Teresa Mafalda Gonçalves on Success, Leadership, and Why it’s Important to Work Closely With Your Team

Teresa Mafalda Gonçalves is the Chief Finance Officer at SATA Air Açores, a Portuguese airline based in São Sebastião, Ponta Delgada in the Azores, Portugal. She opens to Stellar Woman Magazine about leadership and success.

How do you define success?

Well, for me success is feeling that we achieved our goals. It’s feeling that we have done our best. Success can be achieved when you try to do your best in all aspects of everything you do. So, success for me is overcoming fear, learning something new each day, loving and being loved back, not giving up, celebrating all the victories, the ability to learn something and to be realized with our goals.

This issue is about leadership. How do you define leadership?

My definition of leadership can be different from other people, but the most important thing is that each perspective of leadership presents different qualities of a good leader. A leader is someone who possesses unique qualities and is motivated to make a positive change in life.

What are the qualities of a great leader?

Well, I have been thinking a lot about that term and honestly, I think that a great leader cannot be merely a good one in IQ or technical skills. And I think that the most important qualities are emotional intelligence. And I have been reading a lot regarding this and I think that self awareness, knowing one strength, weakness, drives, values and the impact on others, self regulation, controlling our impulse, our moods, motivation, empathy, understanding others, emotional makeup, social skills is very important. I think that these things that I have said are extremely important to good leaders.

What is your leadership style?

First of all, I try to be very close with my teams and work directly with them, to give them feedback, to listen to them, to understand their problems. I work together with them. I think that alone I cannot do anything, so I need to understand their problems, their fears and I need to be by their side, fighting with them, and be an example for them on how to do things, explain to them and give them feedback. My leadership style is to work closely with my teams.

What in your opinion do you think hinders women from taking top leadership roles like your role? And what can they do to become great leaders that they’re called to be?

I think that the biggest problem is the lack of readiness by companies to hire women for top positions and voters to elect women to higher offices. Companies are not ready for that, and prepared for that. Society is not with this mindset. The other reason is, the family responsibilities, because this role has always been for women. Nowadays, I think that the society is changing, Men are more collaborative and participative in these roles, that is still balancing work and family can be a very challenging thing for women. And I think that this is one of the main things also. The other one is that men still surpass women in having the networks to learn about opportunities and find mentors. So, I think that men still have a huge network that allows them to dominate the things.

So if you were to go back in time, what key message would you want to share with your 15-year-old self?

I think that education is the key. So, stay in school and stay away from Bunky boys. Work your ass off, work a lot in school too. And then enjoy life, live your life with no regrets, money is not everything. And we should try to have a good life, to be your best self, love yourself the way you are, don’t compare yourself to others. I think that’s what I would say to me.

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