Positive Leadership: A Philosophy of Life

ENVISION A DREAM:
The most necessary thing of a leader is, he must have the ability to attract his follower for his vision. Great organizations begin with great leaders and every great leader has bold dreams. They clearly envision their future paths in the present moment. They manufacture a crystal-clear blueprint or picture of what their companies will look like in the coming years. They know intimately the exact nature of the success they and their people are starving for. And every step they take is designed to move them closer to their vividly imagined future. They have a vision that inspires them to each for the stars. That is the ultimate secret of their greatness as leaders. So you, as a leader, need to engage in mental rehearsal and vividly imagine the end result, i.e. your dream, before venturing out. Once you surrender to your vision, success begins to chase you. Ultimately, you really cant pursue success, success ensues.

It flows as the unintended by-product of effective efforts concentrated in the direction of a worthy purpose. You have to take your blinders off and start looking for new opportunities. The best way to succeed in the future is to create it. As Helen Keller once said, I` d rather be blind than have sight without vision. Leadership is all about focused action in the direction of a worthy purpose. It is a craft that you have to constantly work to refine. You have to develop the ability to be present-based but future-focused. You have to master the twin skills of managing the present while, at the same time, inventing the future. The visionary leader is one who has learned how to focus on the summit while clearing the path.

BUILD TRUST AND RESPECT:

The first step in moving towards a culture of integrity is to build an infrastructure of trust and respect. The leader cant be effective unless each of the members does his part from a self-leadership perspective. It is a two-way street. Leadership is not something you do to people; it is something you do with them. If you respect them you face them. This means you should involve your people in decision making and look for their

opinions. It is why leadership is something you do together. In a low-respect environment, though, you dont care what they think. If you dont respect them, you have your back to them. Uphold the golden rule- do unto others as you want them to do unto you. Leading by example is another way to put respect into action. The way you speak to customers sets the tone for how they view you and your company. Your behavior directly impacts their level of respect. Leading with integrity means being the person you want others to be. Trust is when you, as a leader, are willing to let your people run with the ball and take charge of an area. It is when you, know that they will behave just as well when you are not there as when you are there. To build a trusting environment, you need to have a set of operating values that guide peoples behaviors when they are working on organizations goals. A key aspect of having integrity is that we trust each other enough to share our shortcomings as well as our strengths. When we know we wont be beaten up for our deficiencies, we can work on finding ways to improve them. Build an emotional bank account which stands for the amount of trust thats been built up in a relationship. Suppose you are leading a team of professionals, you can build a reserve through courtesy, kindness, honesty and keeping your commitments to them. They start building up an increasing level of trust in you, which you can bank upon any time. This makes your communication easy, instant and effective. Its a life-long deal. To believe in something And not to live it, is dishonest M. K. Gandhi Trust is what happens when values and behavior match up. People are more apt to trust and respect you when what you say and what you do are one and the same. You have to walk your talk.

SHARE YOUR VISION:

The key to effective leadership is the relationship you build with your team. You can lend a hand, roll up your sleeves and forge a better partnership between labor and management. You should value what the staff does. Most managers never expose their staff to company reporting- where the organization is headed or preview of the revised budget. They act like it is top-secret information. Essentially, it is the opposite of working in partnership. People run around in the dark shooting for targets they can`t see. The boss tanks the subordinates are too dumb to understand the numbers. If one can balance one`s check book, one can read a management report.

Essentially partnership epitomizes a two-way street: both the leader and the lead feel the gain and the pain. After all, the leader does not want to be the only one losing sleep at night. Sharing the big picture puts everyone on the same page. You should talk about the concerns of your subordinates and how you can help them. You should work in partnership with them to help them win. And when they win, you win. As a leader, you can give your team members a slice of ownership in your vision. Further still, you can align your vision with the their interests. Thus, you will generate enormous levels of trust loyalty and commitment. Too many mission statements hang on office walls rather than live in human hearts. Give your people, from your top managers to your frontline workers, a genuine sense of ownership in the cause your organization is moving towards. A shared vision lies at the heart of every world-class organization. Infosys` initiative in this direction snowballed a small venture into a software giant. You can be effective as a leader when you foster a culture of partnership by, establishing a collaborative learning process that includes cross-training and job rotations. New career paths can be evolved and the collective skill sets of the team expanded. It is easier to get up the hill when you climb it together. A team culture of caring and reciprocity begins to emerge.

PRAISE GOOD WORK:

Saying thank you is one simple way you can make a huge difference in the way others feel about themselves by letting them know that you appreciate their efforts and recognize that what they do is important. The key is to follow the rules of effective praising. Praise is most effective when it is specific, sincere and given as soon as possible after desired behavior occurs. It should be consistently applied only to situations where praise is warranted, but not given every single time a person does something right. Not praising people every time they do something right helps them learn to praise themselves instead of relying on others to do it all the time. The power of praising is an easy, cost-free way to make people feel valued. Praise is the easiest way to let people know they are appreciated. Each of us has the power to recognize the goodness in others. You, as a leader, can initiate a novel way of acknowledging the good work of your team members by honoring with a condemnation certificate which would be no less then saying, Heres a salute to you. Instead of focusing your energy on the poor performance of underperforming individuals,

you should redirect their behaviors to get them back on track. You can sit down with them to establish revised game plans, assign them to projects where their talents could be better utilized, or enlist their fellow team members to serve as mentors. Then you ought to praise when their performance improves. Assuming that they have life outside of work, you should make friendly scheduling alternatives such as flexi time, job sharing, telecommuting and compressed workweeks. You can institute mental hygiene stress-relief breaks as affirmations of stellar performance such as gift certificates, fun in work place projects, team building initiatives and complementary memberships of library, club and gym. This would be a conscious time-out for the brain. Your team would go a further if it stops to refuel.

ENRICH LIVES, FOSTER GROWTH:

As a leader you need to draw the target and get out of the way. Have confidence in the ability of your people to think for themselves. Let them get to the goal using their best judgment with you just to back up. They will think for themselves when you quit doing it for them. Leadership is the process of getting everyone to the place they are supposed to go. You have to motivate them into action. The vision of your organization must excite their minds and touch their hearts. They will go far beyond the call of duty when their leader paints for them a future vision that is compelling and important purpose is the most powerful motivator in the world. Link them to a bigger cause rather than their petty gains. When you look at any photo in a newspaper, say of the earth, you look it as the earth where as it is actually made up nothing more than thousands of tiny black dots clumped together. Generally when we read the paper we train ourselves to focus on the big picture, to observe the subject the matter from a higher perspective. Yet, in business, leaders and managers lose all perspective and spend days focusing on little things. As a leader, you should project the bigger cause of your organization and inspire them to work for it. For example, if you are heading an insurance company, you need to emphasize that they are securing the lives of people at large rather than just working for a monthly pay-cheque. Your people will start to feel good about what they are doing. And when they feel good about their work, they will begin to feel good about themselves as people. Thats when real breakthroughs start to happen. Leadership is not about managing things but about developing people. You have to act as a liberator and not a limiter of human talent. You have to develop your peoples full potential and transform the workplace into a place of realized genius. Your company must, above all else, become a place and opportunity for self-development and personal fulfillment. You must offer them the challenging work so that they can grow through work. When you, as a leader, dedicate yourself to liberating rather than stifling the talents of the people under your leadership, you will reap quantum results in terms of loyalty,

productivity, creativity and devotion to your compelling cause. The bottom line is simply that people who feel superb about themselves generate superb results. Never treat your team members as children, as if they are absolutely incapable of independent thought. Do not micromanage and dictate the path to be followed at every step of the way. This type of leadership stifles imagination, energy and spirit. Rather let them use their creativity and resourcefulness to get there. Challenge them and allow them to grow. Let them try new things and learn new skills. Let them fail from time to time, since failure is nothing more than learning how to win. Failure is the highway to success.

Sometimes rarer than ability isThe ability to recognize and nurture ability. Super Leaders create Leaders. H.G. Wells rightly said, Leaders should lead as far as they can and then vanish. Their ashes should not choke the fire they have lit. As a visionary leader, you should push people up rather pull them down. When your people succeed, you succeed. Learn from Bernard Gimbel who said, Two things are bad for the heart-running uphill and running down people. Moreover the greatest privilege of leadership is the chance to elevate lives. You should measure your success not by the extent of your power, but by how many lives you touch and transform. And you should know that when people work and live at their highest levels, the profits are certain to come.

INSPIRE CREATIVITY:
We generally feel that only poets, writers, artists and actors are the creative sort. In fact, every human being is endowed with creative tendencies. As a visionary leader, you need to unlock the natural state of creativity that sleeps within the minds of every one of your people. You must help your employees to think smarter and inspire them to explore new pathways of thought. Begin to see your workplace as one giant idea factory, as a place where creativity and innovation are recognized and rewarded. Let your people know that they will now be allowed to take some risks. Teach them that failure is nothing more than learning how to win and that though some of the risks that they take may lead to setbacks, many will also lead to innovation. Spread this sentiment throughout the organization. Encourage creativity and make it clear that you are now open to listening to, understanding and implementing the best ideas of your people. The essence of creativity lies in originality of thought. You have to propagate the

dictum: see what all see, think what none think.Make your people be curious, spontaneous and playful like children and flex their imagination. To understand better, here is a story. A yogi was sitting with his disciples, high in the foothills of the Himalayas. As a test, he drew a line o the dirt and asked each student to make the line shorter without erasing any part of it. The students were perplexed and couldnt think of a way to shorten the line without touching it- except for one student. He had been the one who had studied the hardest and practiced the longest. He walked over to the line that the master had drawn and quickly drew a longer line next to it. He did not touch the first line in any way. The teacher smiled and applauded, Very good, now the first line is shorter. This is the kind of original thinking you must propagate. Shed the shackles of the traditional ways of looking at things so that you can master the uncertainty that a changing business world brings. One of your highest priorities should be to create workplace that rewards curiosity and recognizes that new ideas are the seeds of success. Remember, even one good idea can totally transform your organization. As Maya Angelou wrote so beautifully, If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can totally transform one million realities. In order to foster creativity within your workplace, work should be fun. Playfulness is not reserved only for kids. There`s nothing wrong with people letting their hair down from time to time and enjoying a solid belly laugh. There`s nothing wrong with letting people have fun at work. And allowing them the chance to have fun through their work is a brilliant leadership philosophy because it will conform to all that you truly do put people first. It shows you care. Fun and laughter are the doorways to the hearts and imaginations of your people. A company that plays together stays together. Organize fetes, contests and sports day to make your people laugh and smile and grow love working at your company. Never forget that when you ensure that your employees laugh while they work, they will ensure that you clients laugh while they buy.

LEAVE A RICH TRAIL:

As a visionary leader, you have to be a light. Be the one people look up for guidance and direction. Let the ideal you aspire to burn brightly within you, blazing a path for all to see. This is your ultimate purpose in leadership and in life. One of the timeless leadership fundamentals is, The purpose of life is a life of purpose. You have to link what you do with those who you serve. The greatest irony of leadership is that the more you give, the more you get. And, the highest and most enduring gift that you will ever be able to give is the gift of what you leave behind. Your legacy to the generations that follow will be how much value you have added to your organization and how many lives you have improved.How well the father, lying on his deathbed, said to his son, Be ashamed to die until you have scored a victory for mankind.

Focus on leaving a rich footprint of service and contribution behind you when your depart. Link leadership to legacy. What makes greatness is beginning something that does not end with you. Your legacy should be a reflection of the person you now are and the person you aim to be. Leaving a legacy is not about impressing your friends or reaching the top. Its not about looking good but about dong good. Its more about fulfilling your duty and actualizing you humanity. By doing so, you can create a successful present while building a brilliant future.

LIVE LEADERSHIP:
Leadership of the self is the foundation from which all other success in business and in life springs. Sir Edmund Hillary, the first person to conquer the Mt. Everest, said it best when he observed, It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves. Thats really the essence of self-lead-ership its about conquering and mastering yourself. Effectiveness and excellence does not come only from external factors like an efficient work force of application of latest technology. Success is an inside job. Excellence begins within. Market leadership begins with self-leadership. How can you lead organization if you have never learned how to lead yourself? The empires of the future are the empires of the minds. .Sir Winston Churchill Goethe said, Before you can do something, you must be something. You cannot be the inspirational leader you hope to be if you wake up every morning feeling miserable and depressed. You will not be able to capture the hearts and energize the minds of your people if you are yelling and screaming at them all day. Remember, before you can like another person, you must like yourself. Success on the outside begins within. We see the world not as it is, but as we are. By improving, refining and defining who we are, we see the world from the highest, most enlightened perspective. By mastering ourselves, we see the world and all its limitless opportunities and potential from the top of the mountain rather than from the bottom. Commit yourself to excellence. Strive to do everything spectacularly well. The most important thing you could do to improve your organization is to first improve yourself. You must climb your own mountains and rise to the top, conquering yourself in the process. You must stop making excuses for why things have gone wrong and assume some responsibility for a change. As an effective leader, you need to renew yourself, revitalize your body and energize your spirit. You need to balance your overwork through self renewal activities, which will make you stress-hardy and allow you to maintain high level of stamina and

creativity for long periods of time. You ought to take time to relax, connect with the family, enjoy personal hobbies or pursue spiritual activities. Lincoln captured the essence of this then he remarked,If had eight hours to chop down a tree, Id spend six hours sharpening my axe. Books can be a great source of learning leadership principles as they house the experience and wisdom of those who have gone before you. Books allow you to look deeply into the minds of the greatest men and women who have ever lived. By reading the books of Dale Carnegie, Thomas Edison, Mother Teresa and Rabindranath Tagore, you are literally living with them and getting an opportunity to rise to their level of thought. simultaneously, you need to take care of your body too and exercise regularly. A good workout or a sporting activity can give you that extra vigor, energy and drive that you need in today`s demanding work schedules.

Even the so called Leadership can be ascribed, nothing is prescribed, inborn or innate, ........ Sadhuji