Much of today’s leadership writing focuses on what high performing leaders should do. Certainly, that material helps from a theoretical and aspirational point of view. Yet what really haunts leaders on a day-to-day basis is the mistakes that they make. They don’t trip up because they are bad people; they most often fumble because of a lack of knowledge, bad habits or too much stress.
[This article has been reproduced with permission from IMD, a leading business school based in Switzerland. http://www.imd.org]
Very good advice. I am a teacher. And I see where I can readily use this in the classroom to motivate my students to excel and for me to over time change, modify and improve my teaching style.
on Dec 24, 2012I would like to add 2 more points: 1) Leaders need to know how much to communicate and the level of communication with the various levels should vary. 2) Leaders need to be aware that Leadership is a 24X7 job and not a 9 to 5 job, very often leaders tend to do the mistake of giving contradicting versions in and out of office. A Leader maybe interacting with team members outside the work but it still has to be in line with his / her philosophy and the opportunity to communicate outside work should be valued and utilised positively.
on Oct 31, 2012All the above is true and that is I try to follow. But when you look around quite a few leaders around who have fast growth don\'t follow this in spirit. But that is life, so one sometimes tend to think, is this kind of ideal behaviour is really being encouraged in corporate world, or used only in trainings and leadership books. But all said and done I follow this because this is good thing to do and you build genuine admirers who respect without compliance.
on Oct 31, 2012Dipankar, Agreed that few leaders do not follow this in spirit. If you take a look at this in the long run, such leaders are neither valued by the team nor the Organisation but in short term they get away and at times are even rewarded unreasonably. For a Leader it is more important to follow this to ensure that the team grows and i would only consider a leader successful if and only their teams reflect positive traits and a part of the leader. A Leader has to ensure growth not only in terms of designation for his team but in terms of preparing the team members as better professionals.
on Oct 31, 2012Leaders are there because they should take care of the followers.\"People\"Leadership\" abstractly means Leading People, Managing people and Guiding People.Therefore if a leader doesn\'t have time for anything related to his people, he/she surely don\'t deserves to be a leader. He /She is like another person next door.
on Oct 29, 2012True Rathna but it is possible if the leader is not doing the job of the Manager because most of the times Managers end up giving 100 % of their time to routine work and issues. Leader need to move from the concept of \"Open Door Policy\" to a \"No Door Policy\" where team members can walk in anytime.
on Oct 31, 2012Thank you for responding to my comment
on Nov 1, 2012