My Thoughts on Leadership

There are different ways I look at my past experiences. First when I was a young executive looking forward to build my career, then when I was given the responsibility to lead and today advising business leaders. How did my thought evolve and what is my view of leadership now.

A question I kept asking myself for many years, over and over again, “ Do good organisations make good leaders or good leaders make good organisations?”

My experiences, interactions, readings and understanding have now taught me that it has to start with a good leadership that works with complete focus, commitment and dedication towards building an organisational culture where more good leaders can be identified, nurtured and developed by giving guidance & opportunities to lead and build themselves.Then the organisation becomes a creator of good leaders who continue to take it towards excellence.

Developing Strong Leaders then is the primary responsibility of a Great Leader who delegates work to the team with clarity, authority & responsibility. They always encourage & let the team make the decisions. Not all the decisions will be right but it will build their confidence and let them learn from their success & failures. They act as a guide & motivator, giving direction. They have a check & balance mechanism but let the team own the decisions. From those teams emerge more leaders.

Otherwise organisations get stuck at the same level and struggling to perform as the bandwidth of leadership is limited and they can only handle so much.

A company with limited leadership & delegation gets trapped in bureaucracy in the name of structure & control, stifles growth of new ideas & projects, as no one wants to challenge or change the status quo. Its layer after layer of traditional bosses trying to please their bosses, trained to follow instructions. Often distorting the real on ground situation & challenges, into a version that suits their narrative & benefits them, since failure & decision making is not encouraged.

How often do we hear our Bosses say - don’t come to me with problems but with Solutions. But a big question is do we really know what the problem is before we give a solution. A team that distorts the facts will never let the Management know what the real problem is. It’s like prescribing a medication for Kidney when the real issue is Stomach. Wrong Diagnosis lead to Wrong Solutions that create bigger issues rather than solving the ones in hand. Understand the real problems before giving solutions

Great Ideas ! Creative Ideas ! Innovative Ideas ! Disruptive ideas ! Whatever you call it. If you cannot execute it then it has ZERO VALUE.

Sustainable growth in business happens when the Right Team has been empowered & enabled with the right tools. It is allowed to work freely, without interference, with a clear objective & goal - short, medium and longterm. The Team in majority cases, is committed & motivated, to execute the strategy and decisions made by them not others.

The role of the Leader then is to remove the roadblocks and not micromanage. As it limits the growth of the business. We need to Engage & Listen to your team. One way communication top down doesn’t work. A good leader knows the importance of feedback from the team and his ability to understand the challenges.

- If you do not trust the Team to make the decisions then you have not built the right team.

- If you have the right team but you still want to make all the decisions why did you hire the team.

- If you don’t want to empower them then they are not accountable.

- If you have not given them the enablers (the right tools) then how do you expect them to perform.

- If you want them to comeback to you for every decision and you are too busy to make them then you are the roadblock.

A Strong leader creates a Strong Team often more capable than himself. He is not insecure of his own team rather they are his strength.

Competence & character are always considered to be the two most important traits of great leaders. But over the years I learned, and it continued to reinforce itself, over and over again, that as you grow in your leadership role “it’s the character which takes more weightage”. The success of a leader is in surrounding himself with a team of people who are more competent than him and then putting all his support behind them to thrive. The team follows someone who has character. By no means I am saying competence is not required but if you ask me which quality should get more attention “I would definitely say Character".

Hence in conclusion the Character of a Great Leader to build a Team far more capable than himself, then delegating decision making, acting as a mentor & guide, removing road blocks , accepting the failures as learning and cheering the success creates more capable leaders & team. This allows them to kill bureaucracy and develop a performing organisation that is able to execute ideas & plans. Thats how sustainable growth happens.