Leadership is like parenting and taking care of those in charge to inspire and get the best out of those who work for the leaders..
The following Simon Sinek quote wonderfully describes this aspect of leadership…
“The leaders who get the most out of their people are the leaders who care most about their people.” — Simon Sinek
The following quote of Simon Sinek explains why it is indeed so tough to be a true leader…..
“One of the best paradoxes of leadership is a leader’s need to be both stubborn and open-minded. A leader must insist on sticking to the vision and stay on course to the destination. But he must be open-minded during the process. “
Simon Sinek
The following quote truly differentiates a weak leader from a “true” leader.
“A weak leader likes to tell us how many people work for them. A great leader is humbled to tell us how many people they work for.” — Simon Sinek
What makes Simon Sinek’s leadership lessons easy to understand is the fact that we can easily relate to them in our daily work lives.
One such lesson is when he says “Great leaders show followers a destination“.
This does resonate with me since this has a relation with our human brain as well. When the destination is clear or a semblance of it is imprinted in the mind of a follower , the human mind is creative enough to reach the destination even if obstacles come in the way of the destination.
True leaders who walk the talk and are “hands on” are willing to slog it out with the followers when they see their team members struggling to find a destination.
As opposed to this , there are other leaders who feel insecure by the day and for lack of subject matter knowledge , make the destination deliberately confusing to the followers. A hazy destination confuses the human mind and inhibits the use of creativity. Traditionally these are leaders who are leaders only because of their rank/position and lack true respect from followers.
As per Simon Sinek , the leaders , who are able to show their followers a destination , are the ones who are able to get the best of their team members and in turn the followers are willing to give their blood sweat and tear & are able to unleash their true potential. This results in insanely productive outcomes.
This being said it must be said that such leaders are very rare to get and want of such leaders makes our workplaces so suffocating. Most of the times in the presence of micro-managing leaders , who themselves are not clear of the destination , lack the true subject matter knowledge and intrinsic sense of motivation , workers get frustrated and tired of doing mundane work wherein their creativity and accountability are not put to test.
We all are in search of such leaders who would make us feel safe , have courage and guts to show their followers the destination…..
Pile on motivation!!
If you follow Simon Sinek , like the way I do , you would have come across the concept of “Infinite Games”. I have watched myriad videos on youtube wherein Simon has preached and explained the meaning & importance of playing infinite games for achieving fulfillment for individuals as well as business entities.
Please find below the link to a most recent video of his wherein he explains about “infinite games” and also provides a checklist that qualifies any entity to engage in playing infinite games.
Very briefly let us look at the concept. The individual mentioned below can refer to any individual person , business , education institution , hospital or any such entity.
Playing infinite games means that we should not compare ourselves with others and should try and create a better version of ourselves by the day. An infinite player knows that sometimes he will be ahead and sometimes he will lag hence he would believe in the journey and not short term benefits. Winning does matter but when we fall behind it makes us realize our shortcomings to help pull up our socks for the days to come.
This way we would compete with ourselves instead of having to bother and get bogged down by competition. This would help unleash the best in us and as long as we have put our best efforts we should be satisfied. Sometimes we win and sometimes we do not but such lessons learnt would enrich us by the day and indeed help us in achieving greater successes in the future.
Easier said than done this requires a lot of soul searching , grit , determination and courage.
The checklist mentioned by Simon in his video consists of the following.
Infinite game it must be said is a journey and not a destination.The destination may seem near but as we come nearer the milestone would change , destination would get blurred and hence this is not for the faint hearted who would rather back out and settle for some short term gains.
Pile on motivation!!!!
The following link has a recent video of Simon Sinek that I came across recently. The practicality of the 5 principles conveyed via this video fascinated me and enticed me to share this with a broader audience group to spread the word around.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CZx4DTglHJc
Here are the 5 leadership principles, which if practiced as well as preached would not only help groom and create leaders but would also make workplaces a better and safer place for employees
1) Go after things that you want to achieve in life without coming in the way of others – Human beings are very creative, when given a destination we are so obsessed that we devise ways to reach the destination through different means. This thus means that different people can have different ways to reach a destination but while doing so we should not cross our paths or come in between others paths. This would enable creation of a blue ocean strategy so very important for modern day leaders.
2) Take full accountability for your actions – This is also known as internal locus of control wherein we as leaders should not only take credit for any good done but also take responsibility for any wrongdoing without trying to find scapegoats. Easier said than done since this is where most modern day leaders are lacking, they want to take the easier route of escaping when the chips are down leaving their subordinates to the mercy of others. This is where we need to correlate parenting with leadership wherein just like we cannot desert our trouble children we need to make our subordinates/employees feel safe.
3) Help the ones to the left and right of you – A competent leader who leads by example is obsessed with helping the ones to the left and right of him/her who need help and support. A leader can inspire and get people who believe in what they believe only when a leader practices selflessness and helps people to secure their trust. In such a scenario the subordinates would give their blood, sweat and tear for such an inspirational leader. In the modern day, the leader is so obsessed with I that WE seldom captures his imagination.
4) Practice being the last to speak – This is an amazingly difficult quality that most inspirational leaders have.Aside from being great listeners , an inspirational leader by virtue of being a subject matter expert knows when to step in and when to give others a chance to speak and express their opinions to feel empowered.The example of Nelson Mandela given by Simon in his video stands out as a great case study for aspiring leaders.
5) Leadership by position is temporary – A leader is given all benefits , perks , allowances when in power , but this is not something that would be eternal.A manipulative leader may enjoy the best of benefits , perks , power , position but the day the power is taken away he/she would be grounded to reality and would cease to have the support of followers.This is why it makes all the more sense to inspire and lead and make followers rather than be manipulative and force people to follow.An inspirational leader does not need power or position to earn respect of sub-ordinates they become their followers for life.
Hope these lessons would be able to encourage the leaders of the modern era to make the world a much better to live and work for subordinates/team members/employees seeking inspiration and motivation to make it big!!
Pile on motivation!!
The following two videos of Simon teach all of us wonderful lessons related to leadership. My key leadership related takeaways have been summarized below.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=INjECrw7YYs
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wKcRB8CEUd0
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KbYzF6Zy5tY
Parenting and leadership are similar and require empathy and understanding. Just like a parent cannot do away with a child who is going through a tough time and cannot ask others to adopt him/her, a leader cannot just like that chuck an underperforming employee without showing empathy and understanding the root cause of underperformance. Empathy and understanding are core qualities of a motivational leader. Most Ladies possess care, empathy, and understanding as innate qualities and hence ladies as leaders can do a great job in being motivational leaders to make work places better place to work in
As part of leadership qualities, find those who believe in what you believe since trust will automatically emerge when such a team is found. All this means is that we are guided by symbols when we try to find similar kinds of people, the only problem is that this way of forming a group is not scalable and needs insight and acumen. At the essence of this logic is the fact that as human beings we are still social animals and have an inherent need to socialize.
When we build a team we should remember that the definition of a community, country when extended to a company or team have the commonality in that all of these are a set of people with common values and beliefs, hence people will always want to work in a place where leaders believe in what they believe for a better fitment.
Leadership also needs understanding as to whether we are engaging in finite games or infinite games. Leadership strategies are going to be different based on the games that we are playing. An inspirational leader in a space where finite games are being played is a misfit since such an environment needs micromanagers who would cater to short term targets. Inspirational managers when engage in infinite games would be able to get the best out of their team by spreading motivation since such an environment needs creativity.
Leadership because of power gives necessary advantages and facilities but that is only because of position. The facilities that are associated with a leader comes at a cost to protect all under you like a parent take risks to handhold their kids. A motivational leader is one who is not carried away by position hence even after surrendering their position people look up to them with loads of respect.
Pile on motivation!!!!