--- title: "“Leadership Cannot Be Reduced to a Set of Skills”: Elena Babina on Ontopsychology as the Foundation of Business Management" description: "Elena Babina, founder of the Institute of Psychology and Entrepreneurship, explained in an interview with RBC-Ukraine why ontopsychology is becoming the foundation of modern business education and how it helps shape a new generation of leaders." date: 2026-09-16T12:02:00.000Z lang: en url: https://xab.info/en/posts/elena-babina-ontopsychology-and-leadership-in-business tags: [business-leadership, ontopsychology, psychology, education, entrepreneurship, ukraine] publisher: "XAB.info" --- # “Leadership Cannot Be Reduced to a Set of Skills”: Elena Babina on Ontopsychology as the Foundation of Business Management ![Elena Babina in a bright pink blazer during an interview on ontopsychology and leadership in business management](https://xab.info/media/2026/09/17/elena-babina-ontopsihologiya-i-liderstvo-v-biznese/elena-babina-ontopsihologiya-i-liderstvo-v-biznese-1.webp) ## 🎯 Key Points - Elena Babina believes that leadership cannot be reduced to a set of formal skills: the key factors are self-understanding, adaptability, and working in uncertainty. - The Institute of Psychology and Entrepreneurship (IPE) was established in 2016 in Kyiv and trains managers at the intersection of management and psychology. - The foundation of IPE's programs is ontopsychology, a field that studies the primary mechanisms of the unconscious; its founder is the Italian scholar Antonio Meneghetti. - IPE acts as the operator of ontopsychology in Ukraine and translates Meneghetti's books into Ukrainian — seven editions have already been translated. Genuine leadership in business, in the view of Elena Babina, founder of the Institute of Psychology and Entrepreneurship (IPE), requires more than formal managerial competencies. In an interview with RBC-Ukraine, she explained that for a successful manager, the ability to understand oneself and others, to adapt to change, to work in conditions of uncertainty, and to consciously develop one's own management style are critically important. That is precisely why, in her words, business education is increasingly intersecting with psychology, and classical management programs are being supplemented with tools for working with the human psyche. ### The Path from Economics to Ontopsychology Elena Babina's professional trajectory brings together economics, management, science, entrepreneurship, and psychology. She defines herself first and foremost as an ontopsychologist and emphasizes that the foundation of her development is the combination of constant work and continuous learning. “Many problems arise for us when we do not understand what is happening to us. That is why learning and work must go hand in hand,” she notes. In her words, fragmented knowledge in individual disciplines “is very limiting,” whereas combining different fields provides a significantly broader understanding of a person and their activity. It is precisely at the intersection of this knowledge, as Babina explains, that the Institute of Psychology and Entrepreneurship was born. ### What Is Ontopsychology in Simple Terms Ontopsychology, which is one of the key areas of IPE's work, remains a little-known term to a broad audience. Babina explains that this field primarily studies the human unconscious: its subject matter is psychic activity in its primary actuality, that is, “the human being in existence.” Unlike approaches that consider a person predominantly as a social construct — through roles, stereotypes, and reactions to stimuli — ontopsychology proceeds from the idea that a person is part of existence, which has its own laws. By studying these laws, the field describes a way of life that helps a person self-realize and understand who they are and why they came into the world. The founder of ontopsychology is the Italian scholar Professor Antonio Meneghetti, who combined knowledge from many fields and was particularly interested in the figure of the leader and the entrepreneur. ### Leader: Natural Potential or a Skill In the course of the conversation with RBC-Ukraine, the questions were raised of what makes a person a leader — natural potential or knowledge that can be acquired through learning — as well as how psychology helps entrepreneurs make decisions and how women build their own management style. Babina asserts that leaders and entrepreneurs “move life forward,” because they take on responsibility for development, create things and services that make other people's lives easier. In her assessment, a leader has a different psychic structure, a stronger potential, and a natural calling to serve others, which makes ontopsychology especially significant for this audience. The Institute, as its president states, teaches how to apply ontopsychology systematically in business. ### IPE as the Operator of Ontopsychology in Ukraine The Institute of Psychology and Entrepreneurship is a private educational institution established in 2016 in Kyiv. It trains bachelor's and master's degree holders in specialties related to management, communications, psychology, and business, and also includes a professional college. In addition to formal education, IPE operates a business school with an Executive MBA program “Psychology of Business” and courses for entrepreneurs. The main goal of the institute is to shape a new generation of managers capable of thinking strategically, understanding people's internal motivations, and managing business based on precise knowledge of the human psyche. IPE positions itself as the operator of ontopsychology in Ukraine: the institute translates Antonio Meneghetti's works into Ukrainian, and at the time of the interview's publication, seven books had already been translated. ## 🔍 Fact-Check Verification - [“Leadership Cannot Be Reduced to a Set of Skills”: Elena Babina, Institute of Psychology and Entrepreneurship](https://www.rbc.ua/ukr/news/uspih-biznesi-tse-kreativnist-ta-intuyitsiya-1789125724.html) - Первичный источник: полный текст интервью, факты об ИПП (2016, Киев), онтопсихологии, Менегетти, семи переведенных книгах. - [Elena Babina: “NGOs Need Trust, Partners, and New Ideas”](https://www.kp.ru/daily/277797.5/5275203/) - Контекстный источник о деятельности Бабиной в НКО-сегменте; не подтверждает напрямую факты об ИПП, использован для биографического контекста. - [Babina Elena](https://www.cnews.ru/book/%D0%91%D0%B0%D0%B1%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B0_%D0%95%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%B0) - Библиографическая запись о публикации Бабиной; подтверждает ее статус автора/эксперта, но не содержит фактов об ИПП. - [Education That Prepares for Life: The Institute of Psychology and Entrepreneurship](https://www.epochtimes.com.ua/ru/poleznye-sovety/obrazovanie-kotoroe-gotovit-k-zhizni-institut-psihologii-i-predprinimatelstva-171559) - Вторичный источник, подтверждающий профиль ИПП как учебного заведения, готовящего к практической деятельности. ## ❓ FAQ ### Q: When and where was the Institute of Psychology and Entrepreneurship established? **A:** IPE is a private educational institution established in 2016 in Kyiv. It trains bachelor's and master's degree holders in management, communications, psychology, and business, and also includes a professional college and a business school with an Executive MBA program “Psychology of Business.” ### Q: What is ontopsychology in simple terms? **A:** According to Elena Babina, it is a field that studies the human unconscious and its psychic activity in primary actuality — “the human being in existence.” Unlike approaches that consider a person only through social roles and stereotypes, ontopsychology describes the laws of existence and a way of life that aids self-realization. The founder of the field is the Italian scholar Antonio Meneghetti. ### Q: Is IPE a representative of ontopsychology in Ukraine? **A:** Yes, the institute positions itself as the operator of ontopsychology in Ukraine and translates Antonio Meneghetti's works into Ukrainian. At the time of the RBC-Ukraine interview's publication, seven books had already been translated.