Mexico - understand-culture

Skipping the Boss

In January 2014, the marketing magazine Merca2.0 gave advice on dealing with a difficult boss. Under the heading “Dale su lugar” (Give him his place), it warned: “Saltarte a tu jefe, evidenciar su incapacidad en una reunión o burlarte de él puede ser muy contraproducente” (Going over the boss’s head, exposing his incompetence in a meeting or mocking him can be very counterproductive).

The same month, the accounting news site Noticiero Contable put the advice in a single sentence: “No te saltes la jerarquía, perderás de un plumazo lo que te ha costado años ganar” (Do not skip the hierarchy. At one stroke, you will lose what took years to earn).

Highly Productive and Fully Human

Lorenzo Servitje was the founder of Grupo Bimbo. In En esto creo (This I believe), a statement of his beliefs reproduced by Catholic.net, he wrote: “Creo que hay que procurar el bien de quienes trabajan con nosotros” (I believe that we must look after the good of those who work with us). A company, he wrote, should be “no sólo altamente productiva sino también plenamente humana” (not only highly productive but also fully human).

He died in February 2017, at the age of 98. Expansión quoted him on the company’s staff: “el cariño que tenemos para esa gente, la verdad es que los queremos” (the affection we have for those people, the truth is that we love them). His son Daniel, then the head of the company, said his father taught him to treat people “como personas y no como instrumentos” (as persons and not as instruments).

The Value of the Manual Worker

The Ideario Cuauhtémoc, published by FEMSA, sets out principles of Eugenio Garza Sada, the Monterrey industrialist. Principle 13 reads: “Reconocer el enorme valor del trabajador manual” (Recognize the enormous value of the manual worker), “cuya productividad hace posible la posición directiva y afirma el futuro de ambos” (whose productivity makes the managerial position possible and secures the future of both).

According to the Congress of Nuevo León, he promoted “la creación de despensas familiares y el otorgamiento de casa propia para los empleados” (the creation of family food baskets and the granting of homes of their own to employees). He was killed in a failed kidnapping in Monterrey on September 17, 1973.

The Cross on the Building Site

On May 3, the Day of the Holy Cross, Mexican bricklayers place a wooden cross with flowers and ribbons on buildings under construction. They ask the cross to keep them from accidents and falls during their work. According to UnoTV, “los patrones acostumbran ofrecer una comida a sus trabajadores” (the employers usually offer their workers a meal).

On May 3, 2025, the newspaper Por Esto reported from a gym under construction in the city of Campeche. The workers stopped mixing cement, said a short prayer and raised the cross to the highest point of the building. Then they brought out the food that their employers had given them, “carnitas y refrescos” (carnitas and soft drinks).

A Doctor at No Cost

In 1912, the peons of the hacienda of Tecoac, in Tlaxcala, complained of mistreatment and other grievances. One was that the cost of medicine was deducted from what they were owed. The owner, Gustavo Bretón, answered that when the peons fell ill, “les regala las medicinas habiendo llegado hasta traer un médico sin cobrarles” (he gives them the medicines, and has even brought a doctor without charging them).

According to the historian Mariano E. Torres Bautista, the workers agreed with the owner’s account. In the agreement of September 9, 1912, Bretón committed himself to keep giving medicine to the sick. National social security did not yet exist.

The Political Godfather

The dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy gives padrino, godfather, a sense beyond baptism: “Persona que ampara y protege a otra, y que a veces emplea su poder para facilitarle la consecución de algo” (A person who shelters and protects another, and who sometimes uses his power to help the other achieve something). Mexican political talk speaks of the padrino político, the political godfather.

In July 2026, La Razón reported on padrinazgo among Morena’s aspirants for governor. A political scientist said that one aspirant in Baja California, Julieta Ramírez Padilla, walked a tightrope “debido a la sombra de su principal padrino político” (because of the shadow of her main political godfather). Another expert warned that an aspirant who accepts a padrino político risks losing all independence in office.

Most Serene Highness

In December 1853, a document kept Antonio López de Santa Anna in power with extraordinary powers “hasta que juzgara necesario” (for as long as he judged necessary). According to a history text of Mexico’s adult education system, it also established that “el tratamiento a López de Santa Anna sería de Alteza Serenísima” (the form of address for López de Santa Anna would be Most Serene Highness).

Order of Precedence

The protocol rules of the Autonomous University of Baja California (UABC) set an order of precedence with 17 ranks. It begins with the rector, then the president of the governing board, then the board’s members, then the president of the university trust. Speeches must open by naming the leading authorities present “en estricto apego a la precedencia correspondiente” (in strict adherence to the corresponding precedence).

The rules also fix the seats. In a row with an odd number of people, “el lugar de honor será aquel que se ubica exactamente en el centro” (the place of honor will be the one exactly in the center). “El Rector sólo cederá la presidencia al Jefe del Ejecutivo Federal” (The rector will give up the presidency of an event only to the head of the federal executive). At some events, the state governor also takes it.

What the Boss Wants to Hear

In September 2021, IDC Online reported the Mexican results of “Los Escuchados y los No Escuchados” (The Heard and the Unheard), a survey in 11 countries by the Workforce Institute of UKG and Workplace Intelligence. “El 56% puntualiza en que es más probable que le diga a su jefe lo que quiere oír” (56 percent say that they are more likely to tell their boss what the boss wants to hear).

“El 31% prefiere no hablar para evitar ‘una política interna tóxica'” (31 percent prefer not to speak, to avoid “toxic internal politics”). At the same time, “el 92% de los mexicanos aseguró sentir que sus jefes escuchan sus inquietudes, pero no accionan” (92 percent of Mexicans said that they feel their bosses listen to their concerns but do not act). The article does not say how many workers were surveyed in Mexico.

The Private Secretary

In October 2020, the newspaper Eje Central wrote that Alejandro Esquer had accompanied Andrés Manuel López Obrador for more than three decades. He was first López Obrador’s secretario particular, private secretary, in 1996. In November 2002, he was named to the post again, when López Obrador was head of government of Mexico City.

Eje Central described his place at the presidency: “Es capaz de abrir espacio en el tiempo del tabasqueño para alguna persona y al mismo tiempo decir no” (He is able to open space in the time of the man from Tabasco for someone, and at the same time to say no). A column in Expansión called him “una de las aduanas para llegar al presidente” (one of the checkpoints on the way to the president).