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.