Authentic Leadership

We all have gone through some trying times over the past few months. Not only professionally but also personally. COVID has tested the mettle of the best of us. Mental and emotional strength of an individual leader/manager/parent has battled all sorts of demons. In such times, the family looks at each other, the teams want a greater support and we all are together but yet always all alone. Digital avatars do not replace a physical relationship no matter how much we tell each other. Leaders and Managers struggle to keep up the morale while HR tries to engage everyone with online activities. Families spread across cities meet on video calls but these are always uncomfortable and feel impersonal.

All of these are now losing steam. One because we all have accepted the new normal and two because life has gone back to being offline. Some offices are completely filled with employees while others are still maintaining a few days on and a few days off.

As a leader, what should be my prime responsibility? I believe that I have two families. The one that I feed and the one that feeds me. My "karm" will be to take care of the one that feeds me and my "dharm" will be to provide for the one that I have to feed. No matter where in the world you are, all leaders are fundamentally the same in this aspect.

Very often leaders confuse sympathy and empathy. There is an old proverb which that says you can't judge a man until you have walked a mile in his shoes. In order to understand empathy let us just say that if you cried when you brother cried as he fell and hurt himself, then you felt empathy. Sympathy or pity is to show concern for your brother when he fell BUT NOT feel the same as him. Today's situation calls for a leader to be empathetic and not sympathetic. That is the first step towards being authentic.

This can be demonstrated in several ways. In a conversation, just plain listening and repeating what you have heard will mean a great deal to your team. If you have had to take pay cuts, then the senior leadership can take a greater or equal pay cut like everyone else. Being equanimous is one of the signs of being empathetic.

Lead with actions - this is often repeated in board rooms as a motivational tool, but very few leaders practice it. Self discipline is extremely important in life to achieve anything that you set your heart or your mind to! It is the fine line between what you want now and what you want most. How many CXOs are able to not only delegate but also able to perform those tasks themselves? How many of them are able to tell their team, if you are stuck, come to me and I will teach you how it can be done OR we will learn and solve it together. Discipline in life starts from small actions such as what time does a leader wake up, to what is his morning routine, to what time does he get to work? All of us have read biographies of successful leaders from across the world and the one common trait I have found is that they all have a morning routine which they absolutely stick to and they all lead with actions. This would not have been possible without self discipline. Growing up, my role model was my father and he still is. Never has he skipped a day of work for the sake of being lazy or for the sake of sleeping in. Even today, while he is close to 70 years old, he is always at work before 9:15 am, come rain or shine. Now if you as a leader are able to achieve this, do you think your team will ever think of coming late? Won't every team member make that effort to always be on time? If you come first to the meeting completely prepped, will your team ever come late and unprepared? So always demonstrate excellence through your actions and you will have a passionate and loyal "merry" band of employees.

Thanks to Simon Sinek's "Start with Why", most of us are familiar with the Golden Circle. The traditional leadership model emphasised only on the goals or the What. We have to have X% growth in revenue and profits, we have to cut costs by Y% and we have to generate Z INR of cash! But today's authentic leaders lead with purpose. Mahatma Gandhi did not have a plan, but he had a dream - to make India independent. People believed in that dream and so they followed! People do not just revere NaMo, but those who do, believe in his vision of "Atmanirbharta". So they will believe his "How will India become self reliant?" and also his "What will India do to become self reliant?". When a leader starts with a vision, and gets the team to follow her vision, she will find it easy to get to the What. Authenticity and purpose are very closely linked and all authentic leaders need to get their vision out there to the team. Companies without vision become easy targets to employee poaching and hence susceptible to attacks by competition. Having a strongly driven Why culture over the years becomes a one factor which will take you ahead of the crowd. Look at Wipro's leader Mr. Azim Premji and his deeply entrenched culture of leading with authenticity and values or purpose. As a result, you have loyal employees and loyal stakeholders.

I have personally experienced times when I have had questions and nowhere to go to? Why can't we as leaders look up to our team for some of the answers? Why does it have to be lonely at the top? Why should we not struggle together? I have come to respect a lot of my colleagues from Puma, Arvind, D:FY, Urban Ladder and now at StoveKraft. Not only do I constantly learn from them but also have formed long lasting bonds of friendship and camaraderie. I know that I can count on them no matter what. Today, relationship is the new currency. If you value everyone who touches your life, no matter how big or small, you will be rich. Authentic leaders form deep, meaningful and long term relationships. They invest in the well being, in the future and in the growth of their teams. Life is not an accumulation of transactions, but a vault of relationships. If you invest your time and effort like you do for your financial portfolio, in your relationships, they will compound in returns over the years and repay you back in ways you could not have imagined.

I will leave you with this table and this link from the Leadership Institute in Australia which sums up the difference between authentic and traditional leadership. In order to be happy, both at work and at home, practice authentic leadership. It comes from personal experience.