You may not be a manager, but you can still lead! Leaders create opportunities to derive maximum benefit from talent both their own as well as what resides in others. Being talented and successful is all about knowing what our own leadership area is and then focusing on delivering excellence through a passionate focus on that area!
“What is next for me? Where do I go from here?” As a team leader at Wipro Spectramind Services, India, this was the most critical question I had to answer in a typical appraisal conversation with the top performers of my team!
The need to feel challenged by the quality of work and supported in the course of action is fundamental to the story of being happy with the work we do!
You can be a leader too!
Ask one person around you “What is the leadership role that you aspire for?” The first answer will be the word “manager” suffixed or prefixed adequately with the role that they are currently in. If we pay attention to the number of employees in any organization enrolled for or aspiring to MBA courses, I can positively believe that a lot of us want to be managers... We love to believe that being good at what we do today is good enough for moving up in the hierarchy.
Thanks to the extensive coverage that our media gives to people who “lead” other people like politicians, CEOs, etc., we instinctively think of the word “leading” in just one perspective, that of leading people.
When we observe organizations that have sustained their successes or even individuals who have been successful at multiple levels of their lives, we can notice that their achievements can be appreciated as expression of excellence of three types:
Leading with Thoughts & Ideas.
Leading with Actions & Execution Capabilities.
Leading with Human Relationships & its internetworking.
So, you may not be a manager, but you can still lead!
If you already are a manager, you should seek out people with latent talent in each of the above areas and build channels to catalyze the organization’s ability through effective utilization of these talents. You are the critical point for infusion of talent into the flow of knowledge and skills in the organization. It is thus imperative that you possess coaching skills and the ability to spot talent.
Management as defect reduction
Often Managers are stuck in the cycle of defects reduction that hinders their ability to seek talent. As human beings, negative facets to our personality are learnt in the process of living and unlearning them is not an easy task. Unless the team member is someone who has a very personal relationship with you, the chances of him or her listening to your suggestions about their personality or attitudes is minimal. Nevertheless, we persist in the faith that fixing his or her attitude will fix our problems!
The process of shaping a person’s attitudes and personality is almost complete for most individuals by the time they enter the working world.
Personal change needs a high degree of self-awareness and volition. We often tend to ignore directly offered advice! The best that any manager can do is to provide the individual with the environment and the encouragement to change a negative attitude that may be affecting his/her ability to excel truly at their talent.
Growing up in an environment that constantly looks at the perspective of filling the voids and overcoming weaknesses, our biggest challenge lies in learning to appreciate individuals for what they are rather than stall our relationship in the cycle of pursuing them for what they are not!
That is why we need to acquire the perspective of a leader... and not just a manager.
Leading, every day!
Leading is never about roles. It is about attitudes. Managing is a subset of skills learnt with practice and by virtue of understanding the process thoroughly. A Manager only does ‘what is usually or logically done’ but a leader does ‘what needs to be done’! Leaders create opportunities to derive maximum benefit from talent both their own as well as what resides in others. However, managers only utilize skills within the framework of what they already know!
Leading With Talent
Leadership is an ongoing journey where each one of us wants to scale the next challenge. The challenge of shaping a person’s attitude and personality is infinitely enticing. However, the wisdom of responsible leadership is in choosing our challenges and our path. To invest humongous organizational resources in pursuit of changing individual negative aspects is clearly a wasted effort!
Everyone is talented. By virtue of positive learning reinforced by encouragements & challenges, certain talents become visible early on in life of each individual.
Being talented and successful is all about knowing what our own leadership area is and then focusing on delivering excellence through a passionate focus on that area!
Talent is an intelligent learning ability in a certain domain.
In the life of an organization, Leadership is the ability to shape and guide the collective wisdom that resides in the pool of knowledge & skills that talented people provide.
