Leadership: Influence… how? Part 2.5

People who cannot pull back their egos, thus allowing them to run amok, create a unpleasant taste for relationships. Leaders embody the trait that allow others to want to build a relationship with them, because they have consistently been about others, not themselves.

This trait of being selflessness is not about putting yourself down, but appropriately learning to understand others, while noting your own strengths. It is not about your own agenda, but how everyone’s agenda can be connected for the good of the team/group.

This trait does cross links with humility… so read there too.

Thus, ends my thoughts on leadership… at least for a time.

Leadership: Influence… how? Part 4

This is part 4 of the Leadership ideas I’ve been having and have read.

A leader is easily recognized when he takes the initiative to do what is right, or to do what is acceptable yet outside of acceptable, it becomes extraordinary. Naturally, you could immediately see that trends are started by leaders, even evil trends, like ethnic cleansing and drug taking.

What it is noticeable is that leaders take the initiative. They are hardly motivated by the externals, but more so by their own internal drive. What this means is that people perceive leaders to have a drive that is not a fad, but the real thing, a real vision that will sustain him/her throughout the duration of achieving what he has set out to achieve.

The motivation cannot be external, because the team/receivers of the inspiration might begin to be skeptical and start to be killjoys. How does a leader deal with this? He either quits, which tells us his motivation is external, or he ditches the naysayers and pushes on (indicating that there is an internal drive).

When motivation is external, the leader can become complacent upon achieving certain success. So again, the track record of a real leader is something worth taking note of.

To make it practical, a real leader is someone people recognize that is trustworthy, takes the initiative to make something work, to push for changes, and is and has been relatively consistent with what he is talking and doing.

Leadership: Influence… how? Part 3

The third trait of a leader that inspires and allows their influence to get to the masses is, the love for pressure. The saying goes, “When the going gets tough, the tough gets going.”

There are two kinds of people in the world, the ones who takes sees the challenge and hopes it does not befall them, and the ones who see the challenge and takes on it. Unfortunately, in my home culture, we call the latter group of people, the ‘extras’, the ‘wannabes’, but deep down, if we can get past ourselves, we truly admire these adversity-challengers, these bull-fighters.

It takes that certain courage, that certain kind of focus to get past the worries and just dive into the problem and work it out. Not many have this, and this is what makes leadership scarce.

We could also say that it takes a certain amount of foolishness to take on the crunch time situation. And we are, many times, secretly hoping that the person would fail. However, again, it is not about winning or succeeding then, but the courage. We must focus on the process (as well as the outcome, even though we tend to put too much emphasis on the outcome). Of course, it would be unfortunate when one fails to do the job, but usually with the courage and tenacity and the mind of a true leader is able to gauge and take on what he is able to handle and then more.

Leadership: Influence… how? Part 2

Still on the topic of what a leader would look like in a group of people, we have the second trait: Humility. In a world where the loudest person is the one who gets heard, humility is a difficult virtue to cultivate.  Many times we want to be the best in the class or in the work place etc. This makes cultivation of humility difficult. In fact, this type of thinking, which I call it the Law of Comparison, is diametrically opposite what humility would embody.

The Law of Comparison tends to skew us towards comparing ourselves with others. The problem with this sort of thinking is that everyone is unique, and comparisons cannot be accurately done. It is like comparing oranges with apples, it just does not make sense. When this sort of comparison is done, negative competitiveness comes into the play, which leads to competing against each other for attention/honour/performance bonuses/recognition/whatever, which in turn can create the hostile environment.

Humility, on the other hand, allows you to be the improving human. It is the “understanding that I’m not always the best, and that another person on any given day can win,” says Wade Rowatt, a social psychologist at Baylor University. And, this tends to foster the Law of Comparison in relation to self. That is to say, you would be comparing yourself today and yesterday, or today and 3 years ago, to see if improvements have been made for yourself.

Other than that, humility will and can foster a basic respect for everyone, and that would include your enemies/competitors/siblings/spouse (if you see your spouse as an adversary). When you do not see yourself as someone who will always win, you would see yourself as someone who is as good as everyone else. You do not see yourself as someone a cut above the rest and therefore deserve special treatment. Rather you see yourself as a special part of the machinery (like the liver in the body, or the lungs uniquely different but others but as important), and that everyone HAS to work together for the betterment of the goal.

A person who feels he/she deserves special treatment never inspires greatness. A person who feels he/she is special, like everyone else… tends to respect others, which becomes inspiring.

Leadership: Influence… how? Part 1

Accordingly, leadership is said to be the power to influence others. Of course, leaders influence others to achieve their goals. We also hope that these leaders have goals that benefit everyone.

The word “influence” becomes key on what leadership is. I observed a group of friends, and while a few seem to want to be the ‘leader’ or ‘head honcho’ of the group, I realized that the real leader was the one whose views were heard and carefully considered… which then led to the group action.

This then let me to thinking… how is someone a leader? What allows him/her to become one? Are there certain traits or values? While reflecting on this, I read an interesting article which list down a few traits that made sense to me.

The first being, the person’s work ethic: If you are seen as someone who is constantly working to improve, not in a hey-look-at-me-as-I-improve way, but more of the well-just-doing-my-best-where-I-am attitude. Then you are probably one step to getting closer to being seen and heard as a leader. The focus isn’t really about how good you are or have been, but it is the focus on getting better, inherently encourages everyone else to move with you.

It is about being a continuous learner, willing to learn and improve. Anyway, enough said. The next post will detail other traits.

no sleep and camping

There is a time when I will be like a zombie, but a wise-cracking one, due to the lack of sleep.

Nevertheless, I shall try to maintain some form of dignity…

transiting beyond myself

It is a difficult transition.

Here I think I am ready to love someone for the rest of my life, but the rubber meets the road, fears emerge in the form of questions:

What if I am not capable? Can I trust myself with someone else? Will I fail? How do I care for someone else day in day out when all I have had was just to care for myself? Can I transit to be less self-centred? To become more other-centred? What if I hurt her? What if I am hurt? Who is going to protect me?

As I contemplate, I know that I have a community of close friends  who will help check me, hold me accountable for my actions.  This same group of people will assist me with if I need help. It is reassuring.

Here I go into transiting.

the barbarian way

A friend recommended me a book that recounts how the author sees his life as it contrasts with social norms and uniformity.

Honest from the heart, this book grips me by the gut and really tells me that I can be more than who I think I am. In fact, I can be fully who God has created me to be. And it seems that this book really pinpoints my problem: Fear. Fear of this and that.

“You are controlled by what you fear”

If I fear losing relationships, then relationships control me, I will do everything in my power to control people, so that I would not lose the relationships. But the downside of this logic is that controlling people makes me LOSE relationships.

If I fear being poor, then people can use my fear against me, to make me shift from my own values. Basically, I would choose money over integrity.

The solution? Only the One. God, Whom is Love, I will choose to fear. Because God, Who is Love, would not control me, but guide me into achieving all that He wants me to achieve.

Cynics and skeptics out there, I don’t expect you to understand, because it sounds insane. Precisely.

Back

An interesting artiste which I started listening to. His name is Beck. I love Jeff Beck, but Beck is a much younger guy.

When I first heard Beck, I thought he was a quirky younger and modern version of Bob Dylan. With acoustic guitar and harmonica and interesting lyrics, Odelay’s country/bluegrass type music really peaked my interest.

But I never really bought into Beck’s music until I heard Midnite Vultures. I really liked the disco-esque sounds from that album. I found Mutations a bit slow and droning, but surprisingly Sea Change is something much for me to enjoy.

Will be listening to Sea Change for a while.

Chipping off the same block

They say the children will imitate their adult role models. Most commonly, the sons their father, and daughters, their mum. It is perceived that sons see their father as a template of how to be an adult. Of course, the course of human nature is invariably flexible, a son who hates his father for being harsh, might become extremely gentle, or might just turn out just as harsh in the end.

I am a chip of the older block as well. I find that my behaviour is very much like both my father’s and my grandfather’s. The stubborn streak to not want to own up to my own problems come from my grandfather. The way I present facts and information, the strictly no-nonsense approach, comes from my dad. The presentation of a humble learner comes from my grandfather. The intellectulization of situations and problems to explain the pain away comes from my dad.

I have inherited interesting skills and behaviours from my own father and grandfather. I wonder how much more of their influence is on me.