BE A LEADER IN YOUR PROFESSIONAL LIFE
All of us aspire to be successful in our professional lives. And we are not wrong in having such an intent. To be successful and then to be a leader takes a lot of character and courage. I do not believe that any individual possess this qualification by birth – rather the professional acquires them in the course of his career. In the course of the next few paragraphs I would delve upon the characters that successful people have exhibited in their professional lives to be a successful leader.
To be a successful leader, one must demonstrate two very important qualities:
- to have the skills to influence others
- and to be of a strong character
Both these qualities go hand and in hand and to be a successful leader one must be able to have these virtues. We do not acquire these virtues over night – there are exceptional individuals who have ingrained talent and qualities but such examples are far and few in between. A vast majority of leaders today are those who have made their moves from the ranks – like us through the hard way and after spending considerable amount of time working and honing their skills with their superior’s guidance. In the course of time through their commitment and passion and with a will to succeed and with a need to guide the next generation they have imbibed leadership qualities in them.
As mentioned both of these qualities go hand in hand – one without the other would be a disaster. You may have the right skills but if your character is weak, you will not be able to infuse trust into your team. Alternatively, if your character is great and uncompromising, but skills sets are poor, you will be labeled as “ a nice man to know”
2 words in the leadership traits mentioned above that needs further elaboration “Skills and Character”. We will study these virtues more in detail as we move along.
Skills – largely this attribute is acquired with a dosage of in-built desire to succeed and command. There are probably 4 subsets that a person should posses to be able to master this art and I shall elaborate them in the next few lines.
The first one in no particular order is “Communication”.
Effective communication is the backbone and the basic qualification that a leader should possess to be able to relate to his team. Communication must be simple, straightforward, clear, concise and should be from the heart. A leader will be able to extract a lot more from his team if he is able to guide and verbalize with them in a simple manner without any hidden baggage. All forms of communication must be with a noble intent. There are times when a leader has to take decisions and these are done with a justifiable logic to back them. The circumstances should help the leader to be able to effectively communicate the decision to his team. The leader should be able to then demonstrate that such decision are doable and are adequately backed up. The ability to communicate with everybody regardless of who you are is a great thing and a good leader must possess this virtue.
Universal tests have identified that an average leader tends to “under communicate” with his team. This is not good news – though it also means that there is a vast scope for improvement for managers to morph to leadership positions.
It is also equally important for a leader to look for reverse communication – now what does this mean? Simply put, he should be in a position to periodically sit with his team and understand their position, their feedback, their suggestions, their expectation from the leader both in terms of the pertinent weakness and the gaps in his approach. In short a good leader should be able to digest “constructive criticism and should be a good listener”. As Drucker said “ the most important thing in communication is to hear what is not being said”.
The 2nd skill that a leader should possess is the ability to “take hard decisions”.
Many leaders shy away from taking decision which is at times un-popular and damaging. Or actually there are leaders who do not take decisions at all. The true hallmark of a good leader is his ability to be able to “decide and act” and let the consequence take its own course. When a leader is not taking decisions, he is a follower and not a leader in the true sense. Why have these people then as your leader?
A good leader should be able to exhibit the virtues of a good decision maker – he should make a conscious effort to consider all variables around him and still be able to guide his team. An indecisive leader would do more harm than good to his team.
There are times in our lives that decisions are not entirely correct – the ability to be able to realize our mistakes and be able to rectify them and move on explains a leader’s confidence in his team and his thinking.
The 3rd skill that a leader should be having is the ability to “Execute.”
In our professional lives we will come across leaders with great vision and their ability to influence teams. Influencing is an art and helps leaders lead their team to the eventual goal. But there are great leaders who are great visionaries but may not possess the right traits to execute them.
Execution to a plan is therefore an essential criteria. Leaders should be in a position to relate to the organization’s vision and mission. They are expected to provide the team with the right guidance and direction to ensure that the immediate mission and the vision ahead is reachable and achievable. A leader should therefore relate to his team and be able to understand and appreciate his team’s effort with this cause.
The forth skill that a leader should be able to demonstrate is to have the “Right team” in place.
I heard a story from my leader “he realized that a certain member in his team was incapable of delivering his goods and was not in the right place – the leader did not detest him or ask him to move on. He ensured that he spent adequate time with him to understand him more and try and balance his professional interests with his qualification and personality to a role that best suited him – the person went on to do well in his life and is grateful to the leader he did not work with”.
The moral of this paragraph is very clear – we as leaders have to work on building the right team with a balanced mix of experience, youth and exuberance to help drive a common agenda.
I must conclude echoing the words of a great motivator ‘a good objective of leadership is to help those who are doing poorly to do well and to help those who are doing well to do even better”.
Let us now understand the other trait “Character” in a little more detail.
I admire this quote – it says “Men of genius are admired, men of wealth are envied, men of power are feared but men of character are trusted.”
Character is more of a natural trait and a professional is born with it. In the course of his evolutionary years – as a student and as a member of the society the individual is influenced by his surroundings, which hones his natural character and moulds him to the external environment. There are 3 sub sets that probably best define the qualities that an individual will be measured while analyzing his character. These are
1. Relationship
2. Integrity
3. Humility
Let us try and analyze each of these sub sets in some detail.
Relationship – how do you define relationship? They signify human values and professionals in a leadership position are expected to demonstrate at every level. A professional is expected to start, consolidate and build relationship with the group working with him and the organization at large. It is critical for the leader to value the people working with him. He should be in a position to take them along – both at good times and in not so good times too. He has to be the initiator of every move that his team makes and he has to believe in his team about their ability to deliver – relationship is all about being together. He is expected as a leader to lead his team and not the organization that they work in – the mark of a true leader lies in his ability to sustain the relationship with his team long after the team has moved on to various roles and positions across the professional spectrum. As someone said “ outstanding leaders go out of their way to boost the self esteem of their personnel and if people believe in themselves its amazing what they can accomplish.”
Integrity – The world needs more of this today – integrity signifies trust. An individual is a complete professional if he is able to radiate trust and candor at all times. Just as an integer is a whole number, so is integrity – it personifies the completeness of a human being with the right kind character and skills. When a person acts consciously to the best of his intentions and belief and is speaking and walks the true path in all his dealings – you are then dealing with a highly evolved professional. Leaders in many organizations lead the path by setting personal examples in a number of demanding situations – they will not compromise their values and principles to achieve short term objectives. Many organizations have also enshrined in their vision statements that truth and candor will go hand in hand in all their progress. A “Code of Conduct” manual is normally a mandated requirement that every professional is expected to abide by and is expected to enforce in his dealings.
Humility - defines being humble. A vast majority of leaders today have moved up the ranks to be at the position they are in. One of the key virtues that a leader ably should demonstrate in his every day life is to be humble and be able to relate to his people under all circumstances. Great leaders serve their followers and thereby set an example that is difficult to emulate. Humility comes within and at every stage leaders have to express the human nature. Well actually, it helps leaders to get their team to deliver better, work optimally and derive maximum output to the organization. I must part with a quote from a motivational speaker, it says “The goal of many leader is to make people think highly of the leader. The goal of a great leader is to help people think more highly of themselves”.
As I conclude, it is very critical for professional leaders in an ever changing and an uncertain world to be able to exhibit the right set of skills and build their character which should be above board for times to come. As someone said “ Character consists of what you do on the 3rd and 4th tries”.
Finally, true leadership lies in the following quote “ leaders get out front and stay there by raising the standards by which they judge themselves and by which they are willing to be judged”.
I end this article with a recommended book – try and lay your hands on “Leadership by Rudolph W Giuliani” – it says a lot about a leader in trying circumstances. I enjoyed reading the book and believe you will do so as well.
Disclaimer: the thoughts expressed in this article is mine and solely mine, it has no bearing or influence on the Institute, the organizations that I worked or am working for…...
(Shashidhar Jayaraman, works currently as the Chief Financial Officer with the Health Care business at Philips India and could be contacted at jshashidhar01@gmail.com)
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