"Strong" Leaders - Good or Bad?

Journalist-turned-author Sankarsan Thakur is not known to be a leadership guru. But in a recent interview to a Web portal, he brought up an important point related to leadership, which is very relevant to the Indian political scene as of today. He says, "I think it is important for leaders to be decisive. But in a democracy like ours, it is equally important for leaders to consult and build consensus. Another important issue relates to party and organisation building. Too many of our political entities revolve around individuals or a set of individuals and I think that is not healthy. I see that already happening with the fledgling AAP (Aam Aadmi Party) as well. Arvind Kejriwal [has] already become a cult figure around [whom] everything is beginning to revolve. Leaders should be able to build institutions and leave a legacy behind. Sadly, that does not happen too often."

A decisive leader who takes firm action, even unilaterally, is generally rated higher than a consensus builder who delays decisions by trying to take everybody along. But such leaders are not necessarily good for their team, whether a business organization or a political party. Self-belief and decisiveness are important in a leader but equally important is the ability to convince those around you, including dissenters, about the correctness of your decisions. Otherwise you end up steamrolling all opposition by the sheer force of your personality (or the image your PR team has built for you). This weakens your team in the long run by preventing the emergence of new leaders with their own points of view. While Sankarsan is right about the cult of Kejriwal, the cult of Modi is even more dangerous, for being more powerful and yet more intolerant of criticism.

Winning Ways

I'm currently reading "The Winning Way" by Anita and Harsha Bhogle. Awarded by the HR team of my previous company more than 2 years ago, it had been gathering dust on my bookshelf. But once I started with it, I rather liked the way this team of the HR person wife and cricket commentator husband has presented their insights on the art of Winning. Here are some (edited) excerpts that I found worth sharing:

When companies start becoming completed goal-centric and forget that it is people who produce results, they struggle. Just as players in good teams enjoy going to compete, so should people enjoy going to work. This is one reason why the human resource function is such an important aspect of winning teams!

A steady inflow of fresh and young talent becomes potent only when that talent is encouraged to think and is empowered to express their views. Getting people to express their views leads to greater accountability. Once a decision is taken and the whole team comes on board, it is difficult to pass the buck.

There are certain things in life that you want to accomplish or milestones that you wish to achieve. Fix a deadline and just go ahead and do them. Then there are those wonderful feel good things that you always wanted to do. Store them away at the back of your mind till you really have the time. The first set of thoughts are your goals, the second, your dreams. The moment you put a deadline on a dream, it becomes a goal.

One way for teams to overcome a lack of self-belief is to celebrate even small wins, which remind them that they can win and thus start breaking the downward spiral. Slowly, the team develops a winning habit, it builds confidence and the wins attract talent since everyone loves to work with a winning team.

During testing times, leaders often take risks. When they can pull of those risks, the team starts backing them for their courage. A team would be anxious to turn things around as fast as possible but sometimes performance does not improve overnight. Everyone, including the leader, must be patient.

Mistakes are invaluable because they teach you lessons. They are like potholes on the road that you learn to avoid. Mistakes warn you about where you shouldn't be going and what not to do the next time. Winning is not about not making mistakes, but about how to learn from them and become wiser and stronger. It's not about not getting knocked down but about how fast you can get up and fight again.

Change is not an enemy, it is merely a challenge to a set way of doing things, a compulsion to get out of your comfort zone and go into unfamiliar territory. We live in a dynamic environment and so, whether it is a change from within or forced upon us from outside, we have to discard old ways of doing things and learn new ways that are essential to survival. Eventually we discover that change is not the monster we feared it to be.

Communication is the final barometer to test team health. Lack of communication, or one-way communication, can spell trouble for any team. Communication involves clarity of goals and roles, a respect for the views of all team members, a climate conducive to debate and discussion and finally, walking the talk.

A leader is particularly disadvantaged if he lacks communication skills. This is not as much to do with fluency and glibness as it is to do with coming through as genuine, and the ability to connect with the heterogeneous people who sometimes constitute a team. It is about reaching out to those team members who are not doing so well. It is about trusting the team and being seen as someone who can be trusted.