Archive for Leadership - To Be A Good Leader
Thinking Out of The Box
Here is an interesting one – how do you think out of the box? More importantly, how do managers and business owners get their people to think out of the box?
Whether you are in marketing, sales, or operations; the ability to think out of the box is very important, right? Wrong.
Our entire education has been geared towards putting us INTO a box. We are taught the Laws of Physics, we are taught the Rules of Grammer and we are taught there is only one right answer – the one that scores the marks during an examination.
When you first start working, you are taught to toe the line, that your boss is always right; my way or the highway…
Suddenly, you are asked to think out of the box. Sure, you can do it, just tell me… which box?
That is the irony of it all. Bosses want employees who can toe the line, be team players, not rock the boat; then, when the going gets tough, you suddenly want these self-same people to think out of the box?
“Yes, Sir! Certainly Sir! What box might that be sir!?”
Creativity, initiative and so on is not a one-time exercise. It has to be part of the work culture, part of the value system. Nurture is important.
If you want your people to think out of the box, the easiest way to achieve this is as follows:
Don’t create the box in the first place.
Leadership by Consensus?
Here is an interesting one for all leaders and followers to consider – is there such a thing as leadership by consensus?
I mean, if you had consensus, do you need a leader? Or look at it another way, do you call a person a leader if he needs the ratification of others?
Think about this. You select some one as your leader. He is going to be your guiding light and bring you across the desert. You celebrate your new leader. Then the party is over and the journey begins. What happens? If this were a democracy, then the leader proposes a direction, say, north, and everyone votes on it. If it were Moses, he just ups and moves on and everyone follows.
One is a leader, the other is a coordinator.
Do you own a car that is red on the front and polka dotted pink behind? You would if you allowed your 3 year old girl to decide on half the colors. If you did not paint the back polka dotted pink, she will be unhappy. At some point, a leader has to take responsibility for his decisions. If some says, the color of your car is ugly, do you then say “Oh, my wife chose it…”?
That statement in itself could be a truth. Yes, the wife chose it, but you made the decision to go with it. The true leader will say “Oh, my wife chose it, and I agreed. You don’t like it?”.
Everyone will have their own opinions. A good leader understands and accepts that. To insist that everyone shares exactly the same opinion and everyone to have the same decision, is not true leadership. We are humans, not robots. Even if you do not agree with the leader, you still follow, believing that he can lead you where you need to go. If you no longer believe that, you leave. Or, you try to change the leader. There are many possible dynamics, but we are not going to discuss them here.
What we want to put down clearly is this – leadership by consensus is BS. OK, let me spell that out – b.u.l.l.s.h.i.t. OK, that should get me censored somewhere, I guess. But then, let’s call a spade a spade. Either you are a leader, or you are not.
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