LEADERS WE WANT TO BE

Most of the organizations today are not managed by leaders. They are sheer role holders or transactional execution-ists. What makes a leader real, great, effective or why do we dislike being led by some but embrace being led by others? Views on leadership styles have been reverberating in discorded complexity through the centuries. Traits like Integrity, Vision, Execution engineering, Communication, Encouragement and Enabling with resoluteness, honesty and buoyancy were basic ingredients of leadership. More recently, having a great vision and the ability to transform people and organizations became the key factors of extraordinary leadership.

“People want to be led not by a person with a fancy job title or a manager who has amassed a vast chunk of organisational power or territory. Employees will choose to follow only a real, live, genuine human being who reveals some of their humanity, values, personality, and even vulnerability.”

One of my bosses whom I reported 12 years back, was an authentic leader for me. In numerous occasions we used to talk about our family, kids, hobbies and soccer. I personally felt that he enabled to bring out best in me and others. The concerns from him were quite genuine about my future; my career, my well-being. After 12 years; I felt like giving him a call on Teacher’s day and thanked him whatever he had done for me. After talking to him on the phone that night, he made me wonder about my own qualities as a leader and what I could do to care about and bring the best out in others

How many time we introspect a simple question as a leader “How would I feel following someone like me?” There might be a surprising variance as to what we think we are and what we really are as a leader. Nonetheless, this question can help close the gap of perception and reality as well and has the benefit of being asked regularly.

During my formative years of being an HR professional; one of my bosses gave me an insight on how to be a leader which I wanted to be:

1. Decoding Leadership: We need to keep asking what the great leaders are made up of. This simple question can be answered by looking at managers who has led us in the past. I recall of my first boss who always wanted to surround himself with what he felt were great people. He was there for guidance, but he let you run with your strengths regardless of whether or not something was in your JD. Working for him you just felt more capable, smarter, a part of a team. You know you position and the impact you can make to larger organizational cause. We used to call him “Big-Picture Man”. He was polarizing and was not unanimously popular. But without exception, the crème de la crème performers loved him for the opportunities and those just trying to float around in the system would have burned him in effigy. But he was magical where he could just make you feel like you could do absolutely anything. He instilled confidence. I don’t have any idea how he did it. No effusive and wasteful compliments, no empty praise, no weekly luncheons, he believed in. When he said ‘thank you, I couldn’t have done it without you,’ you just knew he meant it. There was never a question that he had your back. He engendered a loyalty that’s rare. I haven’t worked for him in years, but I draw lot of inspiration from him and would like to integrate his leadership traits in my leadership traits.
2. Do you want to be like your boss?

Benchmarking our traits and introspection would give us insight as to what we are missing? Where are our gaps? What do we need to keep doing, what do we need to stop doing and what do we need to start doing more of?

1. Plan and Execute. Once we have a clear idea on what you want to be, create a plan and do it!

It's great to learn from people who have been there before. Someone who's achieved success can probably tell us something about how to get there. However their life had very different circumstances than ours probably does. Learning how they handle people and excel in this is good, but it all ends up what is that we want to bring in us as leaders.