Leadership Values I Admire!

Overwhelmed and grateful for all the love and comments to my previous posts, this morning, I was motivated to write about how I have seen leadership evolve throughout my career and what I believe are things I want to keep with me. I am not a leadership coach and do not aspire to be one, but these are simple things I have seen and admired in my ex-leadership, which I follow until today. 

I have been lucky during my career to meet and work with some fantastic leaders, and everything I have applied in my life is through their teaching. There is enough content about good leadership, and my attempt here is to pick the best I have experienced and explain why they are essential. 

Environmental Trust

I spent considerable time at two of my previous companies because of the leaders. They created a transparent environment and communicated clearly; they created an environment of collaboration and trust, and I was willing to give my 200% to them for this reason. I worked with them because I believed in the mission and goals. They built an environment where everyone rallied toward success. I was committed to my leadership. 

The downside of not having a trustworthy environment is that employees become selfish and paranoid. Also, as a leader, if you constantly miss your promises to your team, it is a sure-shot path to failure.  

Empowering to success 

When you constantly tell people what to do, you only build followers; followers follow what you say. Once they see better instructions, they leave you and follow that one. If, instead, you make them team members, fellow collaborators, and contributors, then you have built a very scalable and reliable set of individuals and teams that are part of the decision process and are invested in it with you.  

I worked with leaders who built 0-100 companies because the core of their culture was empowering people to succeed. They created "Physiological Safety" for the workforce to focus on individual and team success. They believed that if individuals and teams are collectively successful, nothing stops the company. And I have personally seen the exponential growth when you rally around your teams. 

Embrace Continuous Learning

One of the qualities I admired in my ex-leadership was their ability to listen to your feedback and be open to changing their views on certain things. They were humble enough to say if they had made a mistake or didn't know something specific. 

There is so much I don't know, and I learn from my team each day. When you keep this mindset that maybe you don't know everything and are willing to give new and unknown ideas a chance, you grow as a leader. I have seen this behaviour from the senior leadership, making them human and relatable. 

Nurturing Growth

Everyone has personal dreams and goals; all of us join an organization to see its success but also to see us becoming successful. One of my previous leaders always asked me for one personal KPI for quarterly and yearly reviews. This was the reason I started working on skills outside my core job. E.g., Public speaking was one of the KPIs I chose. I started by doing small webinars and moved on to getting comfortable speaking publicly. But if my then-manager had not asked me at every review about what I have done to improve on this goal, I would have never invested in this. I am forever indebted to her for this. 

As leaders, if you can achieve organizational goals while supporting our team's growth, we are fostering a culture that employees would love to be a part of. Founders argue that in scaling mode, it's impossible to promote individual growth goals. Still, the secret to this is finding a balance in finding personal employee goals that will also support the company. It's possible, we need to find it.  

Strategy and Direction

What we don't want is a team without direction or goals. An organization needs a clear strategy, and one with a weak one is like a ship with no radar and no plan going into unchartered seas. You might say this is so basic, but I have true stories of organizations that have created strategies in silos and then wondered why the rest of the company is not aligned. If the junior, most entry-level role cannot explain the company goals and how their contributions will add to this goal, then unfortunately, you don't have everyone aligned.

Being part of a very successful organization, I have seen the alignment between the company goals and the employee goals so tightly knit. Everyone knew what they needed to do that month/quarter/year. The leaders did not change the goalpost ever so often; there was consistency, there was clarity, and there was direction.

And so summing up,

• Build an environment that is built on Trust
• Empower your team to succeed
• Embrace continuous learning as a leader
• Nurture growth for your team members along with the company
• Create a clear strategy and direction and communicate this very well.

As I mentioned in my introduction, I am not a leadership coach, but these are values I have admired in the leaders I have worked with so far. These are values I have and continue to apply to my leadership style. 

I hope today's article adds value to you. As always, I would love for you to add the traits and values of leaders you have admired. 

Until the next one, take care and have a very Happy Diwali!