The People Side of Leadership
“You don’t need a title to be a leader.” – I find this quote to be so true. A title does not make one a good leader. As a leader, one must be able to listen to what people have to say. One must hear people’s complaints, requests, and suggestions. Acknowledging the people one works with is very important.
I truly believe that one is judged by one’s words and actions. A title does not mean that much. For the longest time, I did not have a proper job title or job description at my current employer. But I did not think that it was an issue. I saw it as an opportunity to show what I was capable of. I used this lack of title/ defined roll as a way to work on many different projects and therefore have gained more insights into many of the company’s operations that I otherwise would not have had if my roll had been narrowly defined. With this newfound knowledge, I have been able to help guide projects and often play devil’s advocate. I see it as an honor to lead and do not take the responsibility lightly.
The Strategic Side of Leadership
“The art of leadership is saying no, not saying yes. It is very easy to say yes.” —Tony Blair. Great Britain’s former Prime Minister put it well.
As a leader, one sometimes has to make hard and unpopular decisions. I believe that one must learn not to give in and stand up for one’s decisions, as hard as it might be. Personally, I know I cannot make the boss happy all the time. There will be days when he totally disagrees with my decisions. But if I can clearly articulate why and how I came to my conclusion, it will be more likely accepted. Now that does not mean that the boss will follow every suggestion I make but at least I will know that I gave him all the necessary facts to base his decision on.
The Analytical-Details Side of Leadership
“Most of the world will make decisions by either guessing or using their gut. They will be either lucky or wrong.” – Suhail Doshi, chief executive officer, Mixpanel.
In the real world, we do not have the benefit of making these costly mistakes. Forecasting and data analytics have become a necessary tool in today’s business world. The company I work for has built its business around the customers desires and where they are located. We have made the mistake a few times and offered courses in locations where we “thought” we had a good following of potential customers and would be well received, however, that was not the case. The amount of time, effort and money that goes into planning these fruitless events is astonishing. I believe that we have oversaturated the market over the last two years and that we need to scale back our offerings. We need to use more data analytics in our day-to-day operations and not rely on gut feelings.
