Leadership In Business

I think there are only two non-fiction subjects that have highest writing hours credited to them. One is cookery and another is leadership. Long ago, someone had told Pandit Ravishankar, "I would give life to play Sitar like you do." Ravishankar replied with a smile, "I did." People might love a talent but the patience that is needed to cultivate it is not very easy to commit to. That's where taking lead starts.

In hindsight, every person who joins an organisation as a fresher, dreams of becoming of CEO. Organisations create brilliant succession planning training and try to groom people from within the organisation. Over a period of time, organisations are waking up to the need of training, leadership coaching and continuous learning. At the same time, strong data and researches state that most desired results of such interventions come from real-time experiences and on the job practice.

However, the first word of caution here is, not everyone is good at everything. So many managers are good at starting something but cannot bring it to the finish point. Some may be good with research but not with administration capability. The catch here is to always find someone with complimenting skills.

The second caution is to keep self-ego in check. People who are not from your skills background will be different in mindset too. Sometimes there might be a comparison in efficiency too. As long as you are clear that complimenting skills mean coming from a skill set that needs to work with each other to make a complete picture.

Like every other skill building, leadership is a skill and it needs to be practised. Here we take a look at five basic practices of day-to-day life to become a better leader and regardless of any team size.

1. Have a vision and share it: Have you ever written down what your vision is for yours or your team/ organisation's growth? If it's written down, is there enough affirmation and repetition to the team/self? Has it been made exciting and challenging enough to keep going?  
2. Ask for shared goals: A leader is as good as he/she can groom the team into a winning one. Ask the team to share their personal goals. Employees need to match personal goals with organizational vision. Most attritions happen because people do not align personal goals and hence cannot see themselves growing with the organisation.  
3. Measurable objectives: A lot has been said about SMART goals. But the need to look at measurable objectives in terms of clear statistics and mentioned quantitatively is fundamental. For example, "we are going to be profitable this year" versus, " we have to reach one hundred crores on 30th December." Clearly stated and quantitative objectives give a sense of reason to follow it. The accomplishment of that goal comes with a high achievement motivation.  
4. Lead self with directives: There is a lot of training and spiritual guidance available on "Know yourself." Why the need of knowing self is crucial for leaders? Once you embark on the path of clear directives, an unbiased self-analysis helps you recruit better people who do not share the same weaknesses. It helps in the long run to have people who do not say yes always. This also proves the way forward to learn new skills and develop innovative bent of mind.  
5. Innovation is a habit: Look at yourself and everyone else in the organisation. Are people getting better in what they do? Is there an innovative approach in daily problem-solving? I personally recommend "Ideation Pathway" for making innovation a habit. Every week, call for an ideation meeting and give them problems. Ask them to suggest solutions without worrying about implementation. The results are astonishing. "Apophenia" is the ability to see patterns of repeated mistakes through random data. Use it to advantage for stopping continuous errors.

Leaders are not born. They are actually made by constant learning and practising. As long as you are not afraid of being judged, the freedom will set you on the path of leadership.