Leadership as I see it

All of us, at sometime or the other in our lives, will hear someone say, “You are the future leaders of the organization” or “As leaders of tomorrow....”. I suspect that in many such instances, the comment would be made (and received) in passing. After all, there would be, at that moment, action items to be completed, fires to be fought and issues to be addressed.

However, such statements - upon subsequent reflection - have always prompted in me the question: OK, so what is leadership and what do leaders do? What is it that I did till yesterday that now makes me a 'future leader'? And how does one transition from a 'future leader' to a 'leader'? My view was that it definitely cannot be a title/role that you play in a company because that would imply an 'organizational blessing' to you being a leader.

This note is only an attempt to provide my perspective on leadership without any of the boiler plate terms such as vision, strategy, intent etc.... By no means do I claim that I am right. However, after coming across varying examples on leadership, I have concluded if one wants to come up with two pages of points on leadership, (s)he still would not be any wiser.

My leadership attributes are therefore culled from just three sources among the few that I have read. And these three, I believe, are clear, simple & concise (at least for me).

Seth Godin was first. His essential question in his book 'Tribes – We Need You to Lead Us' was “Do you want to be a leader or do you want to be a manager?” and followed up with “Leaders lead, Managers manage”. Simple, yet powerful.

Harvard Business Review opined that there were only 4 attributes of a leader:

1. Leaders always have the TRUST of the people they work with.

2. Leaders always have the ability to HOLD the ATTENTION of their group.

3. Leaders always COMMUNICATE the approach, direction and way forward.

4. Leaders always KNOW how/what to DEPLOY resources at their disposal.

Lou Gerstner in 'Who Says Elephants Can't Dance' outlined that successful executives just had 3 attributes viz. superb focus, superb execution and superb personal leadership. Focus pertains to developing steely detailed strategies and commiting resources to make them work. Execution talks of measurements (people respect only what you inspect), world-class processes and enabling a high-performance culture. Personal leadership includes passion and integrity, and I suppose you could add the 4 points from HBR above.

Before I forget, if you still have not read 'Good to Great' by Jim Collins, please do so. So far, my note only tells you about WHAT makes a leader. For HOW to get there, Jim Collins is your guide.

As always, I would love your feedback on this topic.

Blink by Malcolm Gladwell

Blink deals with our innate capability to make snap judgments in the blink of an eye. Malcolm Gladwell strives to address three broad themes in this yet another masterpiece. He lays out that snap judgments could be every bit as good as ones taken after prolonged deliberation. He then states that we need to know when to trust such instincts and when we must be wary of them. Lastly, he states that the the human mind can indeed be trained to control and enable rapid cognition.

What follows is a deep-dive into the way human beings judge situations and come to instant conclusions. It turns out that we are all experts at 'thin slicing' - an ability to find patterns based on choosing specific experiences & filtering out the rest. And as we are thin slicing, our subconscious mind does guide us towards a conclusion. To prove this point, Gladwell takes us through the world of art experts (who, at a moment's observation identify a fake), a marriage analyst (who, upon looking at perceptible facial expressions & hearing conversations determines the strength of a marriage) and medical malpractice lawyers (who can hear snippets of a doctor's conversation with his patient and conclude his risk of being sued). As you go through such examples, you marvel at his ability in marshaling his points and presenting them in such a manner that you can actually relate to them.

But how do we sift the meaningless slices from the important ones? Gladwell states that slicing based on physical attributes, stature and stereotypes are best avoided. In other words, you change the way you thin slice. And, it would help to reasonably limit the options/choices that you use to arrive at a conclusion.

While the first two objectives of the book are well structured, it is the third aspect that the book lacks, viz. how can the human mind be trained. The reader is only advised that he must 'practice'; the examples mentioned thereafter are on how repeated mind reading enabled under less pressure could lead to reduction in accidental police fatalities. While I wholeheartedly agree that practice makes perfect, I definitely would have liked better examples. Or may be, there is no better example than sustained experience?

Regardless, this is yet another brilliant book from one of the world's most original thinkers. The next time you come to a conclusion in the blink of an eye, try to ascertain what you did. You may be surprised by what you find.