My Experiments with Leadership

Leader:
A glance at this word makes many mistake it for a noun. Well, most dwell in it not liking to shake it off. To me, a person proved it a verb. Yes. It cannot be noun.

I have had my share of being a leader for the noun's sake. Not a short stint, but through my schooling. Times were then that the qualification for being a leader was only raking up a top rank in the class and sustaining it. Right there, the system makes us learn wrong pointers imbibing a feel of exclusivity.

A Confused leader is one who clearly thinks in line with the previous paragraph. Well, to him, he is right. No one can change this. The right word then , for the proceedings mainly aimed at injecting methods and practices from his rule book, cannot be leadership. The term I would like to propose is micro management.

The worst a leader would do is wanting to inspire people. It just shows the inadequate exposure they would have had to the 5000 year recorded history our culture boasts with a never ending list of inspirers.

A leader lives and lets others peep into his professional life for instances where we can pick his displaying of leadership. Also a leader believes that people under him are under him by choice and not by chance.

A universal definition of Leadership is too varsatile to prove some individual wrong. A leader is a good contributor to one's psychological wellness. He understands the biosphere of his subordinates and becomes a part of it and does not stand out and complain. He fine tunes every aspect of his lower rung cadres acting as the compass showing them the right directions.

To him a road map is the first and most important document, mainly driven by the corporate goals, which intertwine with the road maps his subordinates need.

A leader understands that he can provide a pep talk flavor to his speech and that only this wont run the show. So he ultimately becomes a coach than a boss. But he also understands that on field all that counts are the players and he takes stock of every member's performance. Not to discourage but to provide facts with his opinion, driving self retrospecting and self driven loyalty.
It is the leader who runs a show as controlled or as chaotic like the juggernaut. A leader contains his emotions for better occasions and exemplifies professionalism with every breath.

Idealising any, is a recipie for disaster. But the ideologies picked from people with proven, tangible track records chistle us as we proceed up the corporate ladder.

I have my share of a leader's Ideologies which I believe I picked from one single person - PapaRao.

Well, Calling names can be a little disturbing for a topic like leadership. But for a positive reason, I believe I am allowed to do so.

How many people during the hay days made career decisions based on the leadership content of companies? Ask my present company and they will spell out the career decision owing to a few minutes of discussion they had with this person.

It speaks volumes of Paparao's convincing skills. Well, is it so? A Big No. It speaks volumes of the true commitment he provides in ensuring our bright career.
1.Unconditional Commitment to subordinates' overall good.
A leader is some one who does not believe just in himself and credits himself in all occasions.
Well, consider this guy. In the 1+ years, I have never seen this person provide instances porting him into a "I am God and be my follower"- mode.
2. Ultimate belief in the subordinates, which contributes to a self driven commitment from the subordinates.
He who has a close followup of his subordinates progress, ultimately starting them from ground zero and devising individual career graphs complete with close follow up, all in the back end, is a leader.
3. Commitments made Delivered. He who strives to justify our choice.
Imbibing the leadership skills by pointing his, indirectly, providing us the vision and giving us a free hand in deciding the way. The goals are our only visibility and the path we take is all ours.
An instance which I believe to be the most impressive is when I was given a task, which involved taking responsibility, the only point delivered to us was - "You are responsible for their careers".
4. Providing gaugeable, implementable goals which can end up with tangible results and making clear their expectations - In other words - meaning business the acceptable way.
Leaders are from grass roots too. To not grow more means disaster. Picking people at all levels and providing them a bandwidth to improve/hone their skillset as leaders at their level is his regular practise.
5. Bringing up Successors at all levels to fill the vaccum if created is an important art in the leadership. He does that.
A Leader never calls himself a leader or coins the words like "Leader", "Management","Leadership", "I", "you"etc., in public forums. He uses "We"and "Us". To him, at his level, every one below him are same as he is. Any reference to "Them" or "Leadership" is for those above him. Paparao is so.
6. A leader treats all like himself.
A leader does not sit on all the technical problems the lower rung has. He gives the element of advice which will allow them to face other problems themselves and not sit on their problem and claim victory over solving their problem.
7. A leader imparts in improving the technical bandwidth of the subordinates.

Well, the list may be never ending.
If looking at him for a year gave me these many points to learn, he has served his purpose as a leader.
As a final note, a bookish leader can only be as good as the vocabulary in his book. This guy is not such one.
A leader is some person, who also inspires someone to write a blog on him. Well, in that sense, I have seen and got inspired by one leader, without him trying to be so. Yes, Hats off Papa Rao. May your career inspire many more people.