OPTing for your personal leadership style

Deepanshu Sharma

There is so much written about leadership best practices, golden rules, worst mistakes, myths, and so on. Whatever is proposed today, is topped by another research tomorrow. Think about it – once it is, ‘what you can’t measure, you can’t manage’, but then later you are told, ‘don’t micro manage’. One day, ‘bell curve’ is best practice, a decade later ‘it’s evil’. One says, ‘managers must lead’, another says ‘managers must be coaches’. Even in practices, while most say, ‘salaries must be kept confidential’, some equally strong arguments emerge for ‘openness in compensation’, claiming that it leads to perception of fairness and reduced employee turnover.

Confused?

Justifiably so, and if it is of any solace, you are not alone!

If most management principles have a short life span, are there no generic tenets? How does a leader choose between all these conflicting options.

While I am not debunking the golden rules of management proposed by very capable thinkers and practitioners, I do believe that all those principles, and those ideal behaviours, are context specific and depend largely on the individual concerned.

There is a lot to learn from celebrated management books and from the lives of inspirational leaders who were able to drive the desired results for themselves, their organisation, or their country – people like Nelson Mandela, Lee Kwon Yew, Mahatma Gandhi, Steve Jobs, Field Marshall SHFJ Manekshaw, etc. The list is endless. But there is so much more to your own life, your own situation and your specific context, which begs for the need for your own personal leadership style.

In short, I believe that each one needs to see the concept of leadership as a very personal journey. I am proposing a simple three-step framework, if you so decide to OPT for your personal leadership style:

Observe – The list of examples to emulate is much longer, if you just start adding people around you to the list of inspirational leaders. Your family, your teachers, your managers, your peers, your friends, and most of all – your own self. In fact, it is so much more real to learn from your immediate environment, because you can observe them in your daily life, within your context, and in your lifetime. These are your everyday moments to learn and grow. My personal belief is that you can learn something from everyone, even from those you don’t admire.

Think – The problem with most leadership theories is that there aren’t enough of us who think, ask and debate. If no one has the courage or conviction to discuss and debate, any concept or belief can start sounding real, and soon enough they become the norm. And once they are in general practice, it gets tough to challenge the notion. After all, who wants to bell the cat or swim against the tide? It takes a lot of conviction and gumption to challenge such widely held beliefs, but someone’s got to do it. It’s easy to identify out-of-context beliefs and practices because they are all around you – only if you are ready to observe and acknowledge.

Personalise – This is where the rubber meets the road. No books or b-school degrees can transform you, or teach you to be a good leader, unless you have the courage and confidence in your own personal leadership style. Operative word being personal, and not style. Each situation is a complex web of context, environment, intent, personal experiences, human emotions and individual capabilities. The simplest way to develop the style that works the best for you is to start with genuineness in your heart in whatever you intend to drive, say or do. Whether it is to calm down an irate customer, or parting ways with an employee, negotiating a deal or presenting your true self in a job interview.

Once you OPT to be your most genuine self, honestly recognise your beliefs and thoughtsbecause they shape your behaviours, your words and your actions. So, spend time observing your self first – your biases, your emotions, your feelings, before you say or do something. Be patient at first, as you may notice only after you say or do something, but with intentional and regular reflection, you will find yourself preempting your behaviour.That’s how you grow and evolve. That’s when change happens.

Ready to embark on your personal leadership journey? Go ahead and OPT for it.

#leadership #individual #personal #purpose