Thursday, February 16, 2012

Were You Born To Lead or To Follow ?

With My Love & Life ^KanchiniSekaran^
I do come across meeting up many people, particularly people from the corporate world. I observed few elements along my journey and it is interesting to know that there are many leaders out there.


Sadly, not many leaders have effective skills as they are bound to Follow instead of taking the Lead. Now, to define Lead is something more than giving someone an order, or pointing finger, or isn't just bossing people around. It is more than this !


To Lead, it demands a lot of responsibilities, dedication, managing the team well, and top of all is staff engagement or I would spelled it as understanding. 


Many leaders fail to understand that workplace engagement do plays a major role in resulting excellent output/results by keeping the employees happy. Sometimes, dollar & cents is not the issue. It backs to understanding each and other. I mean management-staff relationship. When such environment takes place, clearly shows the Leader were born to Follow and not To Lead. 


Follow, as in getting instructions and redirecting the instruction to the employees, which every Tom, Dick & Harry could practice that. I don't have to work for years to be there, probably, 1 week training will do.!


Get down, hands on, manage, communicate, troubleshoot together, investigate, identify, resolving issues, seek for solution, and all the mentioned above is related to staff welfare not work pertaining issues.


Leaders are meant to keep the team happy and the team's duty is to resolved the jobs problem/issues. Now if the team is Not well taken care, the Leader's will need to do the staff's job. So, now I see the point why there are so many inefficient leaders around claiming that they have a lot of works to do. When they actually don't have to.


Leadership abilities comes naturally to some, but for many, it has to be Honed and Developed. I truly understand that Leaders are Made not Born! Leadership skills are acquired  over a period of time based on several factors:


Seven Leadership Skills:

1. Leaders come in all different shapes and sizes. It is interesting to study effective leaders. At face value they are all different. They all have developed their own style based on their own personality and what works for them. 

2. A true leader accepts responsibility. Everything from how they speak to how they act is part of being responsible. It is easy to follow them because you know where they are going and know they will lead you as well. 

3. Leaders work at being leaders. They are always improving their skills and learning from the situations they are in. They study people and have learned how to effectively interact with them to get what they want. 

4. Leadership starts at the top, but is best achieved when developing a team atmosphere. Leaders know they can do better when people are working together for one common goal. Sharing in leadership is part of this process. Making everyone accountable for what they do, but judging success on the overall efforts of everyone. 

5. Situations call for different types of leadership. A well-rounded leader is able to adapt to their surroundings and lead accordingly. Coaching a football team is an example of this. Sometimes the players need a kick in the rear and other times they need a pat on the back. 

6. Leaders are respected for what they have accomplished in the past. A real leader can speak from a position of practical experience and know they will be listened to because they speak from that vantage point. A respected leader is able to command more from his people than a leader who is not. 

7. Leaders seek opinions and compile ideas before forming a game plan. Good leaders know that they cannot come up with every idea that will work. By allowing input they are able to make a more responsible decision. 



Highlighted in blue, is my strong points for leadership. 

We all know from the beginning, the days when the Great Mohandas Gandhi quoted " I suppose leadership at one time meant Muscles; but today it means getting along with people" 


That's all for today....Cheers to all Leaders and future leaders.

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