Leadership

Leadership

This is one of those topics, which has been discussed at length, spoken about in past and now, written extensively on, and being the favorite of all senior level trainings.

Even after so much of discussions, I believe everyone has his / her own interpretation of Leadership. May be rightly so. In my opinion like any other specialized skill, this is spoken, discussed, and practiced in a given context.

Integrity, Walk the Talk, Vision, Humility, Boardroom leadership, Networking, Trust, Motivate, Listener…

If you ask anyone about the qualities / attributes of a leader (leaving aside the “Vision”, and “Direction” for the time being), more often than not, you will hear the attributes listed above. Nothing wrong with those, in fact, I also believe those are part of a true leader; however, with minor change.

All these attributes define the human behavioral aspect. Whether a person can be trusted or not, has integrity or not, is he / she arrogant or is humble in his / her approach…these define the fundamental character of a person. Leader or not, these attributes are searched for and liked by all, as these are considered to be “expected attributes” for a good human being. So, essentially, people expect their leaders first to be good human beings and then only they look beyond.

Again, quite obvious, if a person is not a good human being; how can that person be an effective leader? After all he / she has to work with human being only.

That brings me to my other point, i.e. if these are fundamentals for any good human being, how could those not be so for a good / effective leader. If that is so, why “Values” can be any different from these attributes (of course, the above list is not a complete / comprehensive list)? The point that I’m trying to make is, “Values” are fundamental and hence given for a good leader. Those cannot define the leadership style of a person. A person carries the values within him / her, and those ultimately get promoted, and propagated within his / her reach.

It is arguable if those can be changed. I’m of the opinion that these traits are so ingrained in our system that those are difficult to change, let alone the thought of overhauling the same. Therefore, “Value” system is given, unless it is influenced by life changing incidence, which results in a complete overhaul of the system. It is being said that it happened with Valmiki; it happened with Kautilya; however, those incidences are rare.

That is why I segregated these from “Vision” and “Direction”. To me, a person is born with, and live with his / her value system throughout his / her life; with a brief period of childhood, where it could either be molded or influenced by environment.

Vision, Direction and Values

As I mentioned above “Values” we are either born with or are mostly cemented by the time a normal human being reaches the stage of influencing / leading others.

Now, this again is arguable. Some of the people (if not most) may argue that people start showing their leadership qualities when they are young. Children also exhibit these qualities, may be limited by environment, age or audience. True; what I’m considering is leadership what we acknowledge in today’s society, at corporate, social, political. . . country level.

I personally believe that leadership at any level provides “Vision” and “Direction”. The first of these two is something that you can rarely influence or teach. The second one cannot be taught completely; however, it can be influenced and polished over a period of time.

The reason I say so, lies under my understanding that direction is more associated with data, monitoring, interpretation, governance and change. Let me explain this a bit.

A CEO of a company, unit head of a function… what do they all do, or have something in common; if we leave aside the “Vision” for the time being? They all provide “Direction” to their respective areas of influence. Well that was simple; but, how do they provide “Direction”?

Could this be associated with set targets, achieved results, available data, changing course of earlier decisions, mapping back achieved success to targets and changing environment and thereby steering the “influence area” towards envisioned goal and “vision”. I think so.

One cannot segregate the monitoring part from “Direction”. The way I interpret monitoring, is set of measures or practices that anyone employs in order to check the compliance / deviation to set target. It is more than mere binary recognition, i.e. whether an event has happened or not. In contrast, it is continuous in nature and it keeps checking the achievement / deviation, and includes deploying of corrective actions either to reduce the negative impact, and / or correct the course.

So, if one cannot monitor, one cannot provide direction. I’m not saying a person has to devise his / her own methods of monitoring, neither am I saying that a person has to do that all by himself / herself; rather, it is the intent, ability and capability to do so.

Now, in this dynamic world, can goals / targets / direction ever be static? Well, if those are changing so it is natural that “Direction” may also change, if not “will”. That is precisely why I linked direction, with “Data”, “Monitoring”, “Governance”, and “Change”. But, monitoring is more of “Managerial” trait / quality than that of a Leader. May be it is, but, if you agree that a Leader has to provide direction, then how can you leave out “monitoring” out of it?

For example, a spiritual leader mentoring / coaching his / her disciples / pupils, a corporate honcho steering unit / company towards a “Vision” and “Goal”, a political leader steering his / her nation towards set direction…you take any example. You will realize that everyone has to translate “Vision” into achievable goals and tollgates. The checkpoints are for them to realize the progress made and devise the “change” as per deviation or achieved result.

May be at least for this trait the line of demarcation between Managerial and Leadership is not that well defined, or maybe there is none.

Now, coming back to our first part of twin traits; the “Vision”. Can this be taught? Bill Gates envisioning desktop in every home, Steve Jobs envisioning “User Experience”, Jack Welch envisioning being number one or two in every space they operate, i.e. Excellence beyond comparison…so on and so forth. No one taught them, and no one could. The “Vision” is something that a person realizes on his / her own, and is based on ones thinking. People may also link it to creative side, may be. I’m not the right person to say anything with regard to that; however, for sure it can’t be taught.

If it can be, how many times have you come across either seminars, classroom sessions, workshops or teaching modules, imparting knowledge on “How to develop Vision” or may be beyond?

The “Vision” is something a person creates out of his / her passion, or by thinking and / or understanding the obvious needs of the organization / society / economy / nation. Otherwise, how would you explain the above given examples. Moreover, it is the “Vision” that separates Leaders from “Me too”; because strategies are defined around vision, and those in turn lead to practices and activities.

Strategic, Operational, Situational, Boardroom Leadership…

Over a period of time, you would have come across various terms, when it comes to Leadership, such as above.

Scrutinize these a little more closely and you would realize those are nothing but classification / specialization within Leadership. That takes me to my next understanding on this topic, i.e. “Like others fields / roles, even Leadership in today’s context has also become specialized”.

What it means is that a “Successful Leader” necessarily does need mean him / her being successful in all other fields / areas. A Leader is successful in defined boundaries, and may lead to average performance, once moved out of that “specialized” field / area.

Therefore, you give any name to it i.e., Strategic, Operational, Situational, Boardroom Leadership, the fact is it has moved towards “division of labor”. A Leader can be either of those; however, it is difficult to find one effective in all of those. Which I believe is pragmatic, as it is humanly impossible to have all those skills in one person and be cognizant of it.

You develop it a little further and you would realize that “Inspirational Leaders”, “Situational Leaders”, “Spiritual Leaders”…the fact is being successful in one area does not automatically guarantee success in other.

Summary

There are two sides, one which can be acquired or polished, one with whom the people are born with and are part of DNA. You can try altering the same; however, it is as difficult (or being successful) a task as changing a person’s DNA.

Mentoring and Coaching at right stage can definitely bring change in a person, and can make him / her ready for a Leadership role; however, can that be done to a person, who has not “exhibited” those skills.

May be my last point of understanding, the mentoring and coaching is provided to people who have already exhibited those skills, i.e. those already possess some of those qualities, if not all. Whether that person has acquired those skills / attributes over a period of time, or had born with it, the fact is when he / she being considered for a Leadership position, he / she already had those.

Lastly, I want to leave you with two thoughts:

1)      How many times we knowingly develop skills to be Leader, and

2)      If Leadership can be taught from grounds up, can anyone pick a child in his / her days, and ensure him / her being a successful Leader?