It is not only important but essential for a good leader to believe in and implement acts of practical spirituality, says RAMESH RAJARAMAN
Leadership applies not only to the workplace, but to every group where one has to lead a team. The leader should take complete responsibility for the performance and activities of his/her group. The success or failure of the team lies only with the leader, who has to device a monitoring process to track all the activities of his/her team, and make sure that there are in-built systems to address any contingency or surprise element.
Leadership is much more than managing people. A leader should first prepare and qualify himself to become capable of leadership, which is not really everyone’s cup of tea. Educational qualifications or a management degree alone are not enough ― a true leader should possess qualities such as integrity, transparency, good communication skills and the ability to mentor and guide people on his team. His focus should be on achieving the projected results, taking the blame for failure but also granting credit to his team when success is achieved.
While every leader should dream big, at the same time, he/she should be grounded in reality. A leader sets goals and targets, but ones that are realistic. When goals are unrealistic, there are bound to be failures. And if there are failures even when targets are set according to ground realities, a good leader keeps up the cheer by shouldering the blame rather than passing on the buck to subordinates. Unfortunately, it is in this aspect where leadership sometimes fails. A good leader learns from failures, rather than getting bogged down by them. He should analyse the root cause of a failure and move on.
At the top management level, leaders handle other leaders. Here the approach is different from a leader handling non-managerial staff. However, in any kind of leadership the mindset should not be of ‘I am the boss and so you have to say yes to me, at all times.’ Such an approach is fraught with the danger of failure. A bossy leader is rarely a success. And, yes men don’t really make good team members. In such a scenario, the leader will invariably fail in bringing out the best from his team.
A good leader defines a process to monitor all the activities for execution. The process is such that if any uncertainties are observed, action can be taken well in advance to avoid any damages or delay in execution. Leaders are expected to give their best to succeed. If they fall short of this expectation, they should have the courage of character to accept their failure and step down if they don’t measure up.
Talking about leaders, “Transformational Leaders” bring more value to the organisation. But a great deal of commitment is needed in order to be a transformational leader. One should have commitment to become a transformational leader. A transformational leader is expected to handle any unexpected crisis, internally, instead of blaming the external situation. He looks for opportunities in every challenge and crisis.
Good leaders leave a footprint of their qualities and capabilities when they leave the organisation or are transferred, for others to adopt and follow in their absence. Leaders ensure that they create a pool of thinkers and leaders like themselves rather than mere followers.
Leaders should inspire the team by their leadership qualities, empowering them, so that the “NextGen Leaders” are created. The values created by them are more important than the number of days they stay on their job. It is the responsibility of the leader to ensure participation of all the key members of their team in any project.
Leadership does not recognize arrogance and ego has no place, too, in both the leader and team. The focus is on delegation and leadership rides on a compassionate framework.
Leaders cannot expect perfection from all quarters. They should anticipate probabilities of failure. Leadership capabilities include an approach on how to address issues when something goes wrong and a Risk Mitigation Plan at hand.
The role of leadership is critical and important in every organisation and group. Before taking on a leadership role, a person should do a “self-audit” to make sure that he/she is suitable for the post. If unsuitable, it is better for the individual to bow out of the responsibility, because a bad leader can mess up valuable resources, human and capital as well as time.
To sum up, a good leader should be honest, full of integrity, without too much ego, self-effacing, a caring and compassionate person, who looks at the common welfare rather than his own, ever ready to shoulder responsibility and capable of dealing with failures with equanimity, while treating successes as a team achievement. In effect, it is not only important but essential for a good leader to believe in and implement acts of practical spirituality.
Ramesh Rajaraman with 40 years’ experience in Information Technology worked in leadership roles in top IT companies, and as CIO in a multi-speciality hospital in Chennai. A blogger and trainer, he loves music, trekking, travel and reading.
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Very inspiring, motivational post from Rajaraman ji on the dynamics of true leadership, who as such is the kingpin of a system that runs not merely on the principle of management technicalities but supplemented by the conviviality of humanistic ethic.
And when this happens, every entity of an organisation carry a natural alignment to assume ownership of their role and respond to every call with perfect response ability.
Be it any human system, institutional, organisational or societal, genuine leader succeeds in building such a convivial set up and runs the system optimally spinning out a perfect tapestry.
Yes of course, this as such is the essence of a highly evolved work-place-spirituality, there is no doubt about it.
A good subject in this current scenario and presented well. This method works well in a highly professionally managed company and more so on IT based sectors very well. In non professionally and family based run companies, this can meet with some resistance.
But this concept when followed can resolve the succession related issues. This succession or filling up positions with quality and caliber is a major issue today. Long term employer – employee relationship is absent today. High expectations and more opportunities drive this point.
The handling of the subject is done nicely.