thoughts

Monday, August 4, 2014

Becoming a leader.......

Becoming a leader is not easy. It requires some inherent traits, such as: ability to deal with a sudden crisis and take hard decision, patience to take criticism, honest feedback head on, maintaining transparency and honest communication. For some are born with these traits, some develop these in their course of life evolution. In fact is parenting is a fine example of leadership. Unfortunately nobody looks at it as a leadership process. Parents are force to take hard decisions, manage crisis, accept honest feedback from their children, or teachers about their children, and keeps their communication honest.

Professional there has been many successful leaders. Budding leaders are always curious to read their success stories to improvise. I read this article in the Economic Times dated July29, 2014.
I have given an extract of that article "How I became a Leader" below for you to improvise and to understand you are not alone in facing the leadership challenges:

(a) Kumud Srinivasan, President, Intel, India says:
      Leadership is not easy. What she learnt from her master is make people happy while doing the things that you want them to do. Pouncing on right behavior with praise and appreciation; make the team want to do and make them feel valued; It is a life long journey.

(b) Siraj A Chaudhry, Chairman, Cargill India,
      Leadership is earned through competence, compassion and the choices we make; An aspiring leader has to be seen and accepted as an leader before he is appointed as one; Minimize the cost of candor in the team by being open to feedback; Being vulnerable at times allows people to see me as human and provide feedback when they feel I can do better; Give candid feedback; Look for virtues in people that can be imbibed.

(c) Ashok Sethi, CIO , Sapient
     Leadership reiteration: "If you are inspired, by your role model, what stops you from becoming like him or even bette?"

(d) T V Mohandas Pai,
      Improve confidence and speaking skills; be prepared to face crisis; leadership is a lonely affair; team spirit and leading by example was the way to win; stand up against injustice; be tough in business ad take hard decision; standup to you mistakes , speak the truth and change the policies if needed; trust was more long lasting than trying to be smarter; data and transparency was the only way to earn a trust; following the toughest standards and leading the pack was the best way to earn respect; people wants tan honest and straight view.

(e) Sanjay Sethi,CEO & Co-founder of Shopclues.com
      It is okay to make mistakes as long as you learn from it and not make the same mistake next time; Leadership is not the end of the road but a journey of continuous learning and that makes it a humbling experience; people are led, resources are managed; you cannot use the "one-size fits all." approach that ignores traits and competencies; Leadership is about bringing out the best in the people around you.

(f) Rajesh Jain, CEO, MD of Lacoste India,
     The  role taught the importance of team work, to work under pressure and to balance; to be optimistic even in worst situation; to accept failures and cherish victory; customers teaches the importance of product quality, innovation, communication and brand positioning the ultimately strengthen brand virtues and brand visibility; colleagues teach the concept of work hard, party harder that helps in building a united and binding team ready to take new challenges; family teaches how to leverage work-life balance so as to justify at both ends.

(g) T R Ramachandran, M D CEO Aviva Life Insurance:
     "If you want leadership, look in the mirror."; to be a self starter, take the imitative; step out your comfort zone; experiment with ideas; be obsessive about customer service; keep customer at the heart of decision making.



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