In this case, Elon Musk is a businessman known for asking his collaborators for a lot of dedication, with exhausting days and work rhythms that may not be those established by the Federal Labor Law.
“He is used to doing things his way because they are his companies and in that sense it will be difficult to have an employer that is governed by Mexican law, for example in union matters. Elon Musk is capable of firing without fear, ”he points out.
In November of last year, after buying Twitter for 44 billion dollars, the tycoon fired 3,700 people from the social network in Mexico. According to the AFP agency, the dismissals were made by email, which goes against the trend of positive leadership in organizations.
For Rodrigo Calderón, principal consultant at RBL Group, a personalized leadership solutions company, the Tesla factory can be a hotbed of talent, that is, it can be a perfect starting point for engineers who want to work in another industry or be more employable in the near future.
“Tesla can be a wonderful place to expose yourself to cutting-edge technology globally. If he doesn’t give you the career plan, it doesn’t matter, as long as you can learn, and who knows, maybe you’ll stay for years and have a happy time, ”she says.
“I would recommend young people not to look for a place where they are going to retire, to ask themselves how much they want to learn and where they are going because that is their responsibility and not that of the company. They don’t have to develop in the same place all your life, you can change and grow with each change, ”he adds.
Elon Musk’s leadership style
Saskia de Winter, leadership specialist and business coach, defines him as a visionary man who is always questioning the status quo and that puts him within the range of Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg and Richard Branson, but also Elon Musk pushes creativity with goals they are very ambitious.
This is a double-edged sword because it makes employees break current paradigms, but also causes them to fall into a high level of frustration when they don’t reach their goals, says the expert. He’s a transformational leader, not a transactional one in a ‘give me, I’ll give you’ sense, and in his story he often hires problem solvers.
“I don’t think Elon Musk is a boss with the whip who destroys people. What happens is that, being a person with Asperger’s and the level of success that he has, he moves very quickly and has no time to waste on people that he is not giving the width. He is in a hurry to put people on other planets, through Space. For me that inspires”, says De Winter.
In the business world, one might think that the leadership that matters is the one that generates results, Calderón pointed out, during the Family Business event, organized by the Tecmilenio University. But you also have to look at the methods.
If we talk about Elon Musk, “I think he is a great innovator with the ability to run and build a car that is an electric car. Although in leadership, I don’t know how many leaders he has formed, he is the celebrity leaderand it seems to me that what companies need today is a leadership in which we are all and not one”.
In his opinion, there are leaders who with their success make the people around them flourish and there are others who wither them. What cannot be asked of a person is that they be different from who they are. Today, the CEO is the No. 1 employer brand, and if Musk fires half of Twitter, people wonder if they really want to work with him.
Despite this, Mijares does not doubt that there is a part of the talent that wants to work at Tesla because he is identified as someone innovative, a visionary, and that attracts attention and becomes aspirational, despite the type of leadership he exercises. your CEO.
Do Mexicans want to work at Tesla?
According to a YouGov analysis, since the automaker announced the creation of a plant in Mexico, positive mentions around the brand have grown steadily throughout 2023.
In reputation, the global company’s online research tool that measures how many people would be proud to work for a company, Tesla far outperforms all car brands tracked by YouGov in Mexico (20.9 out of 100).
The reality is that thanks to Tesla, most automakers are incorporating software engineers into their workforce because the cars of the future will be more dependent on software than hardware. It is no longer just the car but the entire mobilization system, says Calderón.
So, what Mexicans can expect from Tesla is a revolutionary factory, with high technology and surely a vision of building new and great things for the world.
The war for talent
The Tesla plant will be highly automated and therefore requires highly qualified people in very specific topics. However, in Mexico almost seven out of ten companies have difficulty finding the profiles they need, according to Manpower Group’s annual Talent Shortage survey.
As a country, adds Mijares, it is possible that we do not have the capacity to meet the requirements that Tesla has, which would favor the company to hire foreign labor.
Another scenario is that the rest of the automotive and specialized talent industries are going to enter a war for talent. They will have to use retention strategies with higher salaries and incentives that make people not want to leave. “It is not surprising that Elon Musk raises the bar to attract the best talent and the Mexican who does not get his act together will be left out of the game,” concludes De Winter.