The image of the all-knowing boss with every answer ready is the myth Alejandro Betancourt López most wants to retire. Real leadership, he argues, looks nothing like that picture.
Talking with Authority Magazine, he pushed back on a few tidy assumptions about what running a company from the top really involves. His own record across several industries backs the point.
You Don’t Need Every Answer
“The biggest myth is that C-Suite success comes from having all the answers,” he said. “In reality, it comes from asking the right questions and building teams that can find those answers.”
Entering fashion with Hawkers and finance with BDK, he didn’t pretend to be an expert in either field. He focused on the fundamentals, identified the right talent, and built environments where good ideas could surface on their own. Pretending to know everything, he argues, is the fastest way to shut down the very people who might actually have the answer.
Not Removed From the Floor
Another myth he rejects is that senior leaders float above daily operations. The best decisions, he says, come from understanding ground-level challenges firsthand rather than from a corner office at a distance. He learned that trading petroleum, where the numbers on a screen only meant something if you knew the operation behind them.
Whether that meant spending time with Hawkers’ digital marketing team or working through the regulatory detail facing Banque de Dakar, staying connected to the operational reality made his bigger calls sharper and better informed. A leader who loses touch with the daily work, he warns, ends up making confident decisions built on a picture that’s already out of date.
Drop the Rigid Playbook
The most common mistake he sees is importing a rigid playbook without reading the context of a new business. Moving from the energy sector into a fast-moving consumer brand, he had to resist the temptation to apply oil-industry practices where they simply didn’t fit. The habits that win in one industry can quietly sink you in another.
He also warns against undervaluing the people and culture already in place. New leaders often feel pressure to make quick changes to show impact, but he’d rather understand what’s working first and build on the hidden strengths he finds. What worked in one industry rarely transfers cleanly to another, so the job is to learn the new context before trying to rewrite it.