The practical guide to humane leadership (written by a person who failed at it miserably at first!)

I remember the first team I had. I was hired as an Assistant Manager in the training department of a call center and was supposed to manage a team of 8 people who were trainers themselves.

Six months later, the team was taken away from me and I was restricted to the role of a trainer with a managerial designation.

What went wrong here when I attempted to manage a team?

Favorites — My biggest mistake was that I had my favorites in the team and that did not go down well with the remaining lesser mortals. This also led to a huge level of partiality with me favoring a few and ignoring the others.

Leniency — I had coaxed myself into believing that the more lenient I am, the better leader I make (what a joke!). My so-called team took me for a royal ride during which I realized that I was doing their work most of the time!

Self-righteousness — I was considered a very good trainer but the moment the company hired me I took my position for granted and started delivering sub-standard sessions. Having said that, I also believe that the point that follows also had a major part to play with reference to my results.

Ego — Another issue I always had was that I did not maintain a cordial relationship with internal customers i. e. other departments like quality etc. and was constantly at loggerheads with them just to cover my (and my team’s) faults.

Fascism— There were instances where I was extremely dominating and was verbal about it. For me, the order from my superior was final and supposed to be followed religiously and I expected the same from my subordinates. I was capable of shutting my mind off personal stuff while I was at work and expected others to behave similarly. Now, this approach would have worked in the army but not in corporate circles.

How I transformed into an effective leader:

The last assignment that I had made me realize that I was a decent leader (based on how much the people I led miss me even after a year and a half of leaving {although I know for a fact that the people who came after me never had any leadership qualities, else I would have happily ensured that they got promoted!})

Maturity — I realized that you tend to be power hungry when you are immature and tend to go overboard in flaunting your power while you are young. In order to understand this you could observe people with their gym toned bodies. The ones who are new to bodybuilding always flaunt their bodies — they’ll walk in a certain way, wear tight t-shirts, stretch their arms so that the world feels they are a lot more muscular than they really are! On the other hand, a person who has a good body and has been at it for a longer period of time will be very comfortable in his skin — he doesn’t need to show off shit to prove anything to anyone as he is aware of his physique and is confident about it. He doesn’t need to wear tight t-shirts to prove anything!

Learn and Apply — Each person, no matter how much you hate him, has something good about him/her. Try to observe, learn and apply that one good trait. Now this can only be possible if you are able to keep aside the prejudice (which, in turn, can only come from maturity) and be open to learning. Remember, a good leader is a person who never stops learning! More often than not, we completely and knowingly fail to see the good in a person based on our dislike for him/her and miss out on the opportunity to learn. And in the unfortunate situation where you are unable to see any good in that person, the least you can do is learn what not to be like!

Communicate — It pays great dividends when you are a good communicator! Many tyrants had the whole of their country eating out of their hands because of the passion with which they spoke! People want to look up to their leaders! When you communicate in a way that touches their hearts and minds, they aspire to be like you. They speak about the examples you used way after the meeting is over! By communicating with passion, honesty and vision, you inspire, demand and receive loyalty!

Care — You need to care about your people as if they’re your children! Now don’t get me wrong here — you would need to reprimand them when required (as is the case with your children!) but you should also support them when they need your support. You need to be the person to approach whenever they are in any sort of trouble. They should trust you enough to know that you are like a caring elder who would watch their backs but would also kick their asses when they screw up!

Delegation — It is extremely important to learn to delegate as a leader; after all you cannot be everywhere, managing everything! Having said that, you need to be wise as to who you delegate responsibilities to. Many a times, as a leader, we look for the next option in delegation, which may or may not be the best option (which, I believe, is what has gone wrong with my last organisation and I strongly suspect that it is one of the major reasons why the people miss having me around!). Needless to say, your people will suffer for your folly in such cases.

Empowerment — You need to empower each team member to grow within the organization as an individual and as a leader themselves. They should be encouraged to take chances and make mistakes and most importantly, to learn from their mistakes.

Empathy — You need to be empathetic to their social and emotional needs. Their trust in you should be second to none. You need to defend them against your superiors, external customers and internal customers alike! In short, their pain should be your pain! (Do unto them as you expect your bosses to do unto you!)

Fairness — Do not be partial irrespective of who you are interacting with. Everyone has their favourites who are forgiven every terrible sin; however, you need to understand that nobody comes to work thinking that they’ll do a bad job on any given day. Mistakes happen and people screw up, that’s human nature. It is up to you to ascertain whether the gap is due to the person’s willingness or ability. If it is a willingness issue, the person can be counseled to change his/her attitude and if it is an ability related issue, the person can be trained. Having said that, you need to draw clear lines when a person’s attitude consistently interferes with the larger vision of the organization and team (without any improvement).

Consideration — It is important to be considerate when you’re a leader. Even if you need to terminate the services of an employee, make sure you are considerate about it. Do not demonstrate your callousness else you will be considered vindictive. For example, do not fire a person a few days before his annual paid leave because he not only loses his job, but also fails to keep a promise of a vacation to his children! Do not fire anyone on days that are important to them (birthdays, anniversaries, before a festival, mothers’ day etc.) And last, but not the least, do not fire people when you do not have a valid work related reason to do so! Remember, karma has an uncanny way of getting back to you and nobody can outrun it!

Comfort — Make sure that the workplace is comfortable for your people. A leader needs to understand that an employee spends a majority of his/her waking hours at work and hence it is imperative that they should be comfortable at their workplace. Make sure they have access to the coffee machine, air-conditioning, comfortable parking space, (if possible) a place where their kids could be supervised while they are working etc. (this is what caring is all about!)

Value — You need to create an atmosphere wherein every employee looks forward to come to work rather than forcing themselves to get to work. They should feel valued when at work and they should feel good when they see you. Their smiles should be genuine and not fake. They should smile at you because they are genuinely happy to see you and not because they have to (since you happen to be their boss). Once this happens, you know that you have succeeded as a leader!!!

Some Practical Advice-

Remember that most of the people who are at leadership positions do not have any leadership qualities?! They simply survive or, in best case scenarios, provide results because of their advisor(s); however, deep down inside such people know that they aren’t worth shit if not for the people who advise and support them.

More often than not, they could be at the position due to their educational/family background, proximity to the top management, contacts in their respective fields, physical attributes (?!), affordability (in terms of salary), total submission to the higher authorities (irrespective of whether they are right or wrong) and/or due to lack of a better option!

Any or all of these traits are insignificant when it comes to being a good leader and in case you are yoked with such a person, just make sure that you hone your influencing skills and educate and train such leaders for the betterment of your people the same way Kautilya influenced Chandragupta Maurya!

The influence of Chanakya can be summed up as follows — “ You can become a king, but a king can lose his position over a period of time. A kingmaker, on the other hand, can make many kings. And the king will always be under the supervision, guidance and control of the kingmaker. So, he is very powerful. He rules without a position. He does not have power, yet he controls everything.”

I hope anyone who reads this may gain from whatever experience I have had and would inculcate the learnings (if any) while dealing with your teams since your team depends on you the way a child depends on their father!