Head & Heart
Decades ago, a gentleman was invited to build a Sunrise industry organisation as CEO. After accepting the responsibility, he called a handful of competent people who had worked with him in the past & inquired if they would be interested in supporting him towards this objective. He also specified that at that moment, all he could provide them was assurance that it would be a worthwhile decision. All of them quit their respective assignments & joined this person without any formal appointment letter. Eventually, they did end up building a great organisation…
This is a profound example of leadership.
Leadership is a subject that has been studied extensively globally. I have received authentic leadership and had the honour of leading many competent people. However, when I sat down to reflect upon defining leadership, I always fell short as I felt overwhelmed with the expanse of the subject & hence could not narrow it down to one definition until I heard what the former Global CEO of Pepsi- Indra Nooyi had to say about the topic. She said, “Leadership is hard to define, and good leadership even harder. But if you can get people to follow you to the ends of the earth, you are a great leader.” This quote made it easier for me to understand the definition of leadership, though I still yearned for more. While this simplified the complexity of dealing with diverse perspectives, it still felt like I needed more to relate to the phenomenon simplistically.
Then came this perspective I read in ‘Strengths Based Leadership’ by Barry Conchie and Tom Rath. The book’s research shared that there will be followers if there is leadership. And what would make people follow someone? The book further shared that for a person to follow a leader, they must inspire trust, compassion, stability, and hope, which are the four needs of a follower.
The above two perspectives demystified the subject of leadership for me. The perspective from “Strengths Based Leadership’ became the why and the how of what Indra Nooyi said, and it all started to make sense. It made me connect the dots with the profound example of leadership shared above. Those people joined the CEO in supporting him with his vision because, as followers, their four needs of trust, compassion, stability, and hope were met, and as a result, they were willing to follow him to the ends of the earth. Personally, ‘compassion’ came to me as a surprise, but now, it makes perfect sense when I look at it in totality with all the contexts above. In alignment with ‘compassion’, I am reminded of Rumi's quote: “Raise your words, not voice. It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder.”
Drawing from the above insights, I understand that Leadership is a function of a good hearted, competent human being who dares to inspire a dream and demonstrates integrity in transforming it into reality.
Like Nelson Mandela said- “A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination.”
Author- Manish Puri