Leadership Revolution!

For businesses to grow and thrive, we need to cultivate more leaders

There is no dearth of books, literature, talks, workshops, psychometric instruments, etc on the world’s most favourite topic – “leadership and how to create leaders’. But, when we look around, it is obvious that there is an acute shortage of leaders. There is a leadership crisis in almost all walks of life; this is not a healthy sign for business continuity, growth and prosperity as the world is getting integrated digitally and logistically.

In my opinion, somewhere it is important to revisit the construct of “leaders and leadership”. In India, most of us have an “aspirational drive or engine to become leaders” in our respective fields. Once aspiration becomes the only motive, it is bound to create uni-polar leaders who will, at all costs or any cost, push things to achieve results with irreversible side effects.

Just like our country embarked on several revolutions to combat crisis through the green revolution and white revolution, it’s time to trigger the “leadership revolution” by seeding, nurturing, harvesting leaders in all walks of life, be it the private sector, public sector, NGOs, and educational sector. Just like “Skill India”, we need a “Lead India” initiative at the national level to kick start the “Leadership revolution”.

First, we need to take a few steps back and correct some of the misconceptions about leaders and leadership. To begin with, most of us have a stereotypical perception of a leader – a khadi-clad politician or suited CEO. Further, if we dwell on “leadership”, we mostly associate it with “false assurances and corruption or a swanky office and fat pay cheque”.

Leaders and leadership are way beyond this.

Here are three insights into seeding, nurturing and harvesting leaders. If followed, we will always have a healthy stream of leaders, which is a prerequisite for the leadership revolution.

Why do we need good leaders?

In today’s competitive world, both success and failure are fast-paced and often depends on the quality of leadership, as there is a convergence on all other tangible parameters like technology, finance, branding, logistics, IT, etc. The success and failure of companies is a direct result of the stock market perception of leaders and leadership!

This is an era of upheaval; the speed at which things are unfolding has left no place for error. Clearly chartered paths to success are becoming obsolete; organisations need visionary navigators who can drive through the chaos.

The most important need to have good leaders arises from the alarming erosion of the integrity of trusteeship. Newspapers keep printing first page stories on politicians, bureaucrats, CEOs /MDs lying, and cheating.

How to seed, nurture, and harvest good leaders

Becoming a leader isn’t easy, but learning to lead is lot easier than one might think. Everyone can become a leader; but not everyone will become a leader because of self inertia and aspirational pressures.

It is important to know that leadership is an evolutionary process and not a goal-setting process because if you have charted your next 5-10 year plan, it will surely fail as half your energy will be focussed on the road map while the other half will be on the current assignment. Anything done half-heartedly yields a suboptimal output because, instead of enjoying the journey, you will presume the world is static and everything will wait or not change just because you have made a road map of your career.

Success almost always comes from short, well-thought “hops” and not by giant leaps or road maps. True leaders either know this or have an inbuilt understanding of it. Hence, in seeding, nurturing, and harvesting good leaders, one has to understand that the business world is not just mechanical, segmented, or has rational outputs; but it is actually organic, whole and ambiguous. Therefore, one must look at development of both administrative and imaginative skills. Good leaders are original and not mouthpieces.

Key ingredients of a good leader

• Vision and the ability to pursue both professional and personal lives is rare. Many leadership aspirants are unable to hold simultaneous roles. Under the garb of work, they conveniently ignore their personal lives.
• Passion which inspires not only them but others in the system.
• Ability to take risks and garner wisdom and knowledge from every mistake; deviation and learning from adversity and diversity.
• Documenting one’s thought process on a daily basis is one of the most powerful sources for insights.
• Learning at a deeper level than average people. Leaders are able to observe phenomena, patterns, how things are, how they could be, and gradually understand how the same things could be done differently.
• Balanced goals: Value goals are virtually worthless and over specific goals are also equally worthless, as they are so specific that they exclude the scope for alternatives and flexibility. Hence, goal-setting should have a blend of both, with enough scope for flexibility.
• Build trust: To do this, one needs to work on constancy, congruity, reliability, and integrity. Once this is done, people will be on a leader’s side.
• Shifting stance: This is the only trigger which changes us. Take the same set of facts and shift our vantage point, and everything looks different.
• Take charge: This can be done by listening to the inner voice, acquiring skills and tools to rise above professional and intellectual shortcomings, and not indulging in the blame game. Bosses, colleagues, companies may come and go, but one’s own inherent abilities, learning experiences, view-points, and qualities are always “portable assets”. If developed, they will always be at your disposal.

Leadership is an evolutionary process. Hence, it has special importance to us. Our country is poised to receive a “demographic dividend” (on paper). We need to be aware of a growing “leadership deficiency”.

It is time to ensure that corrective steps are taken well in advance before we reach a situation where we are forced to declare “leadership bankruptcy”