You are with Chakradhar Mahapatra: Lessons on Leadership

Since last the two decades, I have been keeping notes on various attributes of leadership from diverse sources as and when I happen to read or see in action. The following text is a reproduction of those collections over the years.

The famous management guru Peter F. Drucker says (October 1995): All the effective leaders I have encountered - both those I worked with and those I merely watched - knew FOUR simple things:

The only definition of a leader is someone who has followers.
An effective leader is NOT someone who is loved or admired; he or she is someone whose followers do the right thing.
Leaders are highly visible. They, therefore, set examples.
Leadership is not rank, privileges, titles or money, it is responsibility.

My favorite approach to leadership is the one proposed by Lee Iacocca, the legendary former chairman of Chrysler Corp: “Either you lead me or you follow me, or else get out of the line.”

Sam Manekshaw, the only Indian Field Marshal till date and the man responsible for 1971 victory and dismemberment of Pakistan lists the following key attributes of a Good Leader:

A good leader must have professional knowledge and competence (and he must appreciate that just because he is in power he has no monopoly of knowledge and competence).
Ability to think, make up his mind, take a decision and accept full responsibility for the decision.
A leader must be decisive, absolutely honest and impartial, never allowing his likes and dislikes to influence his professional judgments.
A high degree of moral and physical courage.

Jack Welch of General Electric lists Five essential traits of leadership as:

Positive energy i.e. the capacity to go-go-go with healthy vigor and an upbeat attitude through good and bad times.
Ability to energize others, releasing their positive energy to take any hill.
Ability to make tough calls, to say yes, no or may be.
Talent to execute or get things done.
To be passionate, to be caring, to sweat and believe.

Dr. A.P.J Abdul Kalam, the former President of India once narrated the following incident to understand what leadership really means. This was when he was in charge of the SLV 3 rocket project at ISRO. His team had worked under serious constraints to design and manufacture the rocket, intended to propel India into the elite league of countries with rocket-launching technology. But on the big day, after taking off flawlessly, the rocket burst into flames and crashed. It was a disaster of the highest magnitude, since the country’s prestige was involved. A press conference was due shortly, and Satish Dhawan, the then head of ISRO, summoned Kalam who said that he would try and explain the issues involved to the media. Instead of accepting Kalam’s proposal, Dhawan decided to face the media himself.

A few months later, the flaws were rectified and the rocket was launched successfully. At that juncture, Dhawan asked Kalam to address the media. Dr Kalam said that is when he learnt a powerful lesson on leadership: as a leader, always step forward to take the blame when things go wrong and always let the team take credit when things go right.

For me this is a seminal example for the first lesson on leadership. It is such a simple but powerful approach to leadership.

Leadership Secrets:

The word ‘Leader’ stems from the word ‘LEDEN’ which means ‘to travel’ or ‘to show the way’. The true measure of a successful leader is his ability to lead by example.

Ex-captains playing under new captains are very common to cricket. The lesson is to promote younger leadership and the aim is to win matches, rather than accommodate people as per their age/distinctions.

The motivational speaker Jim Rohn says “A good objective of leadership is to help those who are doing poorly to do well, and to help those who are doing well to do even better.”

The 1st Principle of Leadership is “Before you can become a leader you must learn to follow (obey)”. Thus, it is not surprising that 175 of the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies are former United States Marines and 26 US Presidents served in the military.

The greatness of a leader lies NOT in creating the perfect team, but deriving perfection from the team. The nearest analogy is that of a weaver who can, with the yarn, produce totally different tapestry. A successful leader creates the most beautiful design for his organization by placing the right person in the right job at the right time. Another analogy is the 26 alphabets: from the same alphabets many good and bad (unacceptable) prose/poetry…can be constructed. A successful leader is the one who creates the most right prose relevant to the situation.

Through Leadership: The problem in corporate world is that the leadership has been and is being defined in the hierarchical sense. We have leaders at the top, but not necessarily THROUGH the organization. Narrow leadership bandwidth in an organization is disaster. Low Cockpit gradient is a must for safe flight (of the organization).

Shared or Distributed Leadership: A leader must work on his strengths and surround him with people who are strong in his areas of weakness. Most leaders find it difficult to surround themselves with people UNLIKE them. There is a lot of sameness in board room. Look for people who are different; people who are going to complement you.

Business has developed only “mythological” models of leadership involving such qualities as drive, vision and creativity. What is true about leadership is “bringing forth who you are that will serve and benefit other people”.

Break boundaries of hierarchical definition of leadership. Realize that you can be a leader in your domain of influence. Whatever you do ask “Am I creating and adding value here?”

Two facts of leadership very little sought and appreciated:

Leadership is an opportunity not a position.
A leader must find smarter people (than him) to lead.

Studies show that strong leadership is the single-most powerful feature in motivating and keeping employees. Workers understand that poor leadership will impact not only the success of the company but the quality of the work environment and their own ability to develop and build a career. McKinsey Study: People don’t leave companies, they leave bosses. Thus, workforce attrition gets its roots from the leadership.

What gets most batsmen in cricket out is not speed, bounce, line or length but pressure. A leader must learn to handle pressure.

The functional as well as interest bandwidth of a leader should be very large.

If you want leadership position, you have to be global in your approach, vision and conduct. There is nothing like local leadership.

Leadership is not a fancy title, but an opportunity to contribute, create more leaders, help people to be happy and productive; it is also an obligation to engage in certain behaviors.

Leadership was (not any more) synonymous with authority. You had the power; you had the corner office, the title, the perks etc. But it is becoming more and more evident that leadership is not a title, it is a set-of behaviors.

A leader should never give his opinion on a topic, not because he does not have it. He should enable a larger menu of opinions before deciding on what to choose.

Leadership is defined (measured) by results not attributes. Generally a leader gets too much of the credit if a company succeeds and too much of the blame if it fails.

Good leaders are great simplifiers. They can cut through argument, debate and doubt to offer solutions everybody can understand, appreciate and follow. Good leaders are also educators who transfer learning across the organizations.

Great leaders take on added responsibilities only when they have fulfilled their existing ones. A true leader should always walk the talk.

Leaders should have a third eye that gives them different and enlightening perspective to a difficult situation. He notices things which others don’t. The third eye helps him to define his vision. The task of a leader is to recognize emerging patterns i.e. the patterns of change.

Challenge is integral to facilitating good leadership as it makes individuals move out of their comfort zones to perform tasks that require hard work, innovation and character. It is success at these difficult assignments that separate the men from the boys and help the leader to announce his arrival.

Invincible leadership is exercising the vision to change the traditional role of a leader from a commandant to a coach, from manager to mentor, and from director to delegator.

Managers are people who do things right, while leaders do right things.

A leader must migrate from a mindset OF