Leadership

The Reflections - Leadership

Is it safe to assume that your boss will always be interested in improving your
expertise and competency? Is it safe to assume that your boss will always benefit
from improvement in your expertise and competency?
According to the Vrooms model for selecting the most appropriate decision
making process, there are only two paths which lead to delegating. Out of these two
paths, there are some parameters which can very well be changed / improved by
deliberate actions of the leader. Those parameters are leaders expertise, teams
competence, groups expertise & groups support. Other parameters are generally
given to the leader as a characteristic of the situation in hand for which the leader
has little control over.
A leader wouldnt have grown to his/her position unless his/her expertise in
that particular area of operation is proven. Thus it is safe to assume that the leader
wouldnt be exposed to the dilemma of taking decisions of significance where he
lacks expertise unless hes snatching the decision making responsibility from
someone else. Similarly teams competence and groups expertise can be improved
by the team leader if he wishes to do so. However in a big organization, gaining
groups support to the companys objective at stake is difficult task for the leader.
Groups support to the companys objective at stake depends on how well the
performance evaluation system of the organization goes hand in hand with achieving
this particular objective in hand. If the groups support is becoming a major
bottleneck in deciding about the possibility of delegation repeatedly, then the leader
may plead the top management to change the performance appraisal system.
In case the organization does not offer avenues for the leader to explore new
opportunities of growth within the organization in terms of higher responsibilities then
it is always better not to delegate. Because in such situations, the leader will become
redundant/obsolete as soon as the team members effectively starts handling the
delegated tasks. I wonder whether in such situations, an intelligent and shrewd
leader would be interested in improving the competency levels of his/her
subordinates. The leader can project to the top management that he/she cannot
delegate due to lack of expertise/competence of his/her subordinates. He/she can
use this logic for rationalizing his dislike for training / coaching the subordinate. Are
we really aware of such pitfalls?
Ethical dilemma Where is the boundary of the universe
Having been brought up in an environment which places a lot of importance to
charity and kindness to the underprivileged, I used to spend time, mostly during long
journeys, contemplating about the rightness / wrongness of being kind. Being a
Christian, charity and kindness had been at the centre stage of our religious set up.
Yet we face difficulty in deciding whether to help somebody whos helpless and if we
have to help then to what extent we should help.
On almost all Sundays when we go to the church, the churchs Father used to
emphasise on the importance of helping the needy and down trodden. In fact J esus
himself has given the guideline that those who have more than one set of clothes
should donate all but one sets of cloths to the needy. Due to the impracticality of
these preaching we often used to assume that those are meant for preaching but not
for practicing.
One argument which goes against charity is that of limited resources and
survival of fittest. We dont have enough resources on earth to satisfy everyones
basic needs. Hence we are supposed to fight with each other for winning a pie from
the available limited resources. In such a fight those who have a natural competitive
advantage shall win. Those who will shall survive and others shall perish. Thus only
those who are able to adapt most shall survive. This helps in the survival of a
species as a whole. This is a rule which our mother nature has opted for prolonging
the existence of each species. So it is natural to have rich and poor.
With the onset of civilizations there are certain rules / norms which have
become acceptable to everyone. These rules / norms are put forth or come into
being for the long term survival of the society. Unbalances or inherent injustice in
these rules creates the divide between rich and poor to some extent. One such rule
was the rules related to the feudal system existed in India where only elite few are
entitled to own land and others are supposed to lease the land for a hefty amount
and cultivate. Also there was caste system where an individuals occupation is
decided by the caste to which he belongs to. If somebody gains / losses access to
the limited resources due to such rules / norms then it cannot be considered as a
natural selection process.
Sociological factor also plays a role in arriving at a decision to help somebody.
An individual is the building block of a family and families are building blocks of
society. When we have to choose between a close friend and a family member as a
recipient of our help, then it is more likely that we choose to help the family member
rather than a close friend. The reason is that all human beings have an urge to
protect its genes. We always will try to pass on our genes to the future. A family
member carries more genes of us than an unrelated close friend.
All those dilemmas can be put to rest if we conclude that the limit of charity is
the one up to which our mind will not be restless and shall be peaceful. That was a
revelation. But then in that case is it appropriate to train ourselves to be insensitive to
the needy that will also help us to be calm and remain peaceful when encountered
with such dilemmas. It seems like this puzzle is similar to that of find out the end of
universe. There is always an unanswered question What lies beyond the
boundary?
Emotions
Every conversation between two individual and a group of individual can be
considered as negotiation. The only phenomenon which cannot be considered as
negotiation is violence which also includes silence. The success of any negotiation
depends on how effectively one builds and nurtures the relationship throughout the
negotiation process. Understanding and managing both partys emotions is the key
to relationship building. We had some vague idea about the importance of emotions.
But it was not so clear to us that the art of emotions is a vast ocean.
A major event in Indian politics which I remember was the assassination of
the then prime minister of India, Rajiv Gandhi and the following funeral ceremony.
While watching the funeral in TV, the elders in our family commented how
courageous was Sonia Gandhi, referring to the way she looked during the funeral
stubborn. Those were the seeds planted in my mind about ignoring strong emotions.
It was only their ability to hide their feelings and emotions from public.
Beliefs divide us and emotions unite us. When we are asked to make a
presentation to an unknown audience, it is too difficult to predict the behaviour of the
audience and to think from the perspective of the audience. Thinking from the
perspective of the audience is essential for fulfilling the purpose of the presentations.
I have seen expert presenters crack a joke initially during such presentations. I
wonder whether those are an effort to unite the audience by invoking a common
emotion in their minds so that from there on the presenter can take control of the
mind of the audience. Audience also feel connected to the presenter.
A similar pattern can be noticed in speeches of distinguished orators. Adolf
Hitler unified the whole of Germany to buy in his ideology of Aryan supremacy by
evoking a feeling of patriotism. I dont know whether it is right to assume that a
successful political leader is the one who has mastered this skill of unifying the fellow
citizen by evoking a common emotion. Sometimes that emotion may be hatred to
something which is done by the opposite party or sometimes fear of an imminent
attack by a foreign enemy or terrorists. Perhaps I should go back to our old history
text books to find out some more instances.
Leadership
The course started with two exercises, the first one was transporting marbles
to a bowl and the other was about forming a square around rope while blindfolded.
Both these activities were different both in terms of skills required and constraints
imposed. The exercises were used to illustrate the difference between adaptive
management leadership and technical management leadership. However these
exercises reminded us of the organization behaviour course which we had during the
previous contact class. During that course also we had an exercise to illustrate the
difference between exploratory and exploitery activities.
In case of transportation of marbles, the activities until the first marble is
safely put in the bowl can be considered as exploratory activity. The skills required
for doing so is unknown until the first marble is safely placed. It is then followed by
exploitery activities which try to improve the efficiency and speed at which the marble
is transported. In contrast to this, the blind folded exercise is as a whole exploratory
activity without even a minor hue of exploitation.
It is very difficult to identify a situation in which some kind of leadership shown
by somebody in adaptive management situations in our professional life. I feel like
this kind of leadership goes unnoticed by others. Another reason for this could also
be that being an EPC company, we do not get exposed to uncertain things very
often. I would have loved to know something more about how to detect those who
are skilled in such leadership. Leadership, altogether, has a different dimension in
such adaptive management situations. Leaders are not made, but they emerge.