their career plan to achieve their goal. “That is why, when we find them, we try not to let them go, since it is more likely that these profiles are willing to learn and put on the shirt from the beginning. This also has a positive impact on staff retention.”