Leadership in My Perspective
“A good objective of leadership is to help those who are doing poorly to do well and to help those who are doing well to do even better.”
I believe that being a leader is different with being a boss. Someone who bosses you around use their intimidating power and intellect to make you stay below them. However, being a leader means working on how to perceive value and potential in one then help those who can’t do well to perform well. To put it simply, good leadership means nurturing and help others to become a better version of themselves.
We live in a 21st century which means we think differently with people on 19th or 18th century. All these sophisticated technology helped us re-shape our perspective, moreover the higher consciousness on how to treat others as equal and fair. We no longer obey the dictatorship or too strict value without purpose. We are all growing into a more critical human which usually questions what is our purpose to live in this world? And what can we give to others while we are fulfilling our duty as a flawed human.
I may not experienced enough to see much leadership style but I set my own standard. From several people who had led me, I can pick few which I respect as my leader because they truly posses the leadership criteria in my head. I wrote this because I was triggered by my conversation with my fellow colleague. And we do agree that our current boss doesn’t posses the leadership criteria that me and this colleague determined in our head. Probably the company has their own criteria, so this boss was getting the promotion he wanted for years.
Me and fellow colleague agree that in the level of BoD-1 (Vice President) all it needs is to think strategically since they will heavily involved in decision making. BoD-1 is also required to possess excellent networking skill, comprehensive and contextual understanding, as well as the ability to delegate task fairly to their subordinates. Which in our perspective, our current boss doesn’t posses such quality compared to the previous leader. I had seen and even experienced micromanage leadership. This isn’t healthy for the working environment since the entry level staff had limited opportunity to grow from their mistakes. What does it mean to work hard if your boss doesn’t even use your work right? If the outcome was wrong or mistaken, give feedback and correction. Do not just do it your own way.
Especially when it comes to the details, it is good to have eyes keen of detail. However, BoD-1 doesn’t necessarily need to observe the details as much as their subordinates could do. Then what does it mean to have the Assistant Vice President to check the entry level staff’s submitted assignment if the BoD-1 spent too much time to correct the mistake one by one? This may result in the delay of strategic decision making and led to unreliable outcome later on.
According to Northeastern.edu, a good leader owns a great vision including to capture the big picture of strategising and analysing their goals. This trait also enriched by the fact that they are a good and effective listener who is open to suggestion and ideas. They will strive to develop others and give more chance for others to learn. One does not simply be a good listener, especially in a heated debate forum. One might already had their own preliminary thoughts before others started to speak and one might just go straight with their own thoughts without even considering the arguments of others. And being a bad listener is surely not a quality we are going to look for in a leader.
Task delegation might also become another hurdles to be a good leader. It is not easy to entrust someone else doing a project from end-to-end. We might find others’ work does not even meet up the bar set by the leader. But that’s what it means to be a leader. We supervise, not re-do, the results of the assignment then evaluate and give proper feedback for others to raise the standard. Having said harsh words like “I need too much time to overlook your submitted assignment.” or “I don’t need you to just copy and paste the template.” weren’t the wise word to say to the subordinates. While there are other leader who can deliver the complaints by saying thanks and giving the appreciation towards the effort the subordinates had done first before asking for a revamp.
It is not hard to say thanks and please. Even it is to your subordinate. What’s there to protect? The pride of being a boss?
Aside of having the amount of respect and integrity, as a leader it is also required the ability to translate the task not just merely ask the entry level staff to do what the Directors wanted. My colleague stated that you don’t need to be knowledgeable but all you need is to trust your knowledgeable employee to do the work and you summarise everything comprehensively in strategic manner to be a leader. To be a leader, it is also required to have a strong believe and stance, not easily-shaken principles especially by the higher ups. What does it mean to be a leader if we cannot stand our own ground, instead we push the staff just to make us look good in front of the Directors? Again, that’s surely not a quality of a good leader.
The quality of a good leader can be seen from how they treat their subordinates. Betterup.com explained that a good leadership had their own style, yes, however they mostly able to interact and give comfort to their employees. Good leader possesses exceptional communication skill and empathy, this also helped them to be the inspirational person their employees will look up into. And I totally agree that a good leader is a good role model. Who wanted to work under fear and under appreciated environment? I guess, nobody.
