Crafting your captivating leadership story!
“If I were in his place, I would be doing this in this manner”- a sentence that pierces through the heart of a leader and breaks it into pieces.
Being judged is the only constant that a leader goes through. 2 out of 3 leaders are judged and most of them put a full stop to their dreams of becoming a leader at this initial stage only.
Some master it and others keep trying. But how is it that you really make an impact? Is it by being only a torchbearer or there is something else that makes you an exception? Some believe that it is the human elements of leadership that one must concentrate on.
Well, along with time there are multiple dimensions of leadership that have changed over time. Is it being the old and classy leader or the modern and digital leader? No matter what, challenges have always been there and are here to stay. But has leadership really changed? Let us learn this through an example:
John joined a firm where he had to lead a team of 25; some were young, some of his age, and others were divided among different mindsets. While they were working on a project, the team went into longer arguments and lesser outputs. This delayed the result and was adding to the timeline and work was getting piled up. John tried to divide the work and allot it accordingly as per the project’s timeline to everyone, yet he failed to get on to the train in time and the project was moving at a crawling pace.
After spending a couple of days thinking over the ways out, John approaches Johnny (the modern time leader). “I have been informing the team to take a particular approach to the project, I have even divided the approach in stages yet I failed to move the project at the needed pace”- says tired and stressed John to Johnny. Moreover, I feel surprised as all my life this strategy has worked everywhere, but this time it succumbed. What do I do now, Johnny?
Johnny smiles and asks if John has written a postcard to his friends living in other provinces. John looks irritated and says “Johnny why would I do that at this time that is old long syne; I would rather write an e-mail”. Johnny smiled and said, “Well John that is exactly what you should do with the ways you motivate or push your team. You need to change the way you lead them”. “Sorry, but could you help me understand this better?” asked John.
“Let me explain this based on what modern leaders go through and implement to be successful leaders” – said Johnny:
Analysis: Today’s Leadership DO NOT PUSH – Overdoing is ineffective and wrong
Gone are the days when a leader asks to do something and the people follow. Nowadays, that’s not what people expect from their leader; they need you to guide them in detail, or to be precise they need to direct them to do something with a purpose. Without purpose, motivation will not fuel the energy needed to reach the endpoint. Remember, too much of a good thing can have negative outcomes.
KNOW THEM KNOW YOURSELF- Get better results
Breaking the task into parts is not that’s needed, allocating tasks as per their strengths can even make them break bigger mountains. So, assign them tasks as per their strength if you want the project to pick up the pace. You will only need a different strategy if you are willing to inculcate different leadership skills or strengthen them in a particular direction for better future leadership. Apart from this, it is also important that you know yourself in-depth as much as you know them, because unless you know your strengths you will not be able to tackle their shortcomings.
WORK FOR SHARED VISION – Same goal, same energy
Today’s leadership needs a practical and smart approach as you lead. If you have fire in you for achieving a milestone, ignite it in the others. But make sure you know the red signal. Over motivation or motivation after a certain time will become a pattern and remember motivation from a leader should never be a pattern.
Emotional vs. Intelligence Quotient – Dealing with situations
As a leader, you must know how to deal with people’s emotions, when to deal emotionally, and where to think with your brain and deal intelligently. Not every situation needs you to be emotional; some need a practical approach.
LEADER LIKE-WATER – Take any shape
Not everyone in your team will be motivated in the first instance, or for some the motivation only remains for a few days. Moreover, not everyone will get motivated by moving in a particular direction. Every person is different, and so is their understanding. You need to know what it takes to motivate them or push them forward. There are some who wouldn’t want to take your help, you take theirs to know them and then offer help.
After learning all these, John goes on to conquer different battles achieving greater heights and becoming one of the best leaders that his team could have. But that’s not it; to be a leader you must also learn what type of leader one would want to see in you and when.
Moving on to learning the other nuances of being a leader is another type of leadership i.e. friendly leadership and cooperative leadership. Both of these leadership methods need a lot of patience and persistent effort.
Friend Leadership
A leader who tries to be seen as a friend of his team, must always know where to draw a line and these limitations have to be set right from the beginning as later when you change them, it changes your image and perception of people. However, to be a friendly leader you must be empathetic and must have a sound understanding of the emotions. Once you have the right quantity of both empathy and emotions you must be always attentive and available for your people.
You must know that no matter what you need to earn this Friend Leadership every day. You cannot appear one day and enquire or interrogate people, you need to spend time and simultaneously keep a close eye on their actions, efforts, strength, and emotional quotient. While being a friend, you need to set the right energy and momentum in the community and make sure that everyone is filled with positivity.
Positivity is not the only thing that the team expects from you, they would also need to see you leading by example and showing them at each step of progress, and how things are done.
Even after doing all of this, one thing that most of the leaders miss is communication. The more you communicate with the team, and your people, the more they know. And trust the fact the more you know someone the better you can predict their behavior and guide them accordingly.
Challenges that you might have in friend leadership:
- The team might set up the wrong expectations with you. Keep clear communication and avoid it. It is believed that those who just manage to be a leader are 1/3 more engaged with people than the leaders who communicate and have a higher rate of burnout with the duties of being a leader.
- The Curvilinear effect – after a certain time the motivation will start acting in reverse and people will stop getting motivated with the same words or actions and instead everything will go otherwise.
- You will have to avoid boredom. Yes, make sure you bring new things every time on the table and keep it exciting
- Maintaining the emotional harmony becomes difficult. You cannot expect everyone to react in the same way.
There could be other factors like disagreement, denial, and inconvenience that could be troublesome. Remember, conflict, convincing, and resolving are the cycles that you need to go through regularly in friend leadership.
Cooperative Leadership
As the name suggests, cooperative leadership needs cooperation that comes from tolerance and deep understanding. But how far is it that you can take with tolerance and cooperation?
Here comes the role of the responsibilities, tasks, and authority that one should have in his bucket in the right proportion can help you bring the appropriate balance between the organization and its members. The tasks and work roles themselves will bring a sense of self-efficiency and turn the team to religiously working towards the goal. Wait! But until when? Today’s generation needs newness and at a very quick pace. So, would you change the goal or the way they work?
If a person gets into repetitive tasks, he would certainly see his excitement falling and that’s where you need to substitute the repetitiveness with unusualness. And it could only be done by being mindful.
Being a cooperative leader also carries a sense of oneness where you need to make sure that everyone is given equal authority or authority to be able to be innovative. The freedom to do something creatively or in one’s style doesn’t only make them feel authoritative but also a sense of self-achievement. This is where one would want to be a leader and will start reflecting, recreating what you have started initially.
Cooperative leadership helps you create leaders who stand at the toughest and celebrate the biggest achievements.
High-impact leadership requires you to make a difference in the lives of people which can either be done by making them a leader or the best team players or by changing something insignificant in their lives.
High-Impact leadership=setting an example+replicate actions.
About the Contributor:
Leena Lopez
Vice President, Strategy & HR
