Good Leadership - Characteristics

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Good Leadership - Characteristics

1. Good Leadership - Characteristics
2. An Activity to develop Self-Awareness

A good leader:

1. Is Aware of the strengths and potentials of self, the team and the organisation. A leader takes on the task of understanding self, the team and the organisation. This will enable the leader to anticipating failures/lack of effectiveness and prevent them.

   This will also enable you to respond to the opportunities available to your team/organisation and lead it to success - much ahead of anybody else.




2. Has the Vision in mind. A leader keeps the vision of the organisation in mind. It is the vision that will help the identify opportunities/threats, trigger startegies, identify the winners in the organisation and lead the organisation to reach new heights.



3. Prioritizes. A leader defines the annual, half-yearly, quarterly and monthly goals that is deduced from the vision and mission of the organisation. These goals become the basis for designing tasks for self and the teams.

   Some other areas that need to be top of the priority list are: Developing people, Nurturing professional relationships, Business Development, Data-based problem solving and decision making, Nurturing flagship/profitable products, projects, processes.




4. Values the People in the organisation. People feel valued when they experience success at the workplace. Success comes from specifying tasks, roles, responsibilities, standards of performance. Other than task areas, success also means nurturing the intellectual and emotional needs of personnel.

   Intellectual and emotional needs are met, by providing opportunity for growth, for involvement and for recognition. Also included in providing for emotional needs is to make the employee feel that his/her family's needs will never be compromised for the sake of the organisation.




5. Empathizes with people. A good leader waits to hear the perspective of his/her people before passing judgement on the reasons for peoples' behaviour. This means that she/he is willing to look at more than just his/her own perspective of a situation. This enables him/her to address the situation comprehensively - from the point of view of the employee and the organisational vision.



6. Maximizes peoples's energy and potential. A good leader knows the skills and abilities of his/her people. She/he is able to identify winning combinations of skills and people to maximise the achievement of results and thus capitalise on the potentials that exist in the orgasnisation.

   This is like mixing water, a little flour and a little yeast to produce bread that can feed a household, rather than just an individual. The water and the flour are like team members with different potential and the yeast is like the input of a leader to this combination. The result is exponential instead of merely incremental.




7. Enables the achievement of the visions of people. Finally, a good leader identifies the visions his people have for themselves and inspires them to set out to achieve their individual visions. In the short run this might seem like an impediment to the organisation, as people might leave the organisation in pursuit of their vision.

   In the long run people realise that their value as individuals to the organisation is crucial and they are willing to give their best to it, and their vision becomes the achievement of the vision of the organisation. In case some individuals leave the organisation to pursue their own vision, the organisation has loyal ambassadors for itself who will not charge you a penny to advocate the organisation.

   Also, word of mouth publicity spreads like wildfire because of the Internet and the organisation becomes famous in no time. The organisations built by these champions will also propogate the same empowering philosophy of leadership.

An Activity to Develop Self-Awareness

1. Distribute the Self-Awareness Tool. Download it now.
2. Have the participants fill in the details in the tool.
3. Pair the participants with their neighbors
4. Have them share with each other in pairs

Similar exercises can lead to self-awareness of a team and an organisation

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Thank you