Leader Learns - Lessons From the Floor

Being Aggressive is one of the most talked about trait in a leader. But unfortunately, it is also one of the  frequently misunderstood trait as well. To me aggression is not in the behaviour of the person, but how he is inside. Just because a person has a soft demeanor does not mean he is not aggressive. Nor being pushy and talking loudly means aggression. More often than not, people are quickly judged as being aggressive or not based on the way they talk, the way they move about on the floor or even by a handshake. I am not someone who can read into people's body language, but I am sure it cannot be read rightly always by the experts. Aggression is what you deliver at work, not how. It is the ability to take on tough situations, stand up to the situations, and deliver what is needed, without faltering. Sometimes, it might be a new project to be delivered, a client to be managed, a people situation to be handled, a new challenge thrown with difficult deadlines. All these ...

Humility as a trait in a leader, is like a double-edged sword. A leader needs to be humble, but at the same time this can be taken as not being aggressive. My journey on this path had its own problems. Before I became a lead, I was a pretty good functional consultant (in my own view). People used to respect me for my skills and my expertise made me feel proud as a consultant. I was pretty confident of delivering complex solutions under pretty tough deadlines. All this gave me an aura of "being in control". As a lead, the first thing that I felt was the lack of being in control. My team had to work together to deliver the results. There were times when we failed to deliver on time. From used to being in complete control of things, I was slowly moving towards being dependent on people to deliver, thereby losing my control. This made me transition  from I to We mode and the virtue of being humble. I realized that I cannot deliver the project on my own, but my te...

Continuing from last week's post on " Not only being Unbiased... " The first thing I did to show that I was unbiased was to ensure that I spent a fair bit of time with everyone in the team. And this time, I did not go with the "   time tested   Coffee with Raghu " :-)(http://leaderlearns.blogspot.in/2013/03/trust.html). I started following the famed LBWA (Leadership By Walking Around, a slight twist from MBWA). I used to go around and talk to people at their desks. This helped me to a certain extent to remove the bias, since some people who felt bit uncomfortable to approach me, had no choice now (captive audience). It also helped me to understand what they were doing and people started feeling that their lead knows what they were doing. This helped them to believe that I was trying to give them a fair chance. The second thing was to ensure that everyone got an opportunity - to talk in meetings, to do something new, bring in new ideas, etc. This also he...

As a person, all of us have our own bias. The bias about people generally tends to be based on social status, education, upbringing etc.  But as a leader, you cannot be biased. The   leader as a person, is expected to treat all his / her people at par , without any bias. I learnt the importance of this in my very first year of being a lead. When I started my journey as a lead, I was very clear that I should not be biased towards people. This journey, according to my conscience was also on similar lines. But over a period of time, the time I spent with some people in my team both on official count and personal was skewed when compared with others. Unknowingly, I spent more time with people whom I felt comfortable. While this helped me in getting along with the team, there was a feeling that I was biased within the team. People felt that I spent more time with certain team members because I liked them, and hence treated them differently. There were several ...