Leadership: Beyond Authority and Control

 I have been really wondering what it is to be a leader. I remember, I was talking to some of my friends on WhatsApp, convincing them why they should really come to Garba and all that. Yes I made a plan, but is that really leadership? If someone said no, they said no. If they said yes, they said yes. But me influencing people to say yes or no, is that leadership? Is leadership about dominating people and getting them to do what you want them to do? Or is leadership more about giving people the power to be themselves and be their best versions. After doing some more research, I realise leadership is not about power, it's not about letting people do whatever they want to do and it's not even letting people do only what you want to do. Leadership is more about the influence, the impact and the culture creation that will eventually empower people to do what they do the in the best way possible. So leadership is not a position but a responsibility. Leadership is about having a vision and then empowering people to work so that together we can achieve the vision. So yeah, I mean that's what leadership to me sounds correct. 

This is wonderful, it's about influence and not authority. So this statement gives everyone some permission to be a leader. Even a young person can be a leader, and even an old person can be a leader. A male can be a leader or a female can be a leader, so good leaders influence people to do their best. For an example, look at Mahendra Singh Dhoni, one of the most successful captains in the history of Indian cricket, whether that's IPL or internationals that main has achieved every trophy that's there as a captain. That's such a feat to achieve. But one thing that I have realised is that when players play under Dhoni, they become their best versions. Not one but most of them. For an example, Rahane was not that good in other franchises but the moment he went to CSK, he became great at CSK. I believe it was the culture and the role that was clear to Rahane that made all the difference. I have also heard stories about how Dhoni keeps his Room open all the time for people to come in and talk to him. This makes him more approachable as a leader, whenever a player is not having a good time, he can always go to the captain and talk to him, giving the players comfort to be themselves. I strongly believe that this is the reason of their success for such a long time. Yes there are other things like process is more important than the result and all that embedded in their culture but the vibe of the team is really good with what I know. 

                                                                    

A similar story with Rohit Sharma, I know I was listening to an interview from Virat Kohli and he specifically spoke about how wonderful the culture is that's created by Rohit Sharma, everyone in the team needs to feel that they are important, that's what is the culture that Rohit Sharma has created. Now look what Rohit Sharma as a captain has achieved, a t20 world cup. I mean India won a major ICC tournament after 11 years a World Cup after 13 years and a t20 World Cup after 17 years. I am sure there must be something he would be doing that's right and working. So to me, what I see more often than not at such a high level is people become their best versions under a great captain. Yes a captain also challenges players, but he also makes sure that everyone feels included and important within the team. That's what great leader do ! They have a vision and make people inspired about the vision and everyone within the team works towards the vision. 

This is equally true, yes we spoke about culture and environment that brings out the best of each individual. But it's also about vision and responsibility. I am sure there are things that go wrong in every aspect of leadership, there would be days where we would go wrong in executing a product or there would be days where we would go wrong in making an environment, that's when a leader steps up and says that this is my responsibility as a leader. If a leader gets so much credit while they win, they also get so much backlash when the team loses. I tried finding one of the press conferences where MSD had said that he was the main culprit for the loss but I am not able to find one. But yeah, it's about responsibility of the group, good or bad whatever happens leaders are someone who takes responsibility and does not try to run away from it. The vision is the why of what you are doing, making sure that everyone in the team feels motivated towards that vision is also the job of the leader. 

Personally, I have had experiences where a leader feels like he's the only one who's important within the team and everyone should just blindly follow him/her. In such cases what I see is that people wouldn't really give ideas or share any information because they feel unsafe around the leader. In fact, these people make the environment bad by making people unsafe, rather a people should make people feel safe thus making the vibe and the environment great. 

I want to come down to why is leadership a skill that's so important? 

1. We all need a leader: Believe it or not whether it's a successful product we want to create, or a successful family we want to create or even for that matter a successful cricket team we wish to create, it's very important to have a great leader to create it. Every group or organisation needs a leader. 

2. Gives a sense of direction: A leader is someone who gives people a sense of direction and purpose. This makes them feel motivated towards the work. I know work always has a sense of direction but think of a family also, even a family has a sense of direction and vision. Maybe the family wants to increase their standards of living, maybe the family wants to have more fun and joy in their lives, maybe the family wants to get more social recognition whatever the vision is, a leader is someone who gives this sense of direction. In a usual family it's the father that takes the leadership role. The father assigns roles to every individual within the family to make the family better. Also, it's the father that is responsible for creating an environment where everyone in the family can thrive and believe in themselves. 

3. Taking important decisions: A good leader is a good decision maker as well in my opinion. Someone who understands various view points and then takes the right decision is a great leader. 

4. Planning: A leader needs to plan things so that the vision of the family or the organisation is achieved. More importantly, the leader also needs to know that not everything will go according to the plan and the leader will need to think on his/her feet and adapt to the obstacles that come in the path. 

5. Resolving conflicts: Sometimes there are days when there are conflicts within the team, whether its a cricket team, a organisation or even a family, we need someone to understand view points non judgementally and then make a decision of resolving the conflict so that both the parties are happy. Without these skills, it's very difficult to maintain the environment of the team. 

So not having a leader would just let people wander randomly without any directions leading to a non productive output. I have seen teams where the leaders are not so strong or they don't have principles embedded in them thus making the culture of the team weak and argumentative. There's nothing wrong in having disagreements but it's more about how we handle those. 

How to be a leader? Now this is a very very broad question but there are certain things that work for me. Let's imagine you are leading a product. Maybe it's a software product or maybe it's something else, the point is you are building something from scratch. You have a team of 8 software engineers and you need to lead the team to develop the product. 

1. Know your why: Every leader in my opinion should write down why we are creating what we are creating. Think about things from the customer's point of view, how will what we create make the lives of our customers better, how can we make better experiences for our customers? Ask questions to yourself and try answering those questions in the first go. This will make sure that you have a clear vision yourself. 

2. Understand the roles and skills of people: As a leader, it's your responsibility to understand the roles and the skills of all the software engineers that are there within the team. See where you can challenge each one of them and where each of these people can grow within the team. This will make you understand your team a little better and find the right areas of growth for people.

3. Foster innovation and creativity: Create a safe space for people to experiment and allow people to take risks within the team. Create a culture of continuous learning and development. This will empower your people to do more and be more by themselves. 

4. Motivate and inspire: It's very important to understand the goal of the individuals within the team and align them with the higher goal of the organisation. Moreover, a good leader should also provide feedback that's constructive in order to learn and grow within the team. 

5. Take responsibility: Whatever happens within the team, especially if something negative happens while trying out somethings, take responsibility of that and protect the people within your team. That's what is more of the leader. 

6. Keep learning yourself: Keep your knowledge updated with whatever area or field you are in, if there's something new that comes up, learn that and be extremely good with that. If you keep learning yourself, I'm sure you are setting the right examples for the people within the team as well to keep learning and keep updating yourself with more knowledge and information about the topic. 

7. Empower and delegate: Trust your team and delegate different responsibilities to different individuals within the team. This will naturally make people feel more included and more responsible for their own field. Thus making the entire organisation, grow and thrive. 

But anyways like any other skill, it takes time and practice to become a leader. You also need to learn from the feedback you get from the team on how leadership can be improved.