The Leadership Gene
There has been a debate from quite some time between two schools of thought on leadership. One side believes that leadership just like any other skill can be taught to people, whereas the other side believes leadership comes to people naturally. I don't know which side is right or wrong since we have had many different kind of leaders in the past and favouring one side would be grave injustice to a lot of leaders hailing from the other camp. However one thing is evidently clear. The definition of leadership extends definitely beyond the textbook version. Lets look at what Wikipedia gives us
"Leadership is both a research area and a practical skill encompassing the ability of an individual or organization to "lead" or guide other individuals, teams, or entire organizations".
This is seemingly simple and doesn't really cover most of what leadership is all about. Lets see what some more bodies say about leadership. That's what Google says
Most of these definitions are outright ambiguous and maybe most of what we would read online would just be mere permutations of the above. I had earlier written a descriptive blog about leadership that covered it in detail drawing several examples from politics or business. I however decided to write this blog to demonstrate the practical aspects of leadership that work and that could be picked up by almost anybody in a leadership position. To talk a little bit about me, I have been lucky enough to lead a lot of bright, brilliant and nice people in my 16 year long tech and business career. I have identified a pattern that sort of works even if you work for a capitalistic system that places profit above people.
Dan Ariely in his famous book 'Predictably Irrational' , talks about companies either slanting on the social side or the commercial side with the changing circumstances which could be detrimental. If a company decides to be on the social side and articulates the company being a family then it should hold on to the family when the times are bad. Its too easy to downsize and cut costs but its the actual test of leadership to hold onto your valuable employees in times of turmoil. But just so that I don't really digress from the actual topic, let me give a background of what has worked out in my leadership portfolio.
One thing that I have always maintained as a leader is to be as approachable as one can be. Its natural for people to be intimidated of the boss. Thanks to two millenniums of colonial rule and we got a hierarchical system inside an Indian company. Every successive leadership node in such a system demands respect and introduces the fear element in employees. This kind of leadership worked pre liberalisation. It really doesn't work anymore. I have always been fond of talking to my junior colleagues. Hearing their interesting stories and learning from them. The idea was to be a likeable person and I managed to achieve that. As a result of that even after so many years , colleagues from previous companies have kept in touch. I have cracked jokes with my team members and had lunches and dinners with them to an extent that they told me about a lot of things they felt should change about the company and the way it worked. These are very significant inputs the Human Resource would crave for only if Human Resource really meant business. To sum it up as a leader being an approachable fun person to your employees certainly helps. If people like you, you'd have won half the battle. Of course there would be a scanty percentage who would perhaps not like you and feel its some grand conspiracy by management to identify the rogue elements as Mel Gibson thought in 'Conspiracy Theory'.
But then you can't do much about it than just hope for their hearts to transform and hope is a powerful thing :)
Next on the list is a powerful word that we often hear leaders speaking but its hardly implemented in the corporate utopia. Any guesses on what it could be? No its not 'equality'. Its 'transparency'. We have heard this word a lot in brown bag sessions or all hands but its hardly implemented. There is a shroud of secrecy organisations maintain to keep information away from their employees. Its actually fundamentally a stupid idea to do that. Employees are the wheels that drive an organisation and if the leaders can't share any piece of information with them , it gives rise to doubts, suspicions and rumours. It inhibits a company from having a healthy environment ever. Every place I worked as a leader, I have always shared every piece of information save the salary slips:) This might look like a small insignificant bland suggestion but its actually quite powerful and piquant. The moment you share information , it sort of shows the employees that they are all but a single team working towards a common goal. It helps builds trust between the leader and the team. Tony Hsieh talks about it in his bestseller 'Delivering Happiness'. I have personally tried it out in almost all the orgs I have worked with and it has worked wonders. In a recent gig that I did in a rural set up of India where the team I worked with was very different from the quintessential English-speaking-corporate dudes I had earlier worked with, the moment I started sharing every piece of information that came to me as a Chief Operating Officer, it created an amazing environment of trust. Now people could express their deepest fears and doubts to you without any fear or apprehension. Isn't this what leadership is all about? I mean companies spend millions of dollars on employee engagement programs and team building activities but completely ignore this singular detail that could make employees more productive. Believe it or not, a transparent organisation is the organisation of the future and the sooner companies adhere to it the better it would be for their productivity charts. In fact when some of the most iconic companies on the planet first started almost everyone in the first hundred or so employees knew what was going on with the company. Google has been one of those companies that believed in sharing information with employees to create an environment of trust. In fact they went a step further in asking employees solutions to leadership problems as per Lazlo Bock. Some of the amazing innovations they have come up with were inherently suggestions from employees which includes Google News ,Gmail and AdSense. In a nutshell devoid of trust an organisation cannot move ahead and trust comes from transparency.
The next thing on the menu is perhaps the most important pillar of leadership. Its called empathy. Empathy is quite inherently genetic in nature in most of the cases or it comes from experiencing severe trauma or adversity. Don't confuse it with the Stockholm Syndrome which is a totally different animal to deal with :) Empathy is a function of compassion. It is extremely important for a leader to have empathy. Devoid of empathy a leader might be a dictator or a tyrant. I keep hearing a lot of crazy notions from startup veterans like Sam Altman about firing fast when things don't look hunky dory for the startup.
However this is exactly where you as a leader is put to test. One doesn't need to blindly follow stuff people do at Silicon Valley. Employees aren't toilet papers that can be used and thrown whenever it is convenient for the company. They are assets to an organisation. I am surprised why a balance sheet doesn't count employees as long term assets. Unless a leader is empathetic to an employee in his team and understands more about the problems they face , it would be impossible to run affairs smoothly. Simon Senek talks about how leaders practise empathy in this amazing video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_XZ36b_aDI
Some of the greatest leaders that history has produced like Abraham Lincoln, Nelson Mandela or Mahatama Gandhi were extremely empathetic to people around them. They genuinely wanted to help people in any way possible. Its quite hard to develop empathy unless one goes at a deeper sentient level to come to terms with problems a team member faces. We have heard a lot about empathy for customers and building products that could help solve their needs. That is one of the pillars of design or product but here is the catch. You can't really feel empathy just like that. You need to reach an emotional state where you can actually begin to feel the pain someone else experiences and only then you can empathise with the person. Look at this amazing scene from the movie 'Swades' where our very own SRK experiences the pain a poor farmer is going through which changes his outlook towards life completely.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tiVPuLbbHg
One of the reasons that I have been quite successful at people management roles is because I have always believed in people and have been extremely empathetic to them. I could feel their state of mind and a little bit of support and encouragement helped them face the adversity. Its what Daniel Goleman talks about in his cult book 'Emotional Intelligence'. Empathy as a trait has been something I have practically grown up with. I have always been empathetic to animals namely stray dogs in my area and have fed them and taken care of them. So ever since I stepped into business I decided to be a helping hand to anyone who needs help. Its something that really cannot be taught. One has to be sentient enough to feel someone's pain and only then one can relate to it. True leaders are extremely empathetic to the needs and problems of their team mates.
Moving onto the next trait I'd say a true leader always tries to groom the next set of leaders. He would always be concerned about the growth and development of his team mates. He needs to act as a mentor and ensure the team mates are growing using training and consistent feedback loops. Billy Walsh the legendary coach of 49ers believed profusely in teaching his team members from time to time. He would mentor them and see the players are applying the said techniques in the practices and in the game. The fact that the 49ers won consecutive Super Bowls proved that with a little bit of nurturing, care and support from the leader the team can create a huge difference. Its what is the difference between win and loss. I don't see a lot of leaders who are continually mentoring their team members. I have personally mentored and coached hundreds if not thousands of people in my career and it has helped them cross important milestones in their lives and be successful. It feels great to hear such stories from folks who have made it a point to pass it forward, as leaders themselves to the next set of leaders, they are grooming.
Next on the list is an important trait that a leader needs to have to be brave enough to take a risk when everyone else wants to play safe. The thing to acknowledge is that failure is an important milestone to success. It doesn't matter whether one wins or fails but what matters is the learning a team makes while encountering failure. A common discussion I have heard a lot in organisations is that there is dearth of innovation. I would blame the leadership for that. Its because leaders in a company wish to play safe and avert any kind of risk that might jeopardise their careers. If Vishal Sikka would not have taken a risk on HANA, SAP as a company would have always trailed behind its competitors. Leaders are not averse to risk. They welcome risk. They really aren't concerned much about what others are saying. As Gandhi famously said."First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win". Its exactly the same phenomenon which has happened with all great leaders. What sets them apart is the calm and composure they maintain while taking a risk and insulating their team mates completely if there be any kind of failure. I haven't been lucky enough to see such leaders in my lifetime though I have read a lot about such leaders. I really admire Mandela for reviving the relationship between Blacks and Whites in South Africa. I admire Lincoln for keeping aside his differences with his opponents Edward Bates, Salmon Chase and William Seward and inviting them to be a part of his cabinet. It could have been the greatest risk a statesman could ever take but Lincoln took that risk and with a sharp mix of political ingenuity, wit and razor sharp intelligence made it one of the best things that shaped America. In my case I have always taken the road not taken.
As a leader I never shied away from being different or doing things the other way round. I was never comfortable accepting the status quo. I have had a lot of friction with management on taking a risky path but I knew I could deliver and it worked out fabulously well. When I say fabulously well it doesn't mean I succeeded often. I had my share of failures but I along with my team learnt way too much and that extra knowledge shaped our forthcoming victories. The reason I followed a certain sequence in talking about these traits is because unless you are empathetic to your team members and have their trust you will not be able to take any risk as its a team effort not an individual one. More importantly a leader always credits his team mates for any wins but holds himself accountable for any losses. I have never placed a team mate accountable for any kind of failure and that shows a leader's true character. Thankfully it has worked out real well for me in all my gigs.
Last but not the least. A leader is always committed to a cause not to an imagined reality. As a leader I would find myself disassociated with any company I worked with. I would feel guilty for feeling so but then I realised its something most great leaders have experienced. They feel their allegiance is to a cause not an entity. This infamous HBR article describes it in detail. It comes naturally to leaders. They are not fond of power plays. I never appreciated the hierarchical power based leadership structure one would see a lot in Indian companies. I would never understand why people are scared of articulating their concerns to their leaders. Then I understood that the corporate utopia in India has segregated people into two brackets-one with power and one without power. The idea is that the second bracket would revere and fear the first bracket and that according to management was the only way to guarantee maximum productivity. Guess it didn't work out in the case of Ford when Henry Ford the third was its leader. He had created multiple layers of bureaucracy that never made it easy to take any worthwhile decisions or risks that innovation demanded. Lee Iacocca tried his level best to cut through that but he really couldn't do much. It was because of that sole reason that sales started declining in Ford. It was brilliantly captured in the movie 'Ford vs Ferrari'.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyYgDtY2AMY
End of the day a leader is nothing but a change agent. Its not his duty but his mission to change the status quo and take care of anything that opposes change. Not a lot of folks are comfortable with change. Not a lot of folks can act unselfishly. Not a lot of folks can be transparent. Not a lot of folks can be empathetic which is exactly the reason why not a lot of folks can be great leaders. Which one are you good or great? Make your pick?