Programming the Mind through Power of Beliefs

To understand the mind, we can divide it into two parts: conscious mind and sub-conscious mind. We use conscious mind when we knowingly think or do something. Some functions, like working of our heart, is not under the control of conscious mind. It is the power of the sub-conscious mind that makes our heart beat about 72 times per minute regularly for up to 100 years.

Psychologists have found that we can consciously be aware of only 7+ 2 items at a time. But our sub-conscious mind can be aware of a large number of items at any instant of time. For example, at any time, the sub-conscious is aware of many body functions including blood pressure, heart beats, body temperature, chemical balances, blood flow, taking care of emergencies, etc.

The subconscious mind is not under our conscious control. The sub-conscious mind functions on the basis of information stored in it. This is the basis of mind programming. Mind programming means that if we can put information in a person's subconscious mind, then we can modify the person's behavior.

The main difficulty is that the conscious mind does not let us put information in the sub-conscious mind. Actually the conscious mind analyses the information, and discards all that it considers false or non-useful. For example, someone who is not confident says to himself "I am confident". The conscious mind analyses this sentence and decides that this sentence is false and does not put this information into the sub-conscious mind.

Power of beliefs
A belief is an idea that we accept to be true. It can be a fact, a guiding principle, an opinion, or a faith in someone or something. We can have faith in our teacher or doctor, in the value of being honest or good, in the value of exercise for good health, in our ability to succeed, or in the value of reading newspapers, magazines, and books. A belief can be conscious or subconscious. Conscious beliefs mean that we know that we believe something. Subconscious belief means that we do not even know that we believe something. An example of subconscious belief is that we accept to be true what we see on the TV, what we hear on the radio, and what we read in the newspapers. Beliefs are powerful. Here are a few examples that illustrate how beliefs affect performance.

Elephant and rope
When an elephant is a small baby elephant, it is tied with a big strong chain. It tries hard to escape from the chain, but it can not escape. As the elephant grows, the trainers replace the big strong chain by small rope. Surprisingly, the elephant still remains tied to the rope. It probably thinks "There is no point trying ... I know ... I have tried before and failed ... I am tied with the rope ... I can not escape".

How some new world records were created
In the first half of this century, athletes and trainers believed that human body could not run a mile in 4 minutes. Then, in May 1954, one runner ran a mile in less than 4 minutes. In June of the same year, another person did it again. Since then, hundreds of people have run a mile in less than 4 minutes. It shows that the belief in impossibility was in the mind only.

In weight-lifting it was believed that 500 pounds was the limit for the human body. Many could lift 499, but none 500 or more. Then the trainers fooled a Soviet weight lifter Vasily Alexeev; the actual weight was 501.5 pounds, but they told it was only 499, and Vasily Alexeev lifted the weight. Once the belief was broken, many other weight-lifters were able to lift more than 500 pounds.

The magic of placebo
The magic of sugar tablets (also called the placebo effect) is well known to the medical science. In some placebo studies, patients were given sugar tablets that contained no medicine. But they were told that they were getting some powerful medicine. Many people got cured by sugar tablets. They got well just by believing that they were getting some real good medicines. The example shows how the mind affects the body.

In one study, educational researchers divided students of equal IQ into two groups. Teachers were told that one group had a high IQ and should get high marks. The other had a low IQ and should get low marks. What do you think was the result? The group which was told to fetch high marks really got higher marks than the other group.

In any sphere of life, realizing the power of belief is probably one of the most unknown and under-exploited human enterprise.

7 Lessons from Sam Bahadur by V. K. Madhav Mohan

For corporate leaders aspiring to make the crossover from good to great, the Field Marshal’s life can be the ultimate inspiration.



Field Marshal Sam Hormusji Framji Jamshedji Manekshaw has passed (on 27th June, 2008) into the pantheon of immortal Indian heroes and all-time great military leaders. The saga of his life will continue to motivate and inspire untold generations of Indians. In a country that is hamstrung by a predominance of pseudo-leaders, he shone like a diamond. What can we learn from the 94 years of brilliance, joie de vivre and selfless service that Sam Bahadur gave us?

Raw Courage:
First, of course, is that any aspiring leader needs raw courage in abundance. Sam Bahadur was wounded critically twice and highly decorated for gallantry while personally leading troops in combat. Raw physical courage he possessed in full and overflowing measure, but does a CEO need it?

Of course, he does, because natural disasters, terrorist strikes, industrial accidents and all kinds of emergencies are just a heartbeat away. In such an eventuality will the CEO be the first to run or first to respond? His response could make or break his organisation and his own future. Even more important is courage of the moral kind that Sam demonstrated. The courage of conviction, the courage to do that which is right, the courage to stand up to political pressure: these are of utmost importance in defining and demonstrating leadership. Buckling under pressure and deviating from the path of organisational welfare are options that true corporate leaders don’t have if they are to retain loyalty and followership.

Spotting & Deploying Talent:
The second lesson is to build an ability to spot and deploy talent. Identifying the right person for a particular assignment, a person with the skill set and mindscape that guarantees delivery can spell the difference between success and failure. This can only come about if the CEO has an intimate knowledge of the capabilities of his people. For that he has to develop close relationships across the organisation. Many observers are unanimous that the real genius of Sam lay in his choice of field commanders. That is a skill that every CEO must build.

Planning & Faith:
The third lesson is to plan to the nth degree and simultaneously invest consummate faith in your people. Sam practised this expertly throughout his career. The most visible example was Sam’s planning for the East Pakistan (Bangladesh liberation) campaign when he handpicked the team to lead it and backed them to the hilt. CEOs need to drive detailed and meticulous planning and then support the team totally; every member should know for certain that if things go wrong the CEO will back them fully.

Seek The Best Ideas:
The fourth lesson is to seek the best ideas wherever they may emanate. The best ideas may be embedded deep within the organisation. The CEO’s job is to ferret them out and implement them. Sam seemed to excel in this; he would never pull rank when his juniors tried to tell him something that was very different from his own ideas. Debate and discussions are used by all great leaders to clarify their own thought process to facilitate decision making.

Strategy-Tactics balance:
The fifth lesson is to balance strategy with tactics. Organisation building and tactical plans must be synchronised. While deferring the East Pakistan campaign by three months despite political pressure, Sam assembled his assault force and supplied them with strategic guidance while demanding operational targets and execution plans from the field commanders. This balance is what CEOs need. While strategic initiatives are important, grassroots implementation is equally vital. I fear that the acquisitions that corporate India has so aggressively concluded in the last 18 months will come to naught with non-achievement of sales and profitability targets in the near future.

Direct Communication:
The sixth lesson that Sam teaches us is the importance of simple, direct and, many times, earthy communication. Known for his wit and informality, he could get straight to the heart of the matter. CEOs must imbibe this in full measure. Many times corporate communications and discussions are mired in obfuscation and jargonising. The principle of, “say what you will do and then do what you said” is the bedrock of credibility.

Unshakeable Principles:
The seventh lesson Sam leaves us with is the importance of unshakeable principles. In a famous incident he is reported to have given only two options to an officer found prima facie involved in corruption: either resign or shoot yourself. Sam’s greatness lay in living the principles with wit, wisdom and humility. CEO’s can learn to dilute their self-importance while sticking to the values necessary for leadership. The leadership legacy of Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw is formidable. It needs deep study and research by the premier business schools in India following which it can be integrated into management curricula. The true tribute we can pay to this great son of India is to universalise the principles by which he lived.

For the original article, click

http://thelonelyceo.blogspot.com/

Evolving into a CEO

The simple but insightful article published in BusinessLine on 3rd March, 2008 by V. K. Madhav Mohan is reproduced below.

Every young manager aspires to become a CEO, but sadly only a few make it. The top of the pyramid is unforgivingly narrow! The road to the top is long and hard and very, very slippery. Traversing this tortuous path calls for steely determination, hard work and a host of other attributes. You don’t wave a magic wand, say abracadabra and become a CEO: you have to evolve into a CEO.

Evolution by definition is long term. Myriad experiences over many, many years help you assimilate and synthesize learning, attitude and skill into excellence and leadership. Along the way you are bound to suffer setbacks and distractions. That’s when you learn to be mentally tough and remain positive.

So how do you evolve into a CEO?

First, ensure that you learn the intricacies of every aspect of management and business, not just your specialty. The CEO must have a solid grasp of all functional areas apart from a thorough understanding of the dynamics of the external environment. So, right from the beginning of your career you must consciously create a career path that rotates you through marketing, sales, finance, manufacturing, HR and technology. Else, you’ll arrive at the doorstep of the CEO’s office without the requisite managerial bandwidth. And then it’ll be too late!

Second, build and nourish relationships not only within your organization but also outside. Relationships are long term and need huge investments in time, effort and care. You have to give without worrying about what you get! That guarantees an infinite lifetime ROI from relationships. Relationships create strong networks that are preconditions for success in the 21st century.

Third, get your work-life balance right. Commit to fitness (mental and physical) by making time for exercise, entertainment and meditation. The higher you go, the more stress you’ll encounter. Therefore you’ll need to build your capacity to deflect and dissipate stress. And that you can do very effectively by staying light and nimble through exercise and meditation.

Fourth, commit to lifelong learning. It’s important to understand that your ability to learn, like your ability to listen, atrophies with disuse. If you learn continuously you retain your mental sharpness and memory well into the eighties and you can even ward off Alzheimer’s disease and senile dementia. In any case, Moore’s Law (chip level computing capability doubles every 18 months) has ensured that the rate of obsolescence of knowledge is exponential. So, much of your stock of old knowledge is being rendered obsolete in real-time. Learning is therefore a survival imperative!

Fifth, prevent your ego from interfering with your decisions. Learn to minimize the impact of your own likes and dislikes and maximize the welfare of your organization and your team. Eliminate the tendency to talk about yourself and hog the credit; instead, let your results do the talking.

View the whole picture:
In every situation, learn to unravel intertwined issues and then view the whole picture. When you have trained yourself like this for a long time, top-quality decision-making will come naturally to you.

And above all, maintain an iron clad commitment to personal integrity. The combination of personal integrity with consistent delivery of results is simply unbeatable because your credibility can then be universally accepted. Remember that a lot of the time it’s not what is being said that’s important; it’s who is saying it that’s paramount. As a CEO this kind of credibility is the foundation of your success. If you evolve along these lines, you can open the door with confidence when the opportunity to become CEO knocks.

For more readings on related articles, click http://thelonelyceo.blogspot.com/

A New Era for Business by McKinsey & Co

More and more business leaders recognize that their company’s future is increasingly intertwined with the needs and demands of society. What many executives don’t understand is how best to manage that changing relationship. In this article, McKinsey & Company consultants provide a model for incorporating sociopolitical issues into the strategic decision-making process.

Businesses have never been insulated from expectations about their social responsibilities. What is different today is that the issues are far more numerous, complex, global, and fast-changing than ever before. Global warming, childhood obesity, unfair labor practices, air and water pollution – the list goes on and on. The impact that these issues can have on a company's future has also increased – to potentially devastating levels – because today’s social activists have more avenues and tools to influence and mobilize public opinion around hot-button issues.

Some business executives are resisting these trends, arguing that a company’s obligation to society is only to provide the best return possible for its shareholders. But more and more executives are taking a strategic approach to the problem, recognizing that the short- and long-term interests of their company and its shareholders are increasingly intertwined with the interests of society, and that the best response is to become more engaged with the issues and activists in the nonprofit and public sectors.

We believe that business does have a strategic interest in becoming more aware of and engaged in sociopolitical debate and issues. The reasons are twofold. First, social and political forces can fundamentally alter an industry’s strategic landscape and even torpedo the reputations of businesses that have been caught unawares or are seen as being culpable in creating the problem. Second, companies that are engaged can significantly benefit from these trends, by creating new products, services, and markets for unmet social needs, as well as for new consumer preferences.

The challenge that business leaders face is to find ways to incorporate an awareness of sociopolitical issues more explicitly and proactively into their strategic decision-making processes. Companies must see social and political dimensions not just as risks – areas for damage control – but also as business opportunities. They need to scan the horizon for emerging trends and integrate their responses across the organization, so that the resulting initiatives are coherent rather than piecemeal.

Having worked with many companies around the world, we have learned which areas companies need to master in order to understand and manage these complex sociopolitical issues. We call these the Five R’s: risk, renewal, regulation, relationships, and reputation. We have also learned that managing these issues is not a peripheral task to be relegated to public relations or corporate social responsibility departments. Instead, it requires leadership by the CEO and coordination throughout the organization. To succeed in today’s smaller, fasterchanging, more complex world, business leaders must systematically incorporate an awareness of sociopolitical issues into their strategic decision-making processes.

For full article, go to Stanford Social Innovation Review Source URL:

http://WWW.SSIREVIEW.ORG/ARTICLES/ENTRY/681/

'You've got to find what you love' by Steve Jobs, CEO - Apple Computer

This is the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer delivered on June 12, 2005 and published in Stanford Report on 14th June, 2005

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out? It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example: Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later. Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky – I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation - the Macintosh - a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me – I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I retuned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes. I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept: No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. Thank you all very much.

It’s not about you

A couple of years ago, former General Electric CEO Jack Welch visited the Stanford Graduate School of Business to talk about leadership and his book, Winning. With about 800 people, he had a public conversation about managing. There he made a very simple comment which every leader should believe and practice every day. Leadership is not about you. It’s about the people who work for you.

“The day you become a leader, it becomes about them,” Welch said. “Your job is to walk around with a can of water in one hand and a can of fertilizer in the other hand. Think of your team as seeds and try to build a garden. It’s about building these people,” he insisted. “Only you will know the team.”

The minute you move from being a task-oriented professional to being a manager of people, it stops being about your individual talents, your successes, and starts being all about coaching, motivating, teaching, supporting, removing roadblocks, and finding resources for your employees. Leadership is about celebrating their victories and rewarding them; helping them analyze when things don’t go to plan. Their successes become your successes. Their failures are yours too. Too many people today think leading is exclusively about their own performance. Even some of those who become CEOs, usually highly intelligent people who worked hard to get where they are, turn into self-aggrandizing individuals once they hit the executive suite.

Too many people, perhaps encouraged by the media, have developed an obsession with leaders. In his book on hierarchies, Top Down, Hal Leavitt covers a broad range of issues. Leavitt, who is the Kilpatrick Professor of Organizational Behavior emeritus at the Business School, surmises that part of today’s infatuation with the leadership discussion springs from the fact that we perceive organizations have become flatter, when they are still hierarchies, though changed ones that are “participative” and “groupy.” They have become harder to navigate with chains of command that are less clear. As a result, leadership qualities are more necessary for managers at every level, not just for those at the top of an authority pyramid.

Although it is difficult to find common characteristics among acknowledged leaders (What would Winston Churchill have in common with Mother Teresa?), Leavitt identifies three recurring themes of leadership: Transformation, persuasion, and competence. Leaders are able to transform or change a situation. They can influence others and motivate them to follow. They exude confidence and competence about what they are doing that inspires others.

Of prime importance, is the notion that leadership is about change and a leader must leverage those who work for him or her, empower and support them with regular feedback, rewards, and exchange of ideas. Of course, sometimes leaders have to “weed the garden” in Welch’s pithy vocabulary. The tough job of firing and hiring is part of creating an effective team.

One person, no matter how talented, cannot accomplish much in a managed organization of today’s complexity and global reach. Transforming through others is the job of the leader at any level. Said Welch “The day you become a leader, your job is to take people who are already great and make them unbelievable."

An earlier version of this essay appeared in Stanford Business alumni magazine.

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:

1. The only definition of a leader is someone who has followers.
2. An effective leader is NOT someone who is loved or admired; he or she is someone whose followers do the right thing.
3. Leaders are highly visible. They, therefore, set examples.
4. 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:

1. Positive energy i.e. the capacity to go-go-go with healthy vigor and an upbeat attitude through good and bad times.
2. Ability to energize others, releasing their positive energy to take any hill.
3. Ability to make tough calls, to say yes, no or may be.
4. Talent to execute or get things done.
5. 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:

1. Leadership is an opportunity not a position.
2. 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

• Managing TO Leading
• Financial Success TO Serving
• Growth TO Development
• I TO We
• Pride, Power and Masculinity TO Humility, Self-Control and Feminity
• Control TO Trust
• Hierarchy TO Fluid Organizations
• Local TO Global

Ten Commandments for Leaders:

1. Commit to success
2. Set priorities
3. Demand higher standards
4. Be tough but fair
5. Concentrate on positives
6. Develop a sense of urgency
7. Pay attention to detail
8. Provide for failure
9. Be personally involved
10. Have fun

In most cases of leadership, it is an issue of “Disability in Leading rather than Leading the Disabled”

The antonym of ‘Leading’ is ‘Leaving’!