Transcription

Intrapersonal Qualities of a Leader

In 300 BC, Agnodice, a young lady was denied permission to study in medical school primarily because in
ancient Greece; in those days only men were allowed to become doctors.

Not one to give up. She cut up her hair dressed as a man and went all the way to Alexandria to study
under the tutelage of Herophilus, a disciple of Hippocrates. What's interesting to note over here is she
didn't give up her dreams? She converted her dreams into a vision and eventually fulfilled them; a role
model for women in the ages to come forward.

What is inspirational leadership? It's actually the ability and the competence that distinguishes great
leaders from the average ones. It's the ability to drive confidence, ambition, energy, passion and the ability
of a leader to transpose these qualities onto the followers; have a vision and a mission and a purpose and
the ability to get the others to commit to that mission and vision.
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 Inspirational leadership is truly one of the most magnificent phenomenon of modern times. Where does
the word Inspire come from? The Latin word inspirare which actually means to breathe into; so,
inspiration comes from within. But what is required for inspiration? A deep sense of values and integrity.

People will be inspired if they believe that you're true to your words and your actions are also in sync
with your thoughts and your beliefs. Integrity- people will truly be inspired if they believe that you have
a mission and a purpose that's larger than immediate rewards.

A purpose that's greater than the immediate benefit around them. Inspirational leadership has various
forms and we can see inspirational leadership in so many different domains of our lives Here's an example
for you: of course, apart from the one of Agnodice; Howard Schulz, the promoter of Starbucks returned
after an eight-year hiatus back to the company but you know what struck him is that suddenly Starbucks
over the last decade had converted into an organization that was seeking diversification, automation and
innovation.

A little away from his core purpose of customer service. A bold move, Howard Schulz decided to get the
company back on track onto the vision and purpose he had set it up with. So, he actually shut down 7100
stores across the United States to complete an entire program of reskilling and retraining to every single
barista employee of his company because he said we need to get back and focus on our purpose
customer service.

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A key feature of leadership is the ability to make decisions; so, decision making and leadership actually go
hand in hand.

Good decision making is a hallmark of inspirational leadership. The ability to take decisions even when
there's business pressure. Individually inspirational leaders are first and quick to understand the
information and the opinions of stakeholders involved.
For that they need to be connected with the organization across different levels. Good leaders are also
those who understand that all the information coming to them may not necessarily be obvious and
actually could be disparate.

So, shifting through the information and creating a concrete business vision is absolutely important.

What matters in all of this is the ability to take that decision and stand by it. The ability to look at the
decision from the lengths of values and integrity and for the greater good of the organization.

The hallmark of good decision making is as follows. To begin with, inspirational leaders are proactive to
incipient problems. They anticipate the emergence of problems more frequently and farther in advance.

Inspirational leaders think of decision making as incremental; taking small steps towards solving the
problem without waiting for the grand picture to be unveiled.

Leaders with good decision-making skills are willing to look at a problem in a larger context. They also seek
information informally for making their decisions rather than necessarily following only prescribed
organization rules.

Inspirational leadership for good decision-making practice walking around management to promote the
upward and downward flow of information and communication.

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But beyond everything else; inspirational leaders also know when to say sorry or apologize for faulty
decisions.

No, the only tired I was; was tired of giving in. Rosa Parks. December 1st 1955. She was ordered by the bus
driver to give up her seat for white men who boarded the bus. In those days there was segregation in the
United States and the blacks were requested to ride at the back of the bus. This is exactly what she said at
a later stage when she was interviewed.

So, what makes an inspirational leader? The ability to stand tall for your values, the ability to believe in
your purpose in your mission and the ability to demonstrate behaviours driven by integrity.

It's interesting to note that designations and titles do not equate for inspirational leadership but
behaviours, thoughts and actions which role model themselves for others is actually inspirational
behaviour.

What matters here is Rosa Parks for example actually started the movement for what was to become
the biggest movement in the United States: the fight for freedom for blacks.

Let's take a look at some of the features of inspirational leadership. To begin with number one: be the
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role model you want to be for people.

Number two: provide a vision and a purpose that they can look forward to. Number three: appreciate
people. Not just for what they do but for who they are.

Number four: stick to your values and principles. Demonstrate integrity in your behaviour. Number five:
understand that situations could change and be ready to apologise.

Number six: demonstrate compassion. I often tell my students that the biggest requirement this decade
has is that of compassion. The ability to truly demonstrate that you care for your people, for your teams,
for the organization, for the whole world.

Compassion is a cornerstone of inspirational leadership. People will follow inspirational leaders if they
feel that they can connect to the leader, connect to values, connect to behaviours, connect to the
mission and vision and the purpose or the dream or the belief which the leader is following.

In our earlier segment, we spoke about vision and the power of driving a purpose and a vision for an
inspirational leader to transpose onto members.

Well, here's an anecdote, an actually funny story I'd like to share with you. I was several years ago
traveling on my way to Delhi, and I was at the airport engrossed in reading a book. I didn't even realize
that I had stood in the wrong line wanting to board an aircraft actually headed to Bangalore.

It was only later that I thought back about what I was doing? This is actually akin to a leader without a
vision; you pretty much don't know which direction you're going in? So, even though you might have a
fair understanding of what you want to do; if you don't have a clear direction or a clear vision; you will
never succeed in arriving at your destination.

So, a vision is absolutely critical for an inspirational leader to ensure that the teams are clued in and also
to ensure that teams are willing to buyin to your direction and your sense of purpose. So, what makes a
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 good vision or rather what is the hallmark of good vision?

Firstly, is clarity. What exactly are you aspiring for? What is it that you wish to achieve? Where do you
wish to go? Questions like these often give you answers which can then be crafted into your vision.
Why? What? How? These are the questions that an inspirational leader asks to get clarity on vision.

Number two: the vision needs to be achievable or attainable. Sure, stretch goals are great but not
impossible ones.

Number three: use your teams to contribute to the buying into the vision. Understand what are their
drivers, their ambitions and if you can incorporate those into your vision. Great! Because there'll be a
sense of commitment and accountability to that vision.

Last but not the least. Vision should be one that inspires. It needs to be emotional. Vision should be one
that creates a sense of ambition, drive energy and a serious desire to want to achieve it.

Here's a fun fact for you. Dreams and visions. All dreams are not visions, but a vision does require a
dream. Remember I have a dream. Martin Luther king. The differentiator is the ability to convert the
dream into an action plan to make the dream a living possibility and a reality. What's fun is to think
about the fact that we all dream but how many of us can actually convert those dreams into visions that
propel us and drive us into attaining them?

Well, inspirational leadership is all about visioning and the more the leader can think about where he or
she wants to go. What he or she wants to attain and the impact he or she wants to make on the world
dreams can become visions.

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In 1997, Chetna Sinha went to apply for a banking license. She was rejected at the first instance but six
months later went at it again and received a banking license from the Reserve Bank of India.

Mandeshi Mahila Bank, an inspirational figure for all of us in the world. In fact, she and her
co-promoters chaired the World Economic Forum in Davos. How did she motivate the women to join
hands with her? How was she motivated? How do you set up a bank in the midst of a crisis and certainly
when you don't have all the resources backing you up?

That's what motivation is all about. Inspirational leaders not just feel the inspiration and motivation but
are able to motivate others as well. For Chetna Sinha, she was motivated and inspired when she saw the
troubles of the women around her in rural areas.

That became her vision and with her behaviour, her perseverance, her grit and determination. She
motivated everybody else to support her as well. It's interesting to note here that rewards, money,
status.

This is not what constantly motivates people. These are extrinsic sources of motivation; external ones.
What matters is internal motivation, intrinsic motivation, that's the one that lasts much longer because it
comes from a place from within.

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Intrinsic motivation can drive people to follow through on their dreams and ambitions; to perceive her
in the face of adversities and to ensure that resources are pulled together in order to achieve the goals
that have been laid out.

An inspirational leader understands this and is constantly driving motivation. So, let's look at what a leader
needs to do to ensure that intrinsic motivation is permanent and perseverant with the team members.

Number one: I cannot highlight enough. It's all about a shared purpose. What are we together aspiring
for? A purpose when it is a shared vision becomes even more invigorating for everyone else to part in.

What matters is everybody as part of the team feels motivated to contribute to that purpose? Shared
goals, shared visions, shared purposes, become the cornerstone of motivation. When you feel you
belong; when you feel that you need to contribute to something that's as much as your own as it is
everybody else's.

Number two: praise people, offer them compliments, be engaged and involved in the personal
development and growth. It's not just about rewards and money. An inspirational leader would
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understand that motivation is experienced by people when they believe somebody cares.

Somebody is noticing and somebody is involved in the growth and development. What else can a leader
do to encourage motivation or foster motivation? Well, set clear goals. One thing that can distract
people from functioning to their optimum capacity or even being motivated is a lack of clarity on what
exactly they're supposed to achieve?

Setting clear goals can be an important aspect to ensure that teams are motivated. Well, along with
setting goals comes accountability. The fact that you are going to be held accountable for your
performance.

Leaders need to identify clear roles of accountability with team members because that's the way the
actual motivation can be experienced and demonstrated into behaviours.

What is accountability without ownership? Allowing for ownership becomes important so that team
members also feel that they own the outcomes or the goals that they're transpiring to achieve.

Keeping all of this in mind a leader understands that along with being motivated himself or herself;
ensuring that teams are equally motivated is also critical to achieve the outcomes that you are laying out
for the organization.

In our discussion of motivation, I want to focus on millennials. How do you motivate millennials? I'm sure
some of you are also millennials. This is a generation that is very different from previous generations; one
that has absolutely instant access to information.

Well, I have a three-pronged formula for motivating millennials. The three P's as I like to call it. Again,
the first P is purpose. You know millennials are very clear about what matters to them.

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They want to work for companies and organizations that have a clear sense of direction, mission and
purpose. One that probably contributes to the world at large.

They're driven by a strong set of visions, a strong set of purpose and a strong set of values. Millennials don't
want to compromise on what they think is right and wrong and they would rather work for a company that
gives them a sense of accomplishment and meaning than a company that's paying them more money.

The second P is power; power of information, power of expertise, power of choice; millennials believe
that they can express their views and the ability to share their feedback, their opinion, their views is of
pertinent importance for them.

Give them an organization culture that allows them to feel powerful in ways like these.

The third P stands for profile. Allow millennials to craft their roles; in fact, offer them opportunities to
grow and develop and identify newer ways in which their talent and their abilities can be showcased.

For example, if in some ways some of your team members who are millennials want to craft additional
roles in, maybe, CSR or in volunteering; encourage that.

The 3p formula is a critical formula and a critical framework to motivate millennials. As an inspirational
leader, it's absolutely important for you to recognize that everybody does not get motivated in the same
way. Definitely not millennials.

Nelson Mandela, after spending 28 years in a prison in Robben island was elected as a democratic
President in 1994, at the age of 83. He had a clear idea of what he wanted for the growth and
development of South Africa including nationalization of certain important industries.

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He made a presentation at the World Economic Forum at Davos. However, other global leaders conversed
with him and shared their views and suggested that rather than nationalization; privatization may be a
better option for the future of South Africa.

Not one to hold on to views that were so precious all these years; Nelson Mandela reflected thought
about the advice, understood the changing times, understood and reflected on the message that was
being given to him by other global leaders and changed his opinion and his mind.

Along with embracing freedom for the citizens of South Africa. He also decided to embrace freedom for
the industries and thus after holding on to his socialist views for several years; he gave them up in favour
of something that was more relevant.

How does one do this? Well, it requires a strong sense of emotional intelligence. Emotional Intelligence is
touted to be a more critical quality than IQ; particularly in leadership.

E.I- emotional intelligence is the ability to use your emotions intelligently in decision making. Daniel
Coleman laid out the framework for EI; beginning with self-awareness, self-management, empathy, social
awareness and relationship management.

One of the most seminal models and frameworks utilized to understand emotional intelligence. What is
self-awareness? It begins with being intuitively tuned into who you are what you stand for: your beliefs,
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your values, your sense of purpose, a clear understanding of strengths and weaknesses.

What guides you? What is it that you're aspiring for? If you're very clear and have a good understanding of
who you are? Only then can you manage yourself well which is why self-awareness can drive self-
management.

Self-management is how you manage yourself? How do you portray yourself to others? What are your
behaviours, your actions? Are they regulated or do your emotions deregulate your behaviours?

For example, when you are angry, do you yell and scream and absolutely get into a fight with others or are
you able to regulate the emotion and the anger to portray accurately and correctly what it is that has
bothered you and what are you expecting?

If you can manage yourself well and if you're self-aware; you can also start harnessing empathy. Empathy
is a cornerstone of relationships. It's the ability to understand and feel for others. If you're in tune with
yourself perceptively; it'll become easier to understand what the other person is feeling or even going
through.

Put yourself in the other person's shoes and understand where he or she is coming from? That is empathy.
After you've developed your harnessed empathy; you create a greater sense of social awareness. That
means you can perceptively understand what a larger group is thinking or feeling.

You know, interestingly, I call this reading the air like the Japanese say. Understand the feeling or the
mood of the group that you're dealing with. Social awareness is very critical because if you're good at it;
you will be good at relationship management, the ability to influence people, the ability to network and
the ability to create strong bonds which are again absolutely critical if you want to succeed as a leader.

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Well, how do you build emotional intelligence? It's a four-pronged step. As you see on screen. Step one or
one option is a breaking down of the ventilation fallacy. That means it was earlier understood that if you
are angry or you are experiencing a strong emotion; it needs to be vented.
Well, the truth is that the more you vent an emotion such as anger; the more you're going to invoke
excessive feelings of the same emotion. Instead, channelize the emotion, understand, assess and regulate
it.

Step two: As you see is to distract yourself when you are sad in particular and not ruminate over those
thoughts. Self-demeaning thoughts are very dangerous particularly when you're trying to develop
emotional intelligence.

It can take you away from your sense of well-being.

Step three: as you see is about becoming an artful critique when we give feedback to others; it's important
to understand the impact the feedback can have. It's not just about what you say? But it's also about how
you say?

So, when you're giving feedback to people; ensure that you're being empathetic about their receipt of
that feedback. Don't just focus on the errors but bring it into perspective of what went wrong and how it
could be solved rather than focusing on the disabilities or the erroneous behaviours of individuals; focus
on the incident or the episode and drive attention in how to fix it?

Number four: as you can see is about the emotional contagion. Understand that emotions can be
rubbed off onto each other. So, if an individual is experiencing one kind of emotion that emotion may
quickly become widespread with the rest of the group members.

So, it's important to understand what groups are experiencing and feeling and that's where an emotionally
intelligent leader can start reading the room.

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When we talk of inspirational leadership; we must speak about self-awareness. It's interesting to note
once again that an inspirational leader as the word states needs to feel the inspiration from within,
connect it to a strong sense of values and purpose, and then transpose that into behaviours and onto
others.

For that self-awareness is absolutely critical. So, what is self-awareness and how do we describe it?
How do we generate a higher sense of self-awareness and how does a leader incorporate self-
awareness into behaviours which are demonstrative of inspirational leadership?

Let's take a small walk down the road of self-awareness. Self-awareness can be distributed into two parts.
The two aspects of self-awareness as I mentioned are internal self-awareness and external self-awareness.

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Internal self-awareness of course is the ability of the leader to be tuned in with oneself and have a full
grip on what one is thinking and believing? Also, the impact one has on others.

External self-awareness is rather interesting because it includes the ability of the leader to understand
what others are thinking of him or her. That means to fully understand the perceptions others have about
you.

Let's take a look at the archetypes of self-awareness. We discussed internal and external self-
awareness; so, as I like to say every concept can be put into a 2x2 matrix for ease of
understanding and direction.

Let's look at the combination of internal and external self-awareness on highs and lows. If a leader is
extremely high on internal self-awareness but low on external self-awareness; it creates a sense of
possessiveness for one's beliefs and thought processes. So, a sense of rigidity because whilst you're very
clear about who you are; you're not truly open to understanding what others are thinking of you.

On the other hand, a leader who might be low on both self-awareness, internal and external is probably
a seeker; not yet there and not very clear about who he or she is? A leader who's very high on external
self-awareness but low on internal self-awareness may come across to look like a pleaser; interested in
making sure that his or her impact on people is positive but not very clued in perceptively to what really
matters to him or her.

What a leader should aspire for is a high sense of internal and external self-awareness because at that
point, at that moment, the leader truly understands that he or she is in sync with who he or she is and
that's precisely what others are understanding of him or her.

So, there's no difference between what one believes one is and how others see them? What can get in
the way of building self-awareness if it is so powerful and so important for leaders.

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I like to call it the ego of experience and the ego of power. What do we mean by the ego of experience?
Often we develop possessiveness for the knowledge we've acquired and accumulated over the past few
years.

We start relying on our experiences on the fact that we've understood and seen the world the way it is.
That sometimes gets in the way of our understanding of how we may have evolved or reformed over the
years? The ego of experience can also prevent an individual from being open to newer experiences
because there's always a sense of reliance on the old and the comfortable.

What about the ego of power? That's an interesting one. As we grow in an organization, we're obviously
looking at more and more people supporting our views. Well, power can corrupt right because it becomes
difficult to listen to feedback or get information that might adversely affect our tightly held emotions and
feelings and thought processes.

Particularly when it comes from people who you perceive as lesser in rank than you. Also, on the other
hand, if you receive feedback or information that doesn't fit in with your thought processes and your
sense of information; you may choose to discard it because you believe it's irrelevant.

All of this can get in the way of a true development of self-awareness. It's something to remember and to
note: if we're able to keep aware our ego of experience and ego of power; we can truly start developing
and becoming more self-aware.

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In this segment, we're going to talk about intellect and innovation. In our previous segments, we looked at
emotional intelligence and EQ. Well, what about making sense of the information that surrounds us and
constantly looking at newer ways of processing that information.

Steve Jobs once said right “Put a dent in the universe”. I like to think of that as a constant endeavour of
inspirational leaders; the ability to challenge the status quo. Think about it. Steve Jobs was obsessed with
calligraphy.

As a result, he transposed that into the endeavour of Apple of focusing on the font. What's interesting to
note here is when leaders can seek information, process it, and make new sense of it; they can promote
innovation.

It's important to understand that team members can give you information from different sources and a
leader's ability to look at that information through different lenses can actually become a critical
cornerstone of innovation.

Eventually, you never know where a good idea can come from right? I like to talk about how innovation is
absolutely important for the organisation to progress as well. If a leader is satisfied in the comfort zone
although what was successful in the past; the leader will probably allow the organization to stagnate over
a period of time.

It's important to innovate; to remain ahead of the curve, to be competitive and to understand that the
variables in the ecosystem are constantly changing. The equations that confront you are constantly
changing and the only way to surpass the challenges that the ecosystem poses in front of us is to
innovate.

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What are the three steps we can recommend for a good leader to keep in mind when progressing and
promoting innovation? It begins with Sensing. Sensing what is, what can be? What should be? What is
coming your way? What is being said? What is not being said?

The second step is Seizing. Not necessarily waiting for the grand plan to be unveiled but seizing those
small moments and opportunities to demonstrate and progress on the path that one has set off and of
course step three is to actually transform seizing opportunity and action is important but the desire to
transform is even more critical.

Transform from what way we are to where we should be? Move the organization into the direction of the
vision that has been laid out; build the picture of even greater possibilities for the future and transform
the entire organization.

Sometimes little by little but transformation for sure. I'd like to pause here for a minute and bring our
attention back into what I mentioned earlier: information and leadership. What is the role of information
when it comes to a leader and how can a leader make sense of information and also make sense of
information which is absent?

In 2010, 33 miners were caught in a mine underground in Chile. Charles Gabon was a Chilean mining
minister at that point in time. He took personal charge of the situation. He used to be a business
executive and used his management skills and the ability to process information in deciding that he's
not going to follow the mechanism of a single tunnel for rescue.

Rather, he sought information, opinions and advice and suggested the digging of multiple tunnels to make
the rescue mission even more successful. He actually went down to lay history but what is keen to be
noted here is that there was no information available and the ability to shift through

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the unknown, join disparate dots of information and then use one's intellect to draw a very strong decision
and create a direction is absolutely important.

It's not necessary that information will always be clear and distinct. Information is there. Seeking it,
making sense of it, and processing it is up to the leader.

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