Laddership is Leadership!
In the last three decades of my work in the behavioral arena, I have met eminent personalities at the highest echelons of society as well as the unsung heroes at the grass-roots. In the process, my conviction has become stronger that leadership means being a ladder for others to rise.
You are a ladder for others when you ‘enable’, ‘let go’ and ‘give permission to fail’. Being a ladder is all about seeing people grow without any insecurity. It is the ability to see the inner potential of a person, trigger it, nurture it and facilitate enhancement.
In this fast moving world, we have no patience to experiment. When a person does not deliver, the easiest solution is to change him. True leaders have a different take on that.
Enablement
Look at the ancient gurus. All of them created discomfort zones for their disciples, frustrated them, chided them, but groomed them. That is what we call coaching or mentoring today. The gurus themselves were sometimes not as great as the disciples but that did not bother them at all. They were happy being ladders for the disciples to climb.
In the leadership lessons of today, the end justifies the means. No wonder more CEOs lost their jobs in the last one decade than the cumulative exit of non-performing CEOs in the last one century. The reason their salaries were pegged to the share market did not work always.
Since these CEOs had hefty severance pays and sign-off bonuses, it did not matter to them. Nor did it provide the right leadership to the organization they led.
As things are, leaders’ growth is always linked to top line and bottom line growth and hardly ever to their people’s growth. So whenever a so-called leader quits, there is an exodus of executives. The history repeats itself with the next leader’s exit.
It is important that the growth of every CEO and his direct reports must be made dependent to the extent of 40% for laddering their juniors with effective enablement.
JRD Tata once addressed a team of young professionals at Titan Watches in the late eighties. He did not talk to us about great fundamentals of managerial effectiveness but simple things like “How to use a stapler?” The message was clear and loud. It is all about perfectibility no matter what the task is!
Brand obsession
We have become victims of branding. No wonder people from the best branded institutes command the highest salaries. But the best brands have not yet produced any Bill Gates, a JRD or a Narayanmurthy.
The upbringing of these leaders, their family values and their discomforts made them what they became and not the branded educational institutions. They built successful empires that resulted in scaling by, large employability, economic growth, community wealth and societal prosperity. It is a different matter that they too push their own children to the assembly line of branded institutes.
Let us trigger our originality. Let us not be fooled by the crowd behavior and force our children to sit for entrance tests of these branded institutes. Who our children are is more important than the branding that these institutes will provide.
Laddering
I have had the pleasure to interview some unbelievable leaders who not only had laddered their employees but created wealth for their neighborhoods, for their country and for the society at large even though their beginnings were extremely humble.
The chairman of Suguna Poultry that runs a 500-million US dollar empire is a school dropout and once worked as a porter at Bangalore railway station. As early as the 1980’s he contemplated business process outsourcing and created 45000 women entrepreneurs – which no global leader with the best of branded education has ever done.
It was a win-win. He laddered others and became a leader in the best sense of the world. Laddering others is what leadership is about.
You will like these as well!
|
Featured Tickles  Heal Your Relationships to Heal YourselfIt has been rightly said that this world is a mirror. It reflects back our inner/true reality to us. As within, so without. Everything in our life; our job, our economic condition, our dwellings, and the people in our life reflect one or the other aspect of our reality. Isn’t this a beautiful arra The Power of UnlearningAs I picked up the vacuum machine and started vacuuming the carpet in my living room, a sense of dissatisfaction loomed over me. It had been just about a year since I bought this vacuum cleaner and it was already low in its efficiency. The buzzing sound of the motor from that machine sounded healthy 15 elephant tethers that stop you from being creative!The problem is never how to get new, innovative thoughts into your mind, but how to get old ones out. Every mind is a building filled with archaic furniture. Clean out a corner of your mind and creativity will instantly fill it. - Dee Hock When still a baby, the elephant is tethered by a very thick Smoking a cigarette is like talking to your mother-in-law because...Once upon a time, many years ago, in prehistoric times, at a time when there were no cities, no buildings and perhaps even no villages, there was a hunter. He had had a successful day and was walking through a forest back to his tribe. He had slung a deer across his shoulder with some homemade rope Here Is Your D-I-Y Kit For A Leading Edge LifeManagement gurus and their disciples, thinkers, strategists and business process re-engineers have been busy propelling the modern world into not only coping with, but also keeping in step with the rapid changes of an ever shrinking, increasingly competitive and exhaustingly demanding global market. I Wish I Were A GoldfishI am told that a goldfish cannot remember anything beyond a 3 minute time frame. One of my favorite pastimes is to sit and watch our goldfish swim around lazily and rising up only to gobble at the food before going back to their contented existence. Their swimming around actually reminds me of chil The Fine Art of Persuasive Communication!There are many areas to look at in communication: a message is communicated through visual, vocal and verbal means. From that, comes the importance of body language, how we present ourselves, and so on. The visual and vocal elements are indeed very important to effective communication, but we will Teaching the teacherThe arbiter of knowledge and skills, the teacher, is a revered figure around the world. In India, the teacher is known as the guru, the wise one who can be trusted to lead the knowledge-blind and shine the light of competence and skills in the darkness of ignorance and incompetence. Over time it ha How To Nurture A Successful RelationshipHave you ever wondered how certain couples were able to stay together for many years? What are they doing right? What are the factors that contribute to the success of healthy, long term relationships? There are a few fundamental components that will improve your chances of having a successful relat Waves Of InspirationI stay in the coastal city of Chennai and one of my favorite pastimes is to explore the coastline that borders one side of the city. Starting from the crowded marina and Eliot’s Beach to the less crowded and secluded ones that dot the East Coast Road (or ECR as it is called), I have always found How To Be Depressed"Depression was, indeed, the hand of a friend trying to press me down to the ground on which it was safe to stand--the ground of my own truth, my own nature with its complex mix of limits and gifts, liabilities and assets, darkness and light." Parker Palmer I've never been through pregnancy depress Make an ass of yourself but do not let the world know...Many a time we are swept by that overwhelming feeling to bare all. Not to be mistaken with confession which is done after ensuring that there is nothing further to lose on account of reputation. I am referring to pure tear jerker stuff. Born out of righteous indignation. Or plain stupidity. The form Time management with the monksOne mile south of Georgia O'Keefe's beloved Ghost Ranch in New Mexico, thirteen miles down a cliff-hugging dirt road in the heart of Chama Canyon, you will find Christ In The Desert. The Benedictine Monastery is cloister to about twenty monks. I'd fantasized about retreating to the remote monastery Forcing yourself to get up early in the morning is pointless!A google search on early rising gives 1,500,000 results. Amazon has 6699 books on getting up early. Countless self-development ‘gurus’ have written books and articles that extol the benefits of getting up before your friendly neighbourhood rooster does. They have together compiled a list of 10 5 Reasons Why I Got Off My Tail And Found A New Passion!I've taken some time this month to clean out my Gmail inbox, the main goal being to have a completely empty inbox. I went through each email one by one, until I got to the very last entry. It was labeled "journal" and dated 12/14/06. I knew it was there for me to print and tape into my actual jour If Excellence Is Your Ideal Everything Else Will Fall Into PlaceA young man went to Gautama Buddha and sought the Master’s guidance on how to achieve Enlightenment. The conversation, which in my opinion must be required reading for anyone, went roughly as follows: Young Man (YM): Master, how long will it take for me to achieve enlightenment? Gautama Buddha ( |
Loading ...
Twitter 
Facebook
Subscribe