If you have watched The House of Cards (A series on Netfix), you are not new the word ruthless. Being a true leader needs you to be ruthless, ruthlessness to the core in focusing what you want to achieve.
Frank Underwood might be a wrong illustration for depicting this quality in a leader, but surely there are few things we can learn from him – Unmatched devotion to his vision. The vision of being at the center of Power.
All of us love having the power, be it at home, office or in the society. Power gives a sense of satisfaction and ability to shape our surroundings the way we wish to. According to the dictionary, the word ruthless means – showing no pity. This can be read in different ways and all we need to understand is how we can build this quality in us in a positive way.
Building the quality of ruthlessness requires us to work on developing ourselves in various contexts. First, we need to understand the work what we do, second, we need to have a complete understanding of the environment we live in, third, the most important of all, we need to have a very good clarity of what we wish to achieve.
If you look at how FU (these are the alphabets on his cufflinks) operates, he has a complete and deep understanding of how the political parties work and operate. He exactly knows whom he needs to approach for a certain task and how to get through their mind to get his work done. This plays a very important role in building your strength.
While trying to understand the environment we live in, it requires a deep understanding of the work we deliver and how we deliver. This gives the sense of confidence and also allows us to think of various options to get things done identifying the most optimal path.
The third point is where we all get lost and confused. We need to have absolute clarity of what our end goal is, be it power, money, satisfaction or sense of accomplishment. What ever it is, we need to be very clear as to where to get to. Else, the journey is about confusion and chaos. If you look at any successful leader around us, you can clearly identify the clarity in their mind, if you spend some time understanding what they do and how they do.
It is ok to have confusion, most of us cannot identify what we want until we really spend some time in understanding what our strength is. So, as you traverse along, identify where your strength lies, understand the work and environment and be sure to build the right character to reach your goal.
Be ruthless in the right way, and you will reach your destination.
There are 7 kinds of leadership styles and we went into the details of each one in my last post.
The next question is what kind of leadership style should I adopt in which scenario?
Even though there is no set rules for any company to follow a certain leadership style, here is how from a big picture stand point can you identify when you can change your leadership style.
Well, am sure you have questions by now and wanting to debate or discuss as to why I proposed the way I am proposing. There are various other ways you can categorise, but this is a basic though on how to start identifying where you as an Entrepreneur or Leader is wanting to take your company.
Leadership styles can change when you are a one person company, with 10 employees, 100 or 1000 or 10000 or even 100000. Companies evolve over a period of time and what are you trying to achieve.
For instance, you can start a Pharma research company where you focus on finding better medications. When you start, you have a small team and you want to bring out the best in each one, that’s when you adopt to Democratic style and over the period of time, combine with Transformational and Coaching as the company grows.
You can be a one hotel establishment and you can adopt to an Autocratic style, but as time goes and you expand your operations, you will need to adopt to Laissez-Faire, Transactional and Servant styles. Why? Because it is important to go hands off when you have put the right people in the right place and also you will need to focus on enhancing your business and your service levels. e
You can be a technology company and you might be a handful of people when you start. But as a founder, you will need to be as thorough as possible to build the best product. You start with a combination of Democratic and Transformational styles. It is very important because you already have the right set of people in the right places. You will need to give the confidence to your team that you know what you want and also be open to listen to them because they come with a certain set of skills. Over the period of time, you will have to adopt to Transformation style because as the company is growing, it requires you to start thinking ahead on how to build and enhance your product offering. It’s a continuous cycle.
Services
Typically, service companies focus on providing end user service. When a person starts this kind of company, they already have in mind what kind of service levels you need to achieve. You start with a Democratic style and mature into transactional style to ensure you reward the people who are achieving their goals and providing you with the results. However, as the company grows, they should also consider adopting Transformational leadership style.
Product Companies / Manufacturing
Can be soft (Technology) or hard products (Water bottle to a car). These companies are designing, developing and bringing out products which can add vale to the user. To begin with founders of Product companies can follow Autocratic style, but set the milestones to migrate to Democratic or Servant styles based on the future of the organisation. As the company grows, the founders should identify appropriate teams to adopt to Transformational and Coaching styles.
Manufacturing is a very clear set. Companies manufacture a product and focus on increasing sales. At a ground level, it will be Autocratic and Transactional style because tasks are clearly set and employees are rewarded for achieving them.
As the sales increase and production increases, at the mid and higher levels, organisations can adopt to Transformational, Democratic or coaching style.
NGO
NGO’s focus on providing services to uplift the quality of life (in which ever way). They work with funds and also need to manager people to help execute ideas, come out with innovative projects to create the impact and measure the outcomes.
NGO’s need to adopt Transformational style leadership and over a period of time focus on inculcating Coaching style for the maximum impact.
Let us be honest, NGO’s (quite a few) work with limited budgets and do not have excess funds to hire the best. Hence, they compromise (not on quality, but on skills or domain understanding). For this, transactional model does not work and hence Coaching style needs to be adopted. It becomes the key to a successful outcome.
Government
I am not talking about politics here, but any Government (especially in Democratic Countries) focus’s on providing governance to people – taking care of amenities for living – Roads, Lighting, Water, Schools etc.
In any country, governance starts at the lowest body which handles a population of 1000 – 5000 (depending on the population density). In India, for instance, the ground level governance happens at the Panchayat level. At this level, citizens elect the leader of the Panchayat board. Since the number of people he or she would represent is in hundreds or maximum few thoughts, the understanding of ground level problems is important and also should be able to bridge the communication from the Government to the citizens also should be managed. This should be a combination of Autocratic and Democratic leadership styles.
At the next level, it should be transformational and Democratic.
At the state level, it should be a combination of Transformational and Servant stles. Why? Because the local and District levels are already adopting Democratic, Transformational and Autocratic (bringing the State or Country level policies to the ground level).
At the country level, it should definitely be Transformational, Coaching and Democratic style.
Closing notes
These are just my thoughts based on the outcomes I see for any organisation. There is no set formulae to follow. It totally depends on what the outcomes the organisation is looking for and what is the impact they wish to create.
Being an entrepreneur is not just about finding the right idea. Once you have the idea, developing yourself as a Leader becomes very important. You have read about many entrepreneurs being pushed away from the CEO role to a lesser role because they could not fit the investors bill or the company is unable to grow. Along with building your product or service, you should develop yourself and I highly recommend you getting yourself a Leadership Coach. All CEO’s have coach’s (might not be public information, but they do). Today, many companies are also bringing in coach’s to help mould their next level leaders.
Kinds of Leadership Styles
Autocratic
The most common leadership you will see around you. Leader feels he knows everything and anything and he does not believe in getting support or hearing to people around him.
Laissez-Faire
A leader who is hands-off. Does not provide the required coaching to his team and is predominantly hands-off which gives him time to focus on other things. However, when things don’t work, thats when problems arise.
This leadership style is suited when you have people with the right skills in responsible positions.
Democratic
A combination of Autocratic and Laissez-Faire styles. These leaders work with their teams and have a 2 way communication with respect to the functioning.
An efficient leadership style, provided the right people are in the right positions.
Transactional
As the name says, its transactional. These leaders reward people who perform or be a “Yes Boss” kind. If its the first, then its good, people who are worthy of the reward are rewarded and hence business flourishes. But if its the latter, then it’s a concern, because wrong people get rewarded thus demoralising the efficient ones.
Transformational
A transformation leaders consistently improve himself and also pushes his team and employees to push themselves. This is a very good approach, but at times employees might feel over burdened and performance gets effected.
Servant Style
A Servant style leader focus’s on helping his employees achieve their goals. This is time taking and might burn out the leader to think strategically.
Coaching
One of the best styles of leadership. The Leader identifies the key strengths and weaknesses of his team or employees and works with them to bring out the best in them thereby ensuring the success of the business.
If you have watched The House of Cards, you are not new the word ruthless. Being a true leader needs you to be ruthless, ruthlessness to the core in focusing what you want to achieve.
Frank Underwood might be a wrong illustration for depicting this quality in a leader, but surely there are few things we can learn from him – Unmatched devotion to his vision. The vision of being at the center of Power.
All of us love having the power, be it at home, office or in the society. Power gives a sense of satisfaction and ability to shape our surroundings the way we wish to. According to the dictionary, the word ruthless means – showing no pity. This can be read in different ways and all we need to understand is how we can build this quality in us in a positive way.
Building the quality of ruthlessness requires us to work on developing ourselves in various contexts. First, we need to understand the work what we do, second, we need to have a complete understanding of the environment we live in, third, the most important of all, we need to have a very good clarity of what we wish to achieve.
If you look at how FU (these are the alphabets on his cufflinks) operates, he has a complete and deep understanding of how the political parties work and operate. He exactly knows whom he needs to approach for a certain task and how to get through their mind to get his work done. This plays a very important role in building your strength.
While trying to understand the environment we live in, it requires a deep understanding of the work we deliver and how we deliver. This gives the sense of confidence and also allows us to think of various options to get things done identifying the most optimal path.
The third point is where we all get lost and confused. We need to have absolute clarity of what our end goal is, be it power, money, satisfaction or sense of accomplishment. What ever it is, we need to be very clear as to where to get to. Else, the journey is about confusion and chaos. If you look at any successful leader around us, you can clearly identify the clarity in their mind, if you spend some time understanding what they do and how they do.
It is ok to have confusion, most of us cannot identify what we want until we really spend some time in understanding what our strength is. So, as you traverse along, identify where your strength lies, understand the work and environment and be sure to build the right character to reach your goal.
Be ruthless in the right way, and you will reach your destination.
Quite often when we speak with our family, friends and colleagues, we hear “Don’t get so emotional” or “Don’t be emotional”.
What is being emotional?
If you search for emotional on google, this is the first result you will get.
adjective
adjective: emotional
1. relating to a person’s emotions.
“gaining emotional support from relatives”
synonyms:
spiritual, inner, psychic, psychological, of the heart
“their emotional needs are often ignored”
antonyms:
material
2. arousing or characterized by intense feeling.
“an emotional speech”
synonyms:
poignant, moving, touching, affecting, powerful, stirring, emotive, heart-rending, heartbreaking, heart-warming, soul-stirring, uplifting, impassioned, dramatic; More
antonyms:
dry, unfeeling, emotionless
3. (of a person) having feelings that are easily excited and openly displayed.
“he was a strongly emotional young man”
synonyms:
passionate, feeling, hot-blooded, warm, ardent, fervent, excitable, temperamental, melodramatic, tempestuous, overcharged, responsive; More
antonyms:
apathetic, cold
Look at the meaning of the word. In all the three meanings, you will see that emotions display your passion, compassion, your inner feeling. Of course, there are other meanings to the word which do not showcase the positivity, like melodramatic, temperamental etc.
I have heard this term quite a few times in my life. Every time I heard this word, it was not sounding right for me. Then, I started researching more on this word.
* Being emotional is a very good trait. However, one should understand the context of the situation where emotions are being displayed. For instance, road rage is an attribute of being emotional, showing your inner feelings of anger and frustration. This is not a positive attribute.
* Visionaries and Leaders are definitely passionate and emotional about what they do and what they believe in. This is a positive attribute.
Now, whenever I hear someone saying that I am being emotional, I take a step back and draw a mental picture of why the person said that and what attribute am I displaying. If it is regarding what I do, what I believe in and what I stand for, then I completely ignore the feedback. This feedback is coming because the other person does not share my passion and he/she is only trying to subdue my conversation by saying this. There is no point in continuing the conversation with the person. I walk away in silence.
The second instance is where we let our ego play. Even though our gut says that we are going wrong somewhere, we try to support ourselves in what we say.
All leaders who have shaped the world have displayed public emotions – From Mahatma Gandhi to Rabindranath Tagore to Steve Jobs to Sir Richard Branson to Bill Gates and the list only continues.
Being emotional is a very strong attribute of being a true leader. However, balancing the act between positive (which comes passion) and negative (which comes with ego) emotions strengthens the personality of the leader.
Recently, I tweeted “if you want to become a Billionaire, help others become Millionaires”. Over the days I started thinking about it a little more seriously.
In true sense, it translates to “to become successful, help others become successful”.
Is this tough? Not all all. What we need to change is our thought process. In traditional thinking, why should I help anyone? First let me get there and then I will help them. True.
But a little more thinking into it will answer the question. Instead of focusing on ‘getting there’ and then helping others, why don’t we go there ‘together’? This very thought will change the complete picture.
Successful people are inclusive. When you include people around you, they will stand by you and help you get to your destination even if there are roadblocks.
The new time someone starting something, give them a helping hand and help them become successful; in return you have become successful.
FIFA World Cup 2010 has just concluded and if you have been following the games, I am sure you have learned a lesson or two. My favorite team has been Spain since the beginning seeing their performance in the last 2-3 years. Most of my friends laughed at me and just wrote me down. Spain lost their first match and opinions became stronger. Well, I was confident of Spain since the day one and it actually became stronger after they lost their first game.
As I followed the games, I understood that this time it is going to be a different one. As expected, all “favorites” were out in either the league or Super 16’s. One team which has stood out was the Spain and there are definitely lessons to be learned from them. Here are the top 6 Leadership Lessons I learned:
Persistent – Even though they lost their first match, it is their Determination to win what mattered. The only thing which they concentrated was the game. Who ever the opponent is, the game came from the heart.
This is exactly what is needed from a Leader. No matter what the situation is, who the opponent is and what the game is, you need to have the determination to handle the game. Winning and Loosing are two sides of the game and there is nothing like he/she is stronger than me, more educated than me, have more experience than me.. These are all reasons we give ourselves. The fear of loss in us becomes the strength to the opponent and this is what takes the game away. You need to be confident of yourself and play it with your heart and no matter what, success is yours.
Consistent – Consistency comes from the mind. The Determination to always excel is what makes you a winner. Failure is the stepping stone to success, and if you close your mind thinking that the game is over, it is long over. Consistency is a must quality in each of us to make the difference and this does not come in a day, it is a constant practice. Also, when you are being consistent, you do not change the rules of the game, but you change the way you play. Just imagine if Gandhiji stopped his ‘Non-Violence’ strategy because he is not able to move forward? Would we have got Independence? He kept to the rules of the game, but kept on sharpening his playing skills which ultimately achieved what has to be achieved. From the beginning the Spanish kept to their cool side and only concentrated on being the wall to the opponent. They used every opportunity to hit a goal.
n FAILURE = 1 SUCCESS – It does not matter how many times you loose, but it matters if you have won the crucial game or not. In real life, no one wins everyday, but just because of that, if you stop practicing being consistent and determined and kept on changing your strategy, you will NEVER win. Only when you fail many times will you know how to be successful. Do you think it was any different with the Spain matches?
Goal! – You should DEFINE and quantify what you want to achieve and this is the key to success. But, this does not mean you bend the rules to reach your goal. In movies, we see always the Villan bends rules to become the winner, but the Hero always plays the game following the rules, and who wins? Even though movies are fictitious, the fiction comes from real life. The Spanish always got their goals (remember, they hold a record this year for scoring the least number of goals and still winning what matters) when they wanted to. They has to work hard for it, but when you are just determined to get it, you know you would get it.
TEAM WORK – Last but not the least, its all in the Team. Team should stick to their roles and live up to play the best of their capacity all the time. If one starts thinking that I am superior than the other, that’s it, the game is all over. Each one in the Spanish team came from different parts of the country but played together for one club until they achieved what they want. It’s all in the TEAM and there is never an Individual Winner, also will never be.
Play the way, the Game needs to be Played – You are playing a very truthful and committed game, but opponents are not always the same. You do not run away from a mosquito, but you do run when you see a Tiger. Why? In the last two games which mattered, the Spanish played the way the opponent was playing. With Germany, there were no fouls at all, but with the Dutch, the match holds a record for the maximum number of cards. However, one key aspect here one needs to remember, this should not deviate from the way the game needs to be played. You mend your game and not the rules!
Stay Cool – ALWAYS: If you noticed the games played, Coach played an important role and the one thing you notice is that he has always been cool. No game can be played in tension and no game can be won with a disturbed mind.
The most important aspect of Leadership is keeping yourself Cool and Lite, else every decision you take turns out to be a disaster.
