?If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader??John Quincy Adams
Leadership is the ability to decide on a compelling vision to take the organisation to the next level and in the process guiding and developing its people. It is the process of giving meaningful direction to collective effort. Leadership entails giving meaning, setting a direction, and achieving extraordinary results from ordinary people. A leader is one who has a long-term perspective, is ethical, appreciates team members, provides direction, energises, and recognises and rewards people. A leader, therefore, is a change agent. Great leaders are found to take a path less travelled and take calculated risks. John Maxwell said that leaders must be close enough to relate to others but far enough ahead to motivate them.
Emotional intelligence
Leadership is also the ability to connect to your people emotionally and so the leader should have high levels of emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence encompasses qualities like initiative, sensitivity, cooperativeness, flexibility, persuasiveness, optimism and resilience. It also means having a balanced approach towards life and work, and a blend of task and people orientation. As Daniel Goleman, the author of Emotional Intelligence, says, it?s not that IQ and technical skills are irrelevant. They do matter, but mainly as ?threshold capabilities?; that is, they are the entry-level requirements for executive positions. But emotional intelligence is the sine qua non of leadership.
Emotional Intelligence Quotient (EQ) is essential in times of stress and challenges. Everyone has a cognitive as well as an emotional mind. An interplay of these two results in behaviour. To be able to adopt an appropriate behaviour there has to be a balance between the cognitive and emotional mind. This balance is achieved by applying EQ, i.e., using emotions for intelligent decision-making.
Also, EQ finds application in moving from feeling to acceptance of the feeling within oneself in the first stage expression or restrain in expression (of feeling) through self-regulation in the second stage to action in the right direction (thoughtful action) in the third stage. Thus, EQ helps an individual avoid the tendency to react to a situation but rather respond to it. EQ also helps individuals introspect and reflect on the consequences of one?s actions and deriving learnings from them.
Leadership challenges
In the rapidly changing competitive environment a leader faces a unique set of challenges where he has to be highly adaptive to the changes in the environment, while at the same time holding on to the core values, being optimistic as well as pragmatic, maintaining the right balance between rationality and emotionality while making decisions, being soft yet firm with his people, and adopting a helping and guiding approach but not smothering in developing the followers. The challenge to our leadership is also to break out from the self-imposed confines of our boundaries, limitations and mind-sets. Some of the important challenges for leadership in a current dynamic business environment are:
l Leading by example: One of the responsibilities of a leader is to inspire and influence his people. This becomes easier when you become a role model. Leadership also entails being self-directed and being governed by a set of values that come from within. More than anything, leading by example means having integrity and being principle-centred. Without integrity a leader cannot sustain his position as a leader for long.
l Developing leaders at all levels: Having a long-term perspective and contributing to the organisation also means developing leaders through empowerment. Such an approach will take care that there is no leadership crisis.
l Creating transparency: The organisational responsibilities can be handled effectively if there are systems in place and there is transparency. This would ensure that there is less of scope for misinterpretation of rules and guidelines.
l Ability to take the organisation to the next level: This is one of the prime responsibilities of the leader. Leaders are not appointed to manage the organisation and maintain a optimum level of operations but to ensure growth and development of the organisation.
Leadership is all about safeguarding the interest of the organisation and its people, and making positive difference wherever they are. The test of leadership is the ability to deal with ambiguity, uncertainly and complexities. Ultimately, leaders are remembered only for the contributions they make. Thus, leadership is all about thought-oriented, proactive and futuristic planning resulting in goal directed actions.
The author is assistant professor, Organisational Behaviour, Management Development Institute, Gurgaon