Leadership
The bedrock of effective leadership is; first lead yourself,
then others.
This principle was aptly demonstrated by Mahatma Gandhi when
he was once asked by his landlady to get her son to reduce taking excessive
amounts of sugar. Gandhi said; “I’ll talk to the child in a week.” A week went
by, and Gandhi spoke to the child, and the child stopped eating sugar
unnecessarily. The mother was confused, and asked Gandhi, “Why had you to wait
a week when you could have spoken to my son earlier?” Gandhi said, “You don’t
understand, last week I too was eating sugar unnecessarily, I had to first
discipline myself before talking to your son.”
Further reading on the subject of Leadership, I found the
Four Imperatives of Leadership by Dr. Stephen R. Covey extremely useful. They
are;
1.
Inspire Trust
2.
Clarify Purpose
3.
Align Systems and Process
4.
Unleash Talent
The leader must first ‘inspire trust’ in others by
developing his/her Character and Competence. Character refers to principle
based thinking and behavior whilst, Competencies is the combination of
knowledge, skills and attitude of the leader. Good character and a high level
of relevant competencies earns the leader the trust of others who he leads.
People need to know the purpose of what they do. “Tell the
team where you want to go with them.” E.g. tell the brick layer that he is laying
those bricks to build a skyscraper, not merely laying bricks to earn a wage.
Clearly understanding the purpose inspires the person to give of his best than
merely going through the motions of things. Therefore, a leader must clarify
the purpose of his vision and goals so that, others can belong to and share in,
in that larger purpose.
The leader must dynamically align systems and process to
best deliver on the bigger purpose. Albert Einstein said; “You can’t do the same
things over and over again and expect different results.” All too often,
managers try to achieve better and higher results with old systems and processes.
E.g. trying to manage more vehicular traffic with old road rules and systems.
The talent and competence of the human resource is critical
for any leader’s success. It is the leader’s responsibility therefore to invest
and develop in this all important resource. Getting the right people, training
and developing them, assigning the right person for the job.
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