Accepting and honouring people

A successful leader shares his vision

Published date: 2010-10-31
Leadership League, Perspective, The Himalayan Times

If you think leadership is about an MBA degree from a reputed institution, being long at the helm with a few grey hairs popping out of your mane — you might want to rethink your pre-suppositions after you ponder on Dwight Eisenhower’s famous quote: “Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.”

The quote explains fundamental leadership actions that a successful leader must follow. Leadership is a collective activity involving people. Attaining a goal single-handedly is not possible and every person on the team contributes towards attaining the shared vision.

The belief in what the team members are doing is equally important. ‘Shared’ vision explains a leader’s desired attitude. A successful leader accumulates others’ views and shows readiness to change. A successful leader shares his vision and every team-member contributes regardless of their hierarchical strata. Leadership is also about following and listening to others.

Above all, “...because he wants to do it” of the aforementioned quote clarifies the motivation necessary for
team-members. The external and internal triggering forces distinguish extrinsic and intrinsic motivations. ‘Extrinsic motivation’ is based on external driving forces like financial transactions and punishment threats. Such motivation is found in military settings.

The greatest driving force behind any team member’s meaningful contribution to a team is ‘Intrinsic Motivation’. Motivation that is internally evoked and true leaders successfully evoke such brilliance out of others.

Researchers have divulged that motivation can be readily achieved if an individual is accepted and honoured. Every human being holds a strong desire to be accepted and honoured. Practically, it can be achieved if leaders accept their views and align it with deep desire.

To achieve dramatic results in leadership practices, leaders of today need coaching, facilitation and mentoring skills along with management lessons. It is generating collective visions and evoking brilliance out of team members that makes quality leaders, rather than a reputed degree and a long working track record.

Youth leadership and politics

Published date: 2010-10-10

Leadership League, Perspective, The Himalayantimes

Gagan Thapa has hit the limelight again. The prominent youth leader of the Nepali Congress (NC) won the central committee elections with highest number of votes. This is a historical achievement — for someone representing the young generation and has outshined familiar, experienced and established names in the oldest, and the second largest party after the Constitutional Assembly election. More significant, is the fact that he does not belong to any political family.

NC has often been criticised because most of its leaders are aged while the young ones in the party are lagging far behind in terms of leadership. Even those who represent the youth in the party are lot older than those in other parties.

There are few striking points about youth leadership in Nepal’s political parties. As the party gets older, the leadership torch hardly gets transferred. Finally the popularity of the party declines among the younger generation and general youth.

Thapa getting shuffled in the pack and his rise as a political youth leader seems to resemble what is happening in our society in general. The generation diversity in society, workplace, family and politics is hardly ever addressed in Nepal. Along with the development of a modern education system and specialisation, the need to address this generational diversity in every segment of our society has emerged as a dire necessity.

Generational diversity is necessary for development and without contribution from every generation, holistic development is not possible. In Thapa’s case, he now shoulders high expectations of the party cadres as well as the general population. The general mass is expecting much from him to change the age-old NC system. It will be a milestone if he is successful in addressing the generational diversity and coherence within NC.

How to judge leadership skills

Communication and interpersonal skills collectively make just the tip of the iceberg

Published Date: 2010-09-26
Leadership League, Perspective, The Himalyan Times

Last year, I visited a capital - based renowned college to deliver a class on youth participation and leadership. Out of hundreds of students, the management had chosen 20 students for my discussion. I visited the college a year later and decided to involve an entire class for discussion. Initially, only two out of 25 actively participated in the discussions.

They were the ones who had participated in previous discussions and were also class toppers. When questioned, everybody turned to the two for answers. The incident taught me some valuable lessons. The management only provided opportunity to the brightest students who could articulate, debate and ask questions in my first discussion. However, it is debateable whether communication and interpersonal skills are the only attributes necessary for good leadership.

We consider leaders to be synonymous with good communicators. Those who can articulate and communicate better than others are thought to be great leaders. We can observe the same perspective in politics, peer groups and schools. Communication and interpersonal skills are visible qualities, based on which we judge the leadership quality of a person.

Leadership is mostly perceived as “leading people” rather than transforming oneself. In the course of our judgment, we tend to forget that other skills such as empathy and selfawareness, critical and creative thinking, decision-making and problem solving and coping with emotions and stress are also equally important qualities that a good leader should possess. These qualities are harder to quantify and measure as compared to communication and interpersonal skills.

Communication and interpersonal skills collectively make just the tip of the iceberg with many other necessary skills secreted within.

Youth-adult partnership

Young people bring in vitality and new thinking to a team, while the older generation can pass the wisdom gained from years of experience

Published Date: 2010-09-12
Leadership League, Perspective, The Himalayan Times


Whenever I conduct trainings to foster youth leadership, one of the grievances that the younger generation have is that the adults do not listen to them. On the other hand, the older generation thinks that the younger generation does not apprehend the wisdom of the older generations. Many fundamental presumptions have to be conquered to achieve an ideal youth-adult partnership to encourage youth leadership.

The synergy between the young and older generation is the driving force of any initiatives. It is the blend of dynamism, wisdom and collective thinking that makes any work possible. Young people bring in vitality and new thinking to a team, while the older generation can pass wisdom gained from years of experience.

The exposures of the younger generation to the relationship provide essential learning to a young leader. Here are some key issues that need to be addressed for a fruitful youth-adult partnership:

Challenge traditional hierarchy: Primarily, it is necessary to overcome the conventional hierarchy between the young and the old. The old belief system and presupposition that “youth are always naïve and incapable to contribute constructively” has to be challenged. On the other hand, youth need to reconsider their stand that “the older generations never accept our views” and “they are not acquainted to the current changes.”

Get rid of generalised perceptions: Both generations have negative presumptions about each other. The tendency to oversimplify the perception of both youths and adults towards each other is the hindering factor for an effective partnership.

Know each other’s capabilities better: Both generations have to understand each other’s abilities to contribute to a group. They bring in unique qualities that blend to make a perfect solution. Their age induced characteristics have to be understood by both parties.

Collective planning and evaluation: Collective planning and evaluation results in a sense of ownership for both generations. Therefore, their contributions to an organisation as members has to be acknowledged and evaluated constructively.

The traditional dimension of leadership was merely an exploitative relationship between leader and followers. It has to be confronted to cultivate responsible leaders for the future.

Should you compromise leadership for benefits?

Let your career take off with a leadership position


Published Date: 2010-08-29
Leadership League, Perspective, The Himalayan Times

What will you do if given simultaneous opportunities for a leadership position with less benefits, as opposed to a less influential position with good benefits? Will you simply choose the latter because it offers handsome remuneration?

Fundamentals like financial benefits might seem attractive in the initial phase. However, as young people get swayed away by benefits and affiliation with larger firms, they unknowingly weaken their chances of achieving leadership positions in subsequent years. Listed are some reasons why you might want to let your career take off with a leadership position irrespective of the size of the firm.

Interaction with management and influencing decision makingMostly, it is the smaller firms that offer more chances of getting involved in the management and decision making as compared to well reputed ones. Candidates have a better chance of securing higher posts, which offer higher chances of access to the management and decision making level. Choosing an easy paying and a simple job in big organisations may deprive you of the chances of interacting with the higher level, thereby minimising your chances of leadership opportunities.

Multi-disciplinary job and leadership:Leadership positions require knowledge on multi-disciplinary aspects which a smaller firm might offer. Volume of transactions and human resources play a crucial role in deriving specific and concentrated job descriptions. The larger firms are more rigid in human resource specifications, while the smaller ones are not. So if you want exposure to multi-disciplined jobs, smaller firms might be your choice.

Career ascendance and leadership positions:Monetary aspect is perhaps the primary means of judging career ascendance. But one’s leadership positions, responsibilities and access to management are just as important. You might have encountered people leaving large firms to join smaller ones, even though they might offer lower benefits. What do you think is the reason for this? Probably they find the challenges and extra responsibilities more attractive than the financial
benefits.

Simply being affiliated with reputed firms that offer handsome salary and non-financial benefits does not make one’s career track record superior. It is the responsibilities and access positions that the person holds, even if they are engaged in smaller firms that determine one’s success and ultimate job satisfaction.

Young and inexperienced

Fostering meaningful participation of young people is a process and not an event

Published date: 2010-08-15
Leadership League, Perspective, The Himalayan Times

What would you do if a young and inexperienced subordinate has to be accommodated in an important meeting? First you might think, ‘he will just occupy a seat.’ In the worst case scenario, you might just pray that ‘this youth does not divert the meeting by saying something irrelevant’ or if you are really liberal, you might think ‘this will be a good exposure for this young person.’ No matter what you think, meaningful contribution in the meeting will be an arduous task for the young one.

Initially, fostering meaningful participation of young people is a process and not an event. Just giving them an exposure might not yield results. In fact, the entire process of letting them chip in significantly will have longer positive impact on your team and most importantly on the individual.

If time permits, the following steps could help a young person contribute meaningfully to a meeting.

Let them separately prepare for the meeting: 
Let them prepare separately after sharing the meeting’s agenda. Giving guidelines and dividing the task can also help them prepare more precisely and be more productive in the meeting. Leaving the person alone will cultivate unrestricted thinking and a sense of independence.

Handing over the most daunting preparation task to the young person can also yield better results, as error rectification is possible before the final day.

Describe an issue or a problem without including cause or solution: We mostly tend to imply or even impose causes or solutions to a problem. This restricts others’ thinking, especially young people. On the other hand, just describing a problem can derive more positive impact.

Questioning about their perspective on causes and possible solutions might generate new ideas. It provides space to the young person to contribute with new perspectives.

Encourage participation in the meeting: When explaining something, just ask them to give a specific example to sustain your ideas. Give short directives on what you want them to give examples on.

Evaluate the meeting separately with the individual: Reviewing the meeting with the individual will allow them to think critically. Do not forget to ask about their impressions and feedback of your own performance at
the meeting.

Youth versus experience

Hiring young people is an opportunity not a risk

Published Date: 2010-08-01
Leadership League, Perspective, The Himalayan Times

Older managers that I have worked with in the past are reluctant to hire young people in higher posts at work despite their fitting qualifications. Many of the elder managers consider hiring them a risk which is probably a result of how youth is overlooked in our society. Moreover, we oversee the energy level they bring in to an organisation with their naïve, energetic and youthful presence.

Specific technical know-how should be the primary motivating factor for hiring. The increased significance of focused education has triggered specialised courses as compared to the situation a decade back. The mushrooming educational institutions are offering courses that mostly cater to the need of current human resource demand.

Hiring managers see employing young people as a risk. They think that professionalism and youth are polar opposites. Youth is psychologically considered a problem age as they continually battle to adjust with changing responsibilities and new commitments. If driven positively, youth is the age of value change and creativity. They have the psychological advantage to cater to external demands, if positive values are set in at the right age. They have unmatched originalities that all other age groups rarely offer. But their creativity
depends on whether they are given the opportunity to meet individual interests.

Good managers capitalise on this by providing opportunities to young people for the benefit of the organisation. Good managers respect constraints and gradually increase their responsibility level. Meaningful participation is the vital intervention point that can transform troublesome youths to productive ones. Rather than a risk, hiring young people is an opportunity that most managers might have missed.