LEADERSHIP
“To be a leader one must have followers – followers make the leader and leader attracts the followers”
What is leadership?
Leadership is a responsibility and an art of getting the job done on set standards, by the personnel who followed in a dynamic way.
Leadership is “organizing a team to achieve a common goal”. A leader by its meaning is one who goes first as a pioneer and leads by example, so that others are motivated to follow him. This si a fundamental requirement. “To be a leader, one must have followers”. To have followers, one must have their trust.
Then, how does a leader win their trust and why the followers trust the leader. In order to become an effective and efficient leader, the following points be observed strictly.
Who is an effective leader ?
At the most basic level, a leader is someone who leads other. But what makes someone an effective leader, Leadership is a mix of knowledge, values, skills, character and behavior. In order to become an effective leader, a leader should have task oriented vision, a drive and a commitment. An effective leader needs to known the purpose of team or organization, why it exists, its goal, long term plans and objectives. An effective leader always find new ways while accomplishing the tasks, by innovating various methods while taking risks, where not other person had vision or imagination. Out of all the qualities, an effective leader must and should have trustworthiness.
Knowing who you are – Self-discovery and leadership
Leadership starts with our beliefs and values. Unless leaders know how to lead themselves, it is not possible for any leader to lead others effectively. You look at your weaknesses, strengths, and your interactions with your team with proper judgement. If you don’t know about yourself, how can you lead yourself? if you can’t lead yourself, how can you lead others? An effective leader knows what motivates him and what he wants out of life. A good leader needs to be flexible in behavior and a self-governing reaction in difficult situations, and taking proactive drive while accomplishing tasks. It’s like discovering one’s own inner self. Step by step procedure must be followed by leaders through self-discovry on daily basis to drop the unsuccessful ones, and continue with successful ones. Leadership is a journey which fosters self-discovery more or less every day. Putting yourself into other’s shoes is empathy, and taking active interest in others is cardinal for a leader. It requires personal discipline, hard work and continuous practice. Once leaders attain the grip on self-discovery, they are all set to become effective and efficient leaders in due course to time.
Ethical Leadership
Since leaders have to play a big role in any organization, they have to follow ethics. What we have wit- nessed for the last several years does not give us any pool proof evidence that ethics are atleast envisioned by the leaders, especially in big organizations. The damage and problems caused by accounting fraud in Satyam computers will not soon be forgotten, nor will the frauds of investment banks all over the world. While standards seem to keep falling in some corporations, there are still good leaders who kept their ethics intact. It is essential to note that leadership is all about values, and it is impossible to become leaders, if they lack awareness and concern for their own personal values. Leaders who follow ethics can only lead the teams. How many leaders think about honesty? Cross check with your own personal values.
Effective leaders should have the following qualities
Feedback: If a leader doesn’t give feedback to his immediate higher authorities in an organization, the apex body would not take any decisions for development of the company. If employees don’t give feed- back to their leader on the tasks they are working, the leader can’t take decisions to accomplish the task as scheduled and will be on tenterhooks. In order to overcome these problems, leaders should provide
regular feedback to their teams. Otherwise, they can’t be productive if they have no idea what they’re working for, or what their work means. There are feedback tools in the modern business world, whereby every employee’s performance is evaluated at the end of every day. There must be feedback tools like ‘Action Taken Reports’ or ‘Task Completion Reports’, which will be checked on daily basis. If employees don’t know what they are working for, they start giving up, and as a result the organization fails to reach its ultimate goal. It is up to the leaders to put a system into practice for giving and taking regular feedback.
Mingle with your team : Typically, a leader is always busy with many things during working hours, and it will become tough for a leader to make himself available for his team all the time. Though, a leader is busy as usual, he must spend some time with the team members regularly. The employees invariably look up to their leader for every obstacle they face during the task completion. When team members know that their leader is always available for them, then they will put concentrated efforts on the task assigned and accomplish without any hiccups.
Excess of anything is not good : Mingling with team members is always welcome and a good quality of a true leader. It is natural that all of us want to be seen as friendly and approachable to employees in our team. And employees feel happy working for a leader that they get on with. Usually some employees take advantage of leader, who is too friendly with them. Notwithstanding, a leader sometimes has to make tough decisions regarding employees in his team. But, there is subtle difference between mingling with employees and making personal relationship with employees by being too friendly. A leader should draw clear boundaries and get the balance between being a friend and being the boss, whilst not losing the empathy towards team members.
Everything done in hasten and repented at leisure : Getting the things done and showing excellence is a first quality of a leader. To make any task to be completed, a leader needs his full team. Otherwise, co- ordination and co-operation among team members will fail. Hence the leader has to fill any vacancy to ensure smooth functioning of the team. Always recruit a suitable person than recruiting a wrong person hurriedly, which is waste of time and resources. Moreover, other team members feel burden to carry under perfomer and don’t like to keep him alongside. A leader should focus on recruitment and bring effective and suitable candidate in a team, so that the set goals for a team will be sailed through peacefully.
Watch your back as you move forward : As we know that employees follow their leader blindly, when they have trust and confidence on their leader. As a leader, you need to be a role model for your team. If you come late and talking negatively about your higher authorities, then you can’t expect your team members not to do the same. When team members need to stay back to complete the task, you should also stay back to help them. So, every attitude of a leader is observed without his conscience. Since you expect your team members to follow you, sure they follow in all aspects. Hence, set excellent standards for yourself and expect the team to follow the suit.
What makes a successful leader ?
Leadership is a position which is an authority to organize people to accomplish a goal. While leading a group, a leader should have the ability to create new ideas, giving respect to individuals, willing to take tough decisions, assuming responsibility and accountability and listening to the group. Is it enough to become a successful leader? While all these qualities are needed for a leader, it is the feeling of empathy towards colleagues and employees that makes a successful leader, and ultimately leads the company towards success. Leadership is a skill that very few people can claim to possess. A business where empathy is widespread is always successful. Today, empathy has been recognized and became necessary for leaders to embed in them, in order to be successful and also help an organization achieve its vision.
Empathy a necessary trait to be embedded by leaders
Most of the times people tend to confuse empathy with sympathy. Sympathy is showing kindness and pity, whereas empathy is feeling other’s intricacies and helping them. It is also important to be genuinely concerned and interested in people. If a leader has all the excellent qualities and there is a lack of empa- thy, the journey towards success is going to be short lived. Demonstrating empathy is hard as the leaders go on with their tasks, and it actually takes time and practice, Hence, leaders put themselves in other’s shoes and see how success comes after them. This trait, empathy, allows leaders to understand and explore problems that employess face while resolving and helping them.
Collective vision gives strength to the organization
A collective vision by definition requires input and discussion from all the departments of an organization. A leader must spend time in listening team members, understanding their needs and communicate clearly without any ambiguity in order to accomplish the tasks as one entity. When a team is working as a single unit with clear vision, evry task will be completed with best results, no matter how difficult it is. When a team works as a single unit, the vision of a leader will identically equal to the vision of team. A vision provides shope and direction to the organization’s future and its values.
Leaderd must ensure employees leave with dignity
When any employee leaves the company for any reason, it is the duty of a leader to ensure that his team member should go on with dignity. Every departing employee would appreciate smooth exit, which will give him suitable closure and help him leave with dignity. This procedure, if followed properly will increase the morale of the remaining employees and they show more integrity and trust towards the leader and the organization. The leader must ensure that the organization should give minimum monetary package to outgoing employee, so that the employee will joyfully leaves the company and never bother about the loss of job, until he find another suitable job.
Excellence is essential
In present day competitive world, every organization has to show their excellence, be it a product or service, if they want to continue their business. Then what is excellence? When a person delivers a result, better than expected, it leads to excellence. Any business that does not focus on excellence will find itself outdated and customers gradually forget the company. Now-a-days organizations are not competing with competitors in their own country, but the world. In order to keep their business on thriving mode, excel- lence is the only way to prove that they are the best in the world. Excellence is about the highest quality of ability in a chosen field, and requires a combination of will power, proper planning and ruthless execution by leaders. When excellence is essential, then there is a requirement of competent team memebers for the tasks to be completed with excellent results. And leaders need to identify the talent and assign the roles and responsibilities accordingly to the team members.
Infulence is leadership tool
leadership is a process whereby the leader infulences a group of individuals to work towards the achievements of a common goal. Being able to influence others is an important leadership skill. Leaders inspire and guide team members to accomplish goal and constantly develop and sustain co-operative working relationships. Leaders must have the expertise to solve problems. A leader needs to continuously learn and update with relevant and critical information. A leader needs to review his or her style and work with others. A leader needs to be ready to be influenced as well to improve his or her influencing skill.
Building trust and credibility in a team is necessary for any leader to influence his thoughts.
Leadership and responsibility
Being a leader means taking the responsibility on the acitons performed by the people who follow him. Leadership and responsibility go hand in hand. There is no leader born without responsibility given.
Responsibility is the duty for a leader. When leaders perform their duties, it is their responsibility to take fame, name and blame for every outcome and result. Most people are happy enough to take the credit for being right, but few are willing to take the blame for being wrong. A great leader accepts the blame know- ing that it was he, under whose watch the results came. It implies complete, personal acceptance of the responsibility for getting job done. A true leader never plays a blame game. A leader is the one, who creates path and move people in a certain direction. Hence, leader should be brave to take responsibility for his actions, outcome and will hold himself accountable. An ideal leader should always be at the back when the things are going good. When in problem, leader should be in front to take responsibility, giving credit to others efforts, in case of success. The leader should convey across, the board that the team had worked very hard, even when it fails. A leader’s willingness to take responsibility for failure, and the immense trust he has in the team shows the true leadership qualities.
Leaders need to improve their people skills
Leaders need to improve their soft skills, people skills and interpersonal skills. Otherwise, they will be lag behind in the present day environment where people skills or soft skills are very important while leading the team. Well developed interpersonal skills are essential to productivity in a diverse work place that increasingly utilizers a team approach to accomplish the complex tasks of the organization. Leaders at every level must understand, motivate and communicate with others. These skills will promote an atmosphere of confidence and trust that grows valuable relationships and inspires a group or a team to accomplish the tasks of the organization. Organizations should ensure that all the leaders and managers have these essential skills and embedded in them.
Hire and Fire policy – Leader’s role
Employees are not hired to be fired. In a country like India, easier hire and fire policy is not viable because companies play firing game frequently, as they get another employee with lesser wages. Non-performers must be sieved at entry level itself using latest methods, prevalent in developed countries. With easier policy, fear of losing job will always be in employee’s mind, which further spoils spirit and output. Leaders should take steps to mould non-performers towards better results. Still not performed, fire them, as no company can bear the unbearable burden when companies operating numerous employees with tight control on profitability. In order to avoid incidents like “Manesar-Maruti’, a benevolent approach be exercised.
Recognize employee’s achievements
Recognition, rewards will help both the employer and employee get what they need from work and is a win-win situation. Recognization activities generally build positive morale in the work environment. Lack of praise and recognition is the main reason for employees leaving a company. While increasing salary and giving bonuses are important motivational factors, companies also need to recognize the achievements of employees on special days like company’s foundation day, May-Days or any other special days. People work in organizations not just for living, but to make recognizable life. Employees also like recognition that is random and that provides an element of surprise. It is very important for companies to have proven system for recognition.
An efficient leader always tries to create more leaders
An efficient and effective leader always tries to create more leaders. Whereas some leaders make more followers, because, they feel very insecure. Any organization short on leadership has little chance of survival in fiercely competing business world. Leaders need to identify long term goals and create a program to develop leaders from potential employee base. Leaders must try to impart knowledge and necessary skills to prospective employees with training and development programs. It is advisable to formulate customized development plans that match the organization’s future needs with the individual aspirations, abilities and talents of the candidates. Moreover, building bench strength with strong people development process may leaders to help preserve good employees, which move the employees to trust their leader.
Crisis management – Tips for leaders
Possibility becomes impossible in times of crisis and every organization goes through some crisis or the other, at times. Then, the leadership comes to the picture in board rooms. When a crisis looms, the usual business processes of the organization gets stuck, and its reputation will be in jeopardy. This is the right time for the effective and efficient leaders to come forward and use their innovative thinking, creativity and firing all their cylinders to guide the team towards possible and sustainable solutions, and eventually bringing usual business of the organization back into normal course. Crisis management is not possible without dynamic leadership. Effective crisis management is not just a matter of protecting organization’s reputation, but winning back the customer’s confidence, and making sure that necessary preventive measures are taken, not to see the organization into another crisis in near future.
How leaders face uncertainty
Picture this! The whole globe is shook up. Then what a leader is going to do, when things are falling apart.
A leader’s success is always depend on having the right answers at right times and providing clear direc- tions to the people amidst clamor, chaotic and turbulences. In times of uncertainty, we don’t know what to do next, but we do know that we shall be doing something. Organizations become tumultuous at times of uncertainty caused by product failure, recessions, mergers and acquisitions. All the employees look at their leaders with a ray of hope during turbulent period. If a leader does not have ready answers, trust- worthy plan and time table, what he or she does?
A leader needs to develop great trust in others to come through in times of stress and challenge. How to address uncertainty with team, and engage them with strategic plan and timetable is essential part of facing uncertainty. Simply give people the opportunity to have a say, then communicate how you will take their ideas not account, and announce the process going forward, so that everyone knows how the answers will be generated. Let people know what you did with their input. These respectful gestures will demonstrate your sincerity, and all the employees of the team develop a trust and confidence on your leadership.
A true leader leads his team in times of failure and support
Mr. Abdul Kalaam was in charge of SLV-3. The launch date was set for 10th August 1979 and the rocket took off elegantly at 0758 hours. Stage-1 performed to perfection, but the spell was broken. The second stage went out of control. The flight was terminated after 317 seconds and the vehicle’s remains, including his favorite fourth stage with the payload splashed into the sea, 560 km off Sriharikota. This incident caused Mr. Adbul Kalam into profound disappointment. Controlling his anger and frustration, he went straight to his room and slumped onto the bed as he had hardly had any sleep in the past week.
A gentle touch on his shoulder woke him up. It was late in the afternoon, almost approaching evening. He saw Dr. Brahm Prakash sitting by his bedside. He them took Kalaam for lunch. The company of Dr.Brahm Prakash filled him with a new confidence helped to endure this difficult period. He drew the entire SLV team close and demonstrated to Mr. Abdul kalaam that he was not alone in his sorrow at the SLV-3’s failure. “All your comrades are standing by you,” Dr.Brahm Prakash said. This gave him vital emotional support, encouragement, and guidance.
If failures are part of success, it should always welcome at any juncture. If anyone wants to get succeed in any big projects, always be ready with unexpected results. Failures are part of success. All the successful people, till date have felt and faced utter failures and they overcome all the failures, and stood up for their ingenuity and assiduous self-determination. That is what success is, and a true leader should always have this quality. The next year, in July 1980, the satellite was successfully launched. The whole nation was jubilant. Kalaam states that this was the most important management lesson that he has learned in this life
– “How to lead a team in difficult situations.”
Thought leadership
Thought leadership is to sell and idea that is a proven and successful over the period of time, and eventually followed by number of people blindly. Anyone with an idea that can be sellable and to be followed by the people in great numbers called to be a thought leader. A thought leader should have the ability to practice before he or she preach, thereby molding the followers to trust. Take for exampl, the power to influence the thoughts of their followers by Jayendra Saraswati, Acharya Mahapragya, SriSri Ravishankar, Baba Ramdev and Sathya Sai Baba. All these people have millions of followers not only in India but all over the world.
In the same manner, a thought leader in any business organization is a person, who identifies present situations, general dispositions and latest economic changes in a particular industry or functional area to help others identify new opportunities or solutions for growth. As we are transitioning from a knowledge based economy to wisdom based economy, it’s no longer just about what you know, but what you do with what you know. It’s about trust, transparency, opening up your heart and leading with kindness. Thought leadership is another form of corporate social responsibility. It’s about leaving a legacy and earning the respect of your community.
Why people have trust and investing their hard earned money in all TATA groups, infosys and other few selected companies? Because, the personnel at the apex bodies are though leaders and people have trusted their thought. They have followed ethics in their lives and set standards for future leaders. No one
can possibly be a through leader, unless he or she is taking the advantage on the significantly improved brand equity attained by being a thought leader.
People like Mahatma Gandhi, Babu Rajendra Prasad, Indira Gandhi, Sardar Vallabhai Patel, Lala Lajapati Roy, Bhagat Singh, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Chandra Sekhar Azad and Jawaharlal Nehru are the political and social thought leaders who have great number of followers and they did something for the society.
East or west, our country is first
On god’s benest, i kept everything next
Life’s given too much twist, that’s why I didn’t take rest Thirst or mist, still it’s the best
Anything best, I played close to my chest Past and boast, not in my list
When I pass the test, something comes up with new text
I have a quest; I worked most in the nest
I used to host, the fast and vast with very much gust I have a post, that’s always in my fist
All my past, not like jest
I don’t resist, if it’s lost or Last
Life’s gone by just, that’s is the life’s gist
It’s must and I Like it most, because country is first
No matter who ever in the list, Abdul Kalam is the best.
