A autopercepção do ser líder: estilos de liderança e gestão de conflitos em contextos multigeracionais

Abstract

Generational diversity and transformations in workplace relationships require organizations to develop new ways of understanding and practicing leadership. In this context, particularly within exporting companies, multigenerational teams bring together professionals with different experiences, values, and expectations, making it relevant to understand how future professionals perceive themselves as leaders. The objective of this study is to analyze the perceptions of students enrolled in the International Trade undergraduate program at the University of Caxias do Sul regarding their leadership styles, their interactions in multigenerational contexts, and their conflict management strategies. To this end, a quantitative, exploratory, and descriptive study was conducted through the application of a structured questionnaire to 51 students, representing 18.15% of the total student population of the program, across the Caxias do Sul and Bento Gonçalves campuses. The instrument was grounded in theoretical frameworks on leadership, self-perception, and conflict management, and the data were analyzed using descriptive statistical methods, including frequency distributions and mean values. The results revealed that the students display a predominantly democratic and transformational leadership self-perception, guided by values of active listening, recognition, and situational adaptability. Regarding multigenerational teams, the respondents demonstrated a positive stance toward age diversity, recognizing it as a potential organizational asset. In terms of conflict management, collaboration emerged as the predominant style. It is concluded that the students investigated present an internally coherent leadership profile, however, a transformational aspirational gap is identified, the capacity to motivate through purpose still manifests more as an aspiration than as a consolidated behavior. This finding, understandable given the formative stage of the sample, suggests that there is room for complementary initiatives, pedagogical, organizational, and extension-based, to strengthen the development of purpose-driven leadership throughout students' academic and professional trajectories. [resumo fornecido pelo autor]