My Leadership Philosophy

Philosophy is very much like a pair of glasses; when you put them on, everything you see takes on the color of your glasses. However, unlike glasses you cannot take off your philosophy and keep it aside, it is deeply ingrained within you, it’s a part of you. 

Besides having a strong business foundation, necessary educational qualifications and technical expertise, a leader must be ethical, acutely self aware and know his own leadership philosophy. A leader's charisma or traits can only take the organization so far because if s/he is not able to build a strong culture and pipeline of potential successors, the long term success of the organization will be jeopardized.

Leadership philosophy truly is the driving force or at the core of organizational success or failure. The image below shows how. Leadership philosophy drives the leader's beliefs and assumptions, which in turn drive leader decisions, actions, and behaviors. Organization culture is a result of leader's actions & behaviors, while organizational strategy creation is a key responsibility of the leader. Both of these dimensions ultimately determine organizational success or failure in the long term (and many times in the short term as well).

My  leadership philosophy is "inspiring the best in each one." In practice it translates into enabling each team member to be their best, to do their best, and bring their best to the table. It is based on the belief that everyone is capable of accomplishing great things; that, at the core everyone wants to do a good job, wants to be valued. This idea of inspiring the best in everyone begins with me. As a leader I model the way for my team to bring out their best. I believe that this will lead to empowered teams where everyone believes in others' as well as their own best self and strives to better themselves. It will create and sustain a strong culture of learning and growth because team members will not be compared to each other, but to who they were yesterday.

We live in a world that evolves constantly and requires us to evolve or adapt and respond quickly without having enough time to make elaborate plans. If an organization has to function efficiently and effectively in this kind of an ever changing environment and sustain its success, it needs a workforce that is capable of evolving, adapting and responding quickly without having to wait for their leader to "tell them" what to do. They need to believe in themselves, in the accuracy and righteousness of their own decisions and this does not happen overnight. It can only be possible through a culture of learning and growth and giving team members the opportunity to learn by making mistakes. This does not mean that there will be no boundaries or absolutely no consequences, because a leader cannot afford to be a blind idealist. It is absolutely necessary to have a healthy sense of realism as a leader and if something is not working, the courage to make tough choices. Therefore I do believe in establishing clear rewards and also what will not be acceptable.

As my team members strive to achieve sustained organizational growth and success, in the spirit of "inspiring the best in each one" I believe in providing them with the tools, information, opportunities, and the 'holding environment' for their growth, it is up to each member to realize their own potential in the process.

Encouraging the Heart

To get where we are today or be who we are, we have all received encouragement at some point, hopefully many times throughout our journey. Encouragement relates to "Esteem" on Maslow's hierarchy of needs and note that it is placed before self-fulfillment, indicating that encouragement/approval/recognition is a building block to self-fulfillment.

Besides recognition/approval from family and friends, we also need it from our co-workers and managers. This HBR article highlights why appreciation at the workplace matters so much. One of the Daniel Goleman's quotes cited in this article is, “Threats to our standing in the eyes of others are almost as powerful as those to our very survival.” Reading this quote brought back flashes of many incidents where I was truly puzzled by why someone was 'acting so defensively' or 'came back aggressively (at times viciously)' when I was 'just trying to give some feedback'. It makes sense now, they felt that the remarks were a threat to their standing in someone else's eyes (the more public the remark, the more defensive or aggressive the response). Of course, their 'fight or flight' instinct was triggered. On the other hand, this also means that appreciating and encouraging someone makes them feel safe and valued and therefore triggers positive emotions. That's certainly reason to consciously appreciate and encourage more than giving negative feedback or finding faults.

Appreciation and encouragement, I make a slight distinction between the two (also based on the synonyms listed in the thesaurus). While appreciating refers to praising, applauding, admiring, and cherishing; encouraging refers to emboldening, reassuring, strengthening, and  cheering. These also form the basis of how I feel when encouraged; it generates self confidence and strength, and evokes the feeling of being valued, of the fact that others have faith in my abilities and trust me to do a good job. Encouraging others, whether in personal or professional spheres is a humbling, enriching, and rewarding experience, and one that evokes feeling of gratitude too. Humbling because it is about acknowledging another person's good work, contribution or behavior; making them feel valued, placing trust in their abilities, helping them realize their own strength, and being grateful in a way that who are fortunate enough to know them and/or work with them.

These are such positive and powerful actions that generate equally positive and powerful outcomes from the giver and the receiver that it is worth committing to encouraging others as much as possible. As the HBR article suggests, "we’re not fluent in the language of positive emotions in the workplace" or the "Heartfelt appreciation is a muscle we’ve not spent much time building" but if we are determined, it's not that difficult to become fluent in a new language if we practice enough or difficult to strengthen that muscle if we exercise it frequently. How about starting with right now?

 Disclaimer: All images are from google images and used for educational purposes only.

Maslow's Hierarchy: http://www.strategosinc.com/images/maslow_hierarchy.gif

Fight-Flight image: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIgvjy0fv37oacYO6nADOVaw2QFzQR8muUqbgtIbXf6SoXRrTVH9JmjrEQ4l72g_saXkmwCZNNsWlndzDLhK1u-ym3K-EO1CUHVNF6wTtHj_soRiLgb6EJ3ThBWpgqm7YozxxE03jjO77Z/s1600/Fight+Or+Flight.jpg

Pat on the Back: https://s3.amazonaws.com/lowres.cartoonstock.com/health-beauty-motivational_speaker-motivation-pat_on_the_back-encouragement-encouraging-bven170_low.jpg

Encourage the Heart: http://flashpointleadership.com/uploads/content/Encourage-the-Heart.jpg