How to Redefine Leadership in times of crises? Few questions were asked to a long-serving CEO, & who is proud of the country. How to Redefine Leadership in times of crises?
How to Redefine Leadership in times of crises?
What are the biggest 3 learning from covid
1-Leadership Matters
If you look at country after country institution after institution company after company people who had good leaders have done far better. Redefining Leadership in times of crisis.
Then people with poor leaders I think the emphasis on leadership has just got highlighted with COVID. Redefining Leadership in times of crisis.
2-Consumers are transformed and have changed faster than the company
Consumers have gone digital and much faster than the company. The result of which companies are struggling to match with the consumers.
They have gone digital in payments, education, on linking with each other, sourcing news, health, and every single aspect.
Where companies are struggling to come back.
3-COVID can only be solved thru a global teamwork response.
Today everybody doesn’t have access to the vaccine so there will be a few countries that have access to the vaccine.
Redistribution of vaccines is paramount it is required to ship from anywhere to anywhere in the world.
You need the global airline industry to work for you, will require global R&D and testing will be required.
The bigger challenge we have recognized is that we are interdependent, especially during global crises.
“What is the Mantra of success for young leaders?”
It’s a mantra that definitely works very hard.
1-You must be the hardest working guy in the team or in the company, you deliver results on any work assigned to you.
2-Most MBAs are not relevant, they don’t study, and they don’t keep themselves updated with the latest concept and trends as a result they fall back.
They are updated with the 10-year-old textbook concepts. Rather they need to learn every day to stay relevant in a fast-changing world.
If you don’t learn daily and keep yourself updated there is no career and no future.
3-Always work first for the Institution or company that you represent. If you work in the best interest of the organization then your glory will come you need not worry.
On the other hand, if you work for your glory it doesn’t mean that you will be successful.
It’s like an army that works for the interest of the country, that’s why armed forces are always the most trusted unit.
4-Build a personal Network. Network which does not trade favors you have to start building a personal network which is just about keeping in touch hand.
You can always rely on your network to see you through or to help you as and when you need it. Not having favor in mind.
“Do companies shape us in our career?”
When you are young you are trained extensively once you have crossed the middle management and are into senior management, your role, by and large, becomes to shape the organization.
As long as you are open companies keep on working shaping you and shapes your attitude to something or the other related to the global world.
“Is it justify giving credit to one person for the success of the company?”
It’s always a team that works behind any success never an individual, there is a myth that few CEOs say that they are the reason for the success of the organization. It’s never like that.
I think CEOs or Head of Sales, Head of Marketing, Head of Finance, Head of Logistics, or Head of Human Resource is one of the reasons, not the only reason.
I think trying to glorify that somebody is the reason for success is completely wrong.
“How do you deal with expectations?”
1-I will ask a lot of students to read Charles Dicken’s book “Great Expectations” It’s a fabulous book.
Where do expectations come from when you are CEO. I think expectations come from your Boss. Every good boss has high expectations from you.
I hear from a lot of young graduates that my is pushes me a lot, having very high expectations, makes him work too hard, It is difficult to survive in this culture, etc..etc.
Trust me friends are always good for you.
2-Your peers have expectations from you that you will be a reliable partner or you will not stab behind their back, and you will not talk negatively behind them.
They will support you and you will support them in time of need.
Those expectations only good peers will have from you, that whenever they need your support you will be with them.
Your colleagues who work a level below you will have a lot of expectations from you.
The biggest expectation from a CEO is their time, they want you in every meeting they want to see their every mail and give them sufficient time.
Largely expectation is related to profitability whether it’s your Super stockiest, distributor networks, or vendors ecosystem they will have a profitable growth model in their mind in terms of their expectation.
So you have to meet a number of expectations, your boss, peers, colleagues, vendors, investors, media so on. Mean to say you have to play different roles in the organization.
I will put in other words what can you contribute to the success of others, if you can contribute to others in the ecosystem and the company, you will meet most expectations.
During these COVID times, all have questions, “How have you dealt with them?”.
1-Today work has been distributed people are working from home and the office.
I think leaders need to integrate that’s the primary role of leaders, they should be visible to communicate, and they need to show empathy and trust.
The demands on leadership on the soft side of the leadership have gone up exponentially, thanks to COVID.
2-I would say the model of an organization has been borrowed from two entities one is the army and two is the church and both the army and church are vertical hierarchies. Somebody on the top says something and it’s passed on down accordingly.
We need horizontal skills and horizontal capabilities as opposed to vertical skills and vertical capabilities.
What are horizontal capabilities?
Digital is a horizontal capability that runs across all functions, collaboration is a horizontal capability, and the cost is a horizontal capability.
So I would say that speed the need for speed has just been focused on during these COVID times, something that all of us have learned.
In the last 20 years, NO big company has beaten a small company, however, a fast company has beaten a slow company. COVID has reaffirmed that lesson to all of us.
What do you do to make your communication skills so strong?
1-I don’t know whether you want to believe it or not. 1st thing whatever you do whether you do a speech or you write is you have to prepare very very hard.
It’s never easy, very few people do. There is no substitute for preparation. Prepare, prepare, prepare is the hallmark of a good presentation or speech or a good article.
2-In my entire years of my career I have never repeated a presentation in my life. Every time I do a fresh presentation & enrich my listeners with all new valuable content.
The reason there’s a cardinal truth in that which is called honoring the room you must always honor the customer or your listener or your reader or whoever is watching you.
My focus is always on the customer who is listening to you.
3-Bring a fresh point of view based on the current dynamics of the market. I bring a lot of data, I tend to talk to several people before freezing my points.
Make people think differently bring fresh data but more importantly bring fresh insights.
“How do you plan your day?”
What I think a day is there is what I call dead time and there’s what’s called lifetime.
Lifetime is typically when you are at work, you are in meetings, or busy with an office routine.
What differentiates people who are good at time management compared to people who are not good at time management?
Is their ability to multitask in dead time?
So what is dead time you are going in a car where you are not driving or on the bus, or train you can make a few phone calls?
Another example if you are flying for two hours you can read a book or you can answer all your emails and finish it off. Don’t ever let idle time overcome you.
Lots of people say I am very busy, what are busy with so use your dead time. You should be very clear that if you want to do many things then you will have to sacrifice something.
During the initial stages of your career, you can do a lot of things such as playing cricket, attending parties, listing to a lot of music, and movies, dating, attending all family marriages, etc.
But remember, as you grow the professional ladder you will have to sacrifice and focus on how best you can utilize your dead time.
You have to recognize that and have to be comfortable with it.
“How do we as leaders build up trust in the team and keep the team motivated?”
(Remote working has flattened the hierarchy and brought the teams closer, but still adds layers of challenges).
The concept of trust has nothing to do with several levels. The concept of trust has to do with authenticity what is trust? Trust is you will not hurt me when I am unsafe.
Any employee or any manager feels unsafe and he or she feels that the boss will hurt him or her there will be a lack of trust.
So key things for the leaders to be authentic with their team whatever the truth is say it. Say it transparently say honestly.
If you do not have an answer say, no that I do not have an answer will figure it out and come back to you.
I think just being authentic is possibly the first step of building trust
“Which are the top three skills that one should focus on to get an edge over the competitive field?”
You should never look at your peer group as competition, if you look at your peer group as competition you’ll always work relatively.
I would suggest to you work at an absolute level.
An absolute level is if you are in sales ask a question yourself Am I the best sales manager in the company in the industry globally am I the best brand Am I the best supply chain manager Am I the best Finance Manager, Am I the best HR manager.
Try to be the very best in your craft if you are the very best in your craft you don’t need to worry about the competitive field or whatever it is.
1st being absolutely digitally fluent is very important in today’s world.
2nd The ability to communicate simply and succinctly.
3rd The ability to be a great team player to be a collaborative team player.
How does one break his comfort zone?
Some people say you must be you must have divine dissatisfaction. Divine dissatisfaction means we’ve done well what can I do better what have I learned from it.
Some organization has been so successful in a short period. Learning from this is we should never get arrogant with success. The next downturn could happen.
Never think that you’re successful and there’s nothing more to learn.
Think about all the people who depend on you. How would they want you to shape up how would they want you to you know look at the future?
Are you happy being where you are? or are the expectations of people at a much higher level from you and for that you have to prepare.
You say you know what I think I can fly higher I can do better if you seriously think that then you must invest in it.
You must invest your time, invest in your effort, and in the right capability.
