Sirajuddin Aziz
The need for making available an enabling environment for enhanced performance and productivity is an essential that is known to all. Teams perform better when the working environment is not a representative of the ‘mood swings’ of the manager or leader; rather it is housed within the concept of harmonious and congenial work ethics and culture.
It is the primary responsibility of the leader to ensure that the working conditions for the followers or teammates are friendly and helpful. The availability of a work environment that induces a cooperative spirit more than a cut-throat competitiveness is invariably a great motivator for performance. Leaders must make efforts to emphasise to senior management the importance of maintaining a friendly workforce. A caring management culture must ensure in such difficult terrain of emotions that there are no major impediments of distrust prevailing in relationships between people and business lines.
In the creation of a performance and merit-based culture of work, a leader must push for openness, both openness of mind and of work. Criticism and counter-criticism that flirts with expression of opinion, emotions and sentiments must be curbed, preferably ‘nipped in the bud’. Pointing out gaps and failures with no actionable and plausible way forward is the challenge, when dealing with conflicting views between the various levels of management. Teams and team members react when confronted with doing things differently. The resistance to change becomes a predominant trait of response.
This attitude of unwillingness to look at things, systems and processes differently creates friction between people, teams, divisions and groups. It is in such scenarios that the leadership is called upon to demonstrate a pacific state of mind to be able to react with positivity. Many leaders, when facing contradiction, react rather impulsively and invariably very angrily. On the shop floor an angry leader, manager or supervisor is the ugliest person to look at. Anger waylays the inherent and intrinsic balance that Mother Nature bestows without distinction to all. Many a leader betrays his or her own management position by reacting in more than acceptable decibel levels. Managers must refrain from indulging in shouting matches, especially in the presence of others.
If leaders don’t train themselves to realise that what they know is not all of what they ought to know, they have to find faith in the advice and counsel of other people. To be able to seek out ‘help’ in either understanding or resolving issues is one of the primary qualities a leader has to possess. Anyone who considers applying the delusional principle of being indispensable or irreplaceable will eventually find himself deep in the woods of forgotten history.
Intellectual capital must remain inclusive of certain human traits that necessarily should be part of a persona to qualify as a leader. Managers or leaders generally waiver when things do not go according to plans or if they find resistance to their views. Instead of – they resort to use of positional power – this undue usage normally boomerangs in the face, especially if the strategy hasn’t met the litmus test of acceptability from across those who matter within the organisation.
Leadership calmness is not tested in calm waters; it is only when the tide is up, when the currents are high, the waters are choppy and the storm is brewing ferocious. The real mettle of a leader must come out when circumstances are not in consonance with the developed plans. It is only in these situations that the troops (team members) wish to see their leaders not flustered; not agitated; not using expletives and not losing the shirt – and if the leadership responds with serenity, victory is usually at hand. A nervous leader is most dangerous. The inability to choose between options and alternatives is the cause of many a decline and decay of well-known and established characters in history, both corporate and political. The ‘surrender’ made by troops in various periods of time is a reflection of such a state of mind of the leadership. The attack by the unforeseen renders weak those leaders who exhibit a personal weak resolve.
The display of anxiety and nervousness by a leader derobes the basic traits of leadership – the followers lose faith and trust in such leaders. In order to have in place committed leaders what is essential is to have an attitude of confidence, calm and courage. Any sign of tentativeness signals the beginning of a disarray in the level of trust between the team members. Courage in leadership must not be confused with adventurism or machoism. Both are inherently perilous characteristics to possess or be had in a leader, beyond a certain measure.
Politicians take the cake when it comes to losing all the serenity that is associated with an appealing leadership. You have to watch them, say in the context of a press conference – should any question be of a nagging type they snap at the journalist, they berate them, display temper, anger, a frowning face, joined eyebrows and the rest – with some, those voices tend to quiver – what does that indicate? Lack of basic leadership quality. The pacific station must never be lost to either temptation or provocation.
Mature leadership pays a great deal of attention to details about how people are seen and perceived by others. Leadership means being firm and polite and certainly not the converse.
The writer is a Senior Banker & Freelance Columnist.
