PGPX 2012-13

Personal Diary-1
Leadership Skills
Divanshu Dubey
12/25/2012

Topic 1- Self Awareness and Leadership

Leadership Goal: To me, to lead is an opportunity to grow and enable to grow, evolve and guide the evolution (of people being led and organization I am a part of), incorporating the lessons learnt (from own experience, observing other leaders as well as readings, class-room opportunities, etc) into an exercise in continuous improvement. The first session of the course made me take a step back and take stock of what kind of a leader I am. The reading becoming a better leader emphasized on a kind of balance on the five parameters of Need for Stability, Extraversion, Openness, Agreeableness and Conscientiousness (as was brought out in class). As per my observations, this is best demonstrated when a leader for a an organization is in grown vis--vis from outside. While the factors of stability and openness usually take a hit in case of an external leader and he must usually work harder to get the desired balance, on the other three factors I feel that the leader from within the organization would have a relative disadvantage. He would be too familiar and therefore it would be difficult for him to strike the right balance in terms of extraversion, making it necessary to assert his authority. In terms of agreeableness and conscientiousness, and to some extent other factors as well, the outsider would have the advantage of getting a fresh slate but the leader grown from within will have to adapt to the new role and at the same time manage the expectations of his team in light of his previous behaviour. In light of this argument the prima-facie case is in favour of external leader, who being aware of the need for balance on these parameters will be better enabled to achieve the same. Another key take away from the session was the fact that becoming self aware would essentially help one identify the extent to which one needs to either inculcate or tone down certain personality traits to unleash ones complete leadership potential. In this class we were also exposed to the FIRO-B test which measured the three basic interpersonal needs of inclusion, control and affection in the two dimensions in which these needs are manifested, namely expressed and wanted. It helped me grasp the key difference in these two dimensions when it was brought out by the professor in class that basically these dimensions are passive and aggressive in nature. I have unconsciously assumed that a tough leader (or even a tough man) must be stoical in nature. This belief makes the expression of

the needs for inclusion and affection strictly taboo. I now realize that this would mean that I need to make an effort to balance towards being more expressive about my needs. The same was reflected in my scores in the test where I scored a 3 for both inclusion and affection in the expressed dimension. I scored 2 and 5 in the wanted dimension on these two counts. Partially I feel the same belief would be responsible for the low score in inclusion on the wanted dimension as well. In addition I also made a general assumption that wanting to be included by others was a sign of low confidence. But I now realize that this would make me socially less responsive when afforded the opportunities to interact and participate in such activities. I must therefore attempt to correct my behaviour towards being more balanced on these two dimensions in the needs of inclusion and affection. I found that on the need for control both in the expressed and wanted dimension my scores were balanced (5 and 4). However, this combination of scores would put me into the Matcher category, making it all the more necessary to improve social skills. The reading on FIRO B talks about applications in the end, which gives me some clues about observing others and also changing my behaviour in all the required places in the need- dimensions matrix. I will be aware of the boundary problems at the formative stages of groups and the occurrence of goblet issues. It will be important to understand the needs of others when working with or leading groups. Similarly, I will also be conscious of those displaying people pleasing behaviour and the reaction of the members with low wanted or expressed affection needs. The reading on Leadership was a classic indeed. I could relate to the part where some leaders want to protect their team rather than exposing them. The protective behaviour is always more destructive in the long run. Another important point mentioned in the article that I had the opportunity to practice and observe was to enable workers to take responsibility.

Topic 2- Interpersonal Sensitivity and Leadership

To me, to lead is an opportunity to liberate. The above was quoted by the professor during the session. The Bob Knowlton case was a testament to the need for making the people under a leader feel liberated and not be in self doubt like Bob. The case was insightful in the fact that the characters were very close to those encountered in real life by all the participants. Only too often we find people who are very competent on the technical side but completely lack the ability to lead. This is especially true when the person is also a little absent minded or even arrogant, which brings us to the reading about competent jerks and lovable fools. It is true that sometimes a competent jerk like Elliot Haywood can cause undue disruptions in the functioning of an organisation. I had an experience of a similar kind though the ill-effects were mitigated by the fact that the organisation itself was a highly structured one. A group was created to accomplish a special project. It was led by an individual (KS) who was a seasoned leader but lacked knowledge about the task at hand. One of the other members (TJ) was lower in the hierarchy of the organisation, but was highly trained, one of the most competent and experienced in projects of similar nature. The division of responsibilities was clear but the team leader KS tended to thrust his job, like giving progress reports and presentations on TJ, doubting himself. Gradually this created a lot of resentment in TJ. KS also seemed to have a mental block towards learning the new job and thought that his appointment was just a stop-gap arrangement so was not very interested. This increased the animosity between him and TJ to the extent that there would be constant bickering and complaining of each other to the higher authorities. Due to the stress KS also started faltering in some other daily or routine duties required from all personnel at his level. Some disciplinary action was taken against KS and both of them were warned to do their duties with seriousness and interest. The leader had to be counselled to increase the level of involvement with the project and TJ had to be told to duly follow the orders of KS. The problem was easily controlled though not fully solved, given the nature of the organisation. This emphasises the point made in the reading about the logic of avoiding competent jerks. Unless their impact on the team is handled by an able and competent leader they tend to negatively impact the teams performance, which may be a much greater loss than the incremental individual contribution they make.

With this I come to the most important learning from the case, which is from the role of Dr. Katherine. This was also the role I could most identify with. As a leader it is very important to be sensitive to interpersonal relationships within subordinates. It is important to be alert in the event of changes, such as the impositions of Elliot on Bobs team. Katherine should have tried to actually hear what Bob had to say and also kept him up to speed with her plans for Elliot. This would have been a good way to keep Bob engaged and free from insecurities. Another point here, which was clearer from the movie, was that Katherine always focussed on the goals and performance and not so much on the human side of things. In a way this case also busts the reverse gender bias that women are more sensitive than men and possess better soft skills as leaders. The re-introduction of the Technical, leadership and conceptual skills framework showing their relative importance as one goes up the hierarchy of the organisation helped clarify the basic concepts of the case. A key take away would also be to train the likes of Bon Knowlton to engage and get the most out of competent jerks like Elliot. It would indeed be a useful skill to possess. The game Broken Squares also threw some interesting insights about interpersonal sensitivity. First, the importance of listening covered in one of the courses previously was again brought to my notice. The team I was observing never really got the rules right. Nor did they get the objective of the game. After constantly telling them to play correctly I had to give up. They took pieces from others repeatedly, engaged in non-verbal communication every now and then, and created a common pool of pieces, to name a few. During the game two of the players completed their squares and remained mute spectators thereafter. One of the players was not able to make a square even though he had the required pieces. Another member was very sensitive and cooperative. He had also made a square but broke it in order to help others. A different member seeing that other two were getting stuck, basically started making all the square himself. When the time was over, he had made three squares himself and again breaking the rules the other two players had transferred their last pieces to him. But on the positive side this group did display some level of coordination. Some members were helping others out and they did manage to make a total of five squares. It is important to be clear about the ground rules before we play the game. Also when we are supposed to help others it may not be best to do their entire task by ourselves. We should just enable them and be a little patient for them to figure out the right way themselves.

Topic 3- Leadership and Change

This class was very pertinent to most of the participants as the case discussed involved IT. Even those participants not working in IT have every now and then undergone an IT related change initiative in the last decade and a half. The problems brought out in the case clearly bring out the predicament faced by a typical organisation implementing such an initiative. The reading talks about the change agent as an IT facilitator on one hand and as an IT advocate on the other. The need to make all those impacted by and implementing this change to buy-in is the biggest challenge. Goal incongruence is typical when implementing such change. Here the main users, that is, the sales people did not want to share their contacts as it would make them redundant. But had they been taken into confidence beforehand and explained the benefits of implementing this initiative, the story would have been different. I had heard a similar story from a friend about the implementation of an accounting ERP package in a company, where the accounts head was an old timer, and could not accept the fact that the software would keep a track of any corrections and changes made. Hence he refused to enter data real-time, defeating the whole purpose of the package. Clearly, there is no substitute to engaging the users before implementing such change initiatives. The framework representing assumptions, values and behaviour as concentric circles showed how there is a huge impact on behaviour given a minor correction in assumptions. This was also brought out in a case in the Communications class where the writer made different assumptions than was the case and was aggrieved by the behaviour of the recipients of the communications, where as all that was required was to set the assumptions right. Correctly understanding the assumptions made and aligning them to the values will result in the desired behaviour, provided the communication is proper. The ability to make correct assumptions and correct course in case of mistakes, before a whole lot of damage is done should indeed be the mark of a good leader. The reading on the five Ps of change completes the repertoire of theoretical tools and frameworks required to appreciate the role of a leader in change management. This knowledge can be expected to be used again and again in our future careers as managers and leaders.