Leadership is encompassing, endearing and all pervasive to the man kind. They say, history repeats itself and history is the greatest teacher of all. Since time immemorial, every century has examples of leaders which have led by the front – by their thoughts and action.
Someone in the prehistoric times would have rallied the infant human society and would have started creating social groups – hence the village would have been formed. Someone would have discovered fire, invented the Wheel and would have shared that with the social society – these advances were innovations which we don’t give a second thought about in our daily lives these days; but they have shaped our lives and altered the course of history. At that period of time, these advances would have been as ground breaking as the invention of the Internet seems to us in the modern times.
So What Really is Leadership?
Thought leadership or action leadership? Or a combination of both?
What really causes people to follow leaders to the journeys unknown, to pledge lives, to follow without a second thought?
What should a leader have? Assertiveness? Superior intelligence? A position of power? Great aspirations?
Or is it something else which transforms a person into a leader?
These questions have been asked before, and answers are actually there for everyone to understand who looks at human history. All we have to do is “stand on the shoulders of giants” to understand what really is leadership.
Leadership Starts When People Turn Back to Their Inner Self.
Leadership is about being detached, yet being in control of the inner senses, and thoughts. Leaders must understand their life’s philosophy and understand what makes them happy and hence involved in what they do.
One of the extremely well known scriptures from the Indian history is Gita – which encompasses a life’s meaning and is a great work on stratagem. It says, “Don’t worry about results – for results are temporary” – focus on your work which might take you a lifetime to achieve the results and leave the results to be savored as an outcome of your work – this is also really known as the “karma”. This is action leadership.
Think about it, this verse from Gita, gives out what a leader must do to be a great leader. People tend to forget about what they love to do and just focus on bottom lines, sales targets and the like and in that process they forget about the road they travel to their goals. Savoring the journey is more important than the relishing the time to reach the destination.
Steve Jobs travelled to India when he was 19 and returned back as a Buddhist. In later years of his life, he acknowledged that this trip had a profound impact in his working life and – where he saw the power of intuition and experiential wisdom- that too in his travels from Villages – places where little or no modern learning had reached. The thought or learning that prevailed was from centuries of collective wisdom from the likes of Gita, which are still understood well. Steve Jobs’ stated goal was not to make money – but to make the world a better place to live in. He made a lot of money – but that was only a bi-product of him trying to do what he loved the most- innovate and hence create products which helped shape the world we live in.
The process of turning back to your inner thoughts and yourself to find your true calling evokes the thought leadership process. In the usual grind of daily lives, contemplation is usually lost, and we are many times left with a singular sense of monotony and the morbid. Being able to be detached, and achieve the state of Zen is the starting point for becoming a great leader. Many times a person knows and understands the path he/she wishes to take is what is the right way, yet still gets distracted by what others might see as not right. The Zen like ability of a leader keeps him/her focused and truly allows them to enjoy the path they seek to take or in more Indian terms- be a ‘Yogi’. A person who practices Zen is a Yogi – to seek internal awakening- essentially this is thought leadership.
Leadership Failure is To Be Afraid of Failing
If a leader is afraid of failing, he/she has already failed. Failures teach and to be afraid of learning is unacceptable. Leaders believe and believe strongly in their paths and if they ‘fail’ – the failure is just an outcome. To be true to themselves and to the people they lead, learning to be not to be afraid of ‘failing’ is a must. Leaders must then be ‘Karma Yogi’. Just focus on work with Zen like ability and forget about results. Again going back to the example of Steve Jobs- he was fired from Apple – and at that point of time- he would have seemed like a failure for many. He came back to apple, much stronger – after turning Pixar into a success story – and lead by his beliefs to unshackle two more industry verticals to creating a totally new market for tablets. Failures are part of the game, and leaders should be able to enjoy the failures as much as they enjoy success.
Leading is Really About Understanding People.
Leadership draws on the ability to be compassionate and have a superior sense of empathy.
To quote from two recent tweets from the Dalai Lama
“Compassion is the ultimate source of success in life”
“With inner strength or mental stability, we can endure all kinds of adversity.”
Coming from one of the great leaders in the modern times, this has a special meaning. He is a person who has rallied his people for a common cause- which necessarily might not have been a personal cause for people who have stood by him and the cause espoused by him.
If the leaders are prepared to take on the work they would want others to do at their behest and lead from the front , the “circle of influence” grows. Getting hands dirty is essential and leading from the front sets the right example. What Dalai Lama believes and preaches – really sums this age old adage. Selflessness, truthfulness and great vision shines though like a beacon and hits the heart of people around you. Loyalty and motivation are not rationally defined, but emotionally governed and people can sense selflessness, truthfulness and a great vision which rallies them to follow their leaders to the ends of the earth and beyond.
Summing up, leaders should work to be a Karma Yogi. Action leadership combined with thought leadership is karma yogi. Great results are adored and praised. The work path is usually forgotten and relegated to secondary spot- but this is what gets leaders great results hence it is more important to focus back being a Yogi and rely on karma to achieve the great results!
Leading Yourself: Most of us reading the posts in the Leadership Blogathon will be very familiar with the idea of leading others, and perhaps even with the growing, somewhat counter-intuitive idea of followership (following others), but there seems to be less written directly addressing the issue that sits at the core of all issues around your ability to lead and that is the key tenet of leading yourself.
Leaders, no matter their geographic location, are expected to perform and achieve a lot. Their time is consistently taxed as they try to achieve more in less time. Many leaders fail to do one of the most important things that could help their productivity, and that is to make their health and specifically, exercise, a priority. It is important to exercise several times a week, even when you’re on the road. Exercise gives you the opportunity to relax, clear your mind, and it improves your energy levels so you can get more done.
In a team environment high performing followers are every bit as important as good leadership, yet we pay the most attention to leadership. Recently I did an Amazon search for ‘leadership’ and got 73,828 hits, yet a search for ‘followership’ received only 187 hits, most of which were not relevant to the subject. Conclusion: leadership is the hot topic; followership …not so much.
Throughout the world, it is clear that our notions about LEADERSHIP are being turned upside down, questioned, revitalized and changed before our eyes. Like all renewal, the process may seem chaotic for some – but what is emerging has fresh fingerprints on it. As I’ve watched and participated in my own ways, I’ve often thought of the opening line in a treasured old, tattered book, written over fifty years ago. I found it by-chance in a hidden corner of a used bookstore. I’ve wondered if its message carries a modern day truth for all of us. It reads…
When I started writing The Leaders Workbook back in 2009, I had discussed leadership and leaders with thousands of people around the world. I came to realize that we often ended up talking about the same topic – how can we become better at what we do? What are the key success factors to grow and develop as leaders? What can we – each one of us – do to develop ourselves?
Many definitions of leadership involve the word INFLUENCE. “Leadership is influence, nothing more, nothing less.” (John Maxwell) What does influence have to do with leadership, though? A leader needs to do two things: build or maintain relationships, and get things done.
