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Leadership Today
Peter F Drucker once said “Leaders grow, they are not made”
Leadership today has become a very multi meaning term. Professionals from
various disciplines have defined ‘Leadership’ in different ways. Paradigm
shifts in the cultures of organisations and the consistent parallel and
horizontal development of companies have raised the need to look at
leadership in a new angle.
A strong company is the one that has
leaders spread all across the company, not just at the top. The business
world today needs both good leaders and good managers. However, because of
the rapid change occurring in the industry today, a company needs far more
leaders, not more managers.
Time after time again, businesses put
the wrong person in charge. Unintentionally, they reward a "don't rock the
boat" mentality. Conformity and status quo are the first steps leading
down the staircase of a business disaster. Good leaders develop through a
never ending process of self-study, education, training, and experience.
As correctly quoted by Ray Croc “The
quality of a leader is reflected in the standards they set for
themselves”. Effective leadership arises out of groups, organisations and
communities that have built trust, and learned to collaborate and make
decisions and solve problems constructively.
Let’s view a few examples. The Tata
Group one of India's oldest, largest and most respected business
conglomerates started in the 1870s & having businesses spread over seven
business sectors, comprise of 91 companies with operations in six
continents. It employs some 220,000 people and collectively has a
shareholder base of over two million world over. Despite the seemingly
insurmountable obstacles, the group remained cohesive, congenial, and
mercifully alive—a fact that speaks not just to luck but to an
unparalleled feat in leadership, a ‘Leadership of Trust’ as they love to
address themselves. This ‘leadership of trust’, the years they call a
‘Century of Trust’, was set on five core values: integrity, understanding,
excellence, unity and responsibility. These values, which have been part
of the Group's beliefs and convictions from its earliest days, continue to
guide and drive the business decisions of Tata companies even today.
True leadership is about taking people
to a place they wouldn't go to by themselves. Good leaders don't merely
supervise; they create a sense of purpose and direction for those they
lead.
Organizations can only build great
leaders in an environment that nurtures and supports that development. If
they don’t have such an environment, they need to change their culture to
create one. But organizations cannot change their culture without good
leadership.
This was the catch-22 facing the U.S.
Army’s Tank Automotive and Armaments Command, otherwise known as TACOM,
when Maj. Gen. Ross Thompson assumed command there in October 2001. TACOM
has 14,000 employees, primarily civilians, at 78 locations worldwide,
which made it comparable to a midsize international corporation. Gen.
Thompson set out to create that nurturing, supportive culture within TACOM.
“We also knew many important elements of leadership,” he says. Thompson
(with advice and assistance from Tampa, Fla.-based performance management
firm Achieve Global) is building on that foundation, and creating a place
where leaders can grow. The three simple principles he learnt during his
undergraduate days helped him nurture and grow leadership at TACOM. These
were 1) Do what’s right — legally and morally — every day. 2) Do the best
you can at all times. 3) Treat others as you would have them treat you. He
feels that if one can define one’s own leadership vision, and communicate
it daily through actions and speech to one’s colleagues, that’s how one
shall demonstrate his commitment to leadership development.”
Leaders need to "be present" and being
literally; physically present is the fundamental meaning of that term.
We're always surprised at how many leaders we encounter who spend most
their time in their offices or on "executive row."
They seldom show themselves to those
they lead. It has been over twenty years that the groundbreaking book ‘In
Search of Excellence’ pointed out the virtues of "Management by Walking
Around." Mayor Giuliani certainly demonstrated the wisdom of that
practice.
But being present means more than just physical presence, important as
that is. It means being present in the moment - focused totally and
completely on what is happening right here and right now. It means, when
you're with people, giving them your full attention, so that they will
feel recognized and motivated. When you're not present to the people you
lead, it weakens their willingness to commit.
Being present also means being
flexible, able to deal spontaneously with rapid change. Think of being
present as a focused but flexible dance with the world in which the leader
can instantly change step or tempo as the music changes.
A crucial aspect of this kind of
leadership became crystal clear when on September 11, 2001, as all of us
watched the unfolding tragedy on television. It was comforting to see
Mayor Rudy Giuliani of New York on the scene. His simple presence and
concern gave the much sought after reassurance to the country. In
contrast, everyone wondered about the President. Was he all right? Where
was he? His absence left a void. Though for no fault of his own, President
Bush was missing for most of the terrible day. Believing with good reason
that the President was in danger, the Secret Service put him on Air Force
One to take him out of harm's way. Unfortunately, the effect was to remove
him from public view when the country desperately needed his visible
presence.
Good leadership is also instrumental in
avoiding employee burnout and reducing staff turnover. James Bradley
lately pointed out that “Burnout is no longer the acknowledged domain of
the highly pressured lawyer or doctor, but a condition that can hit anyone
at any time in their career if they are faced with high productivity
expectations in a hostile and unsupportive environment”. The key then, is
a business philosophy that values its people and invests to nourish and
support development through professional training, coaching and mentoring.
Problems only arise when this is not set in place as a positive
encouraging mechanism, but instead is used as a whip by ill-equipped
management. It needs to inspire people, raise morale and restore a sense
of purpose and self-worth, naturally leading to best performance.
As Natalie Calvert, MD, Calcom Group
points out “Positivity and optimism in the workplace encourage tolerance
and balanced judgement, and inspirational leadership enables access to
those positive qualities that build our self-respect and contentment - the
ultimate preventative medicine for burnout”.
Thus, the ‘leader today’ requires to
stick to certain must do’s in order to be effective, successful and
sustaining in this ever changing corporate governance. These essentials
can be listed as:-
01. Being there.
02. Always remember, Communication is the key.
03. Instilling optimism while staying grounded to reality.
04. Tell the hard truths.
05. Minimize status differences and insist on courtesy and mutual respect.
06. Master conflict. Deal with anger in small doses and engage dissidents.
07. Take care of yourself: Maintain your stamina and let go of guilt.
08. Reinforce the team message constantly.
09. Find something to celebrate and something to laugh about.
10. Have the courage to take big risks, and more.
11. Foster a spirit of tenacious creativity. Never give up—there’s always
another move.
Author: Prof. Susen Varghese
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Writer
Profile
Prof. Susen Varghese
has
over a decade of professional
experience with 7 years of Corporate tenure in senior positions, about a
year of Teaching experience & 2.5 yrs exclusively dedicated to
Entrepreneurship. She
is
currently teaching subjects like
Behavioural Dynamics and Human Resource Development in Mumbai.
susenvarghese@yahoo.com
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