Elements of a Great Leader: My Reflection and Observation

I have been working in corporate world for almost 20 years now. While, we could easily find managers and directors in the corporate setting, sadly there are only a handful great leaders which I feel inspired by. I don't need people to inspire me to work, but having a great leader does build confidence, enhance a willingness to go above and beyond, definitely make though job feels easier). I will also add my observations from other area of life like from a less structured setup such as non-profit, charity, or religious organizations. The later organizations are less structured, perhaps requires different approaches, as the leaders might not be having hierarchal positions. I also believe that I can be a leader, regardless of my position in a company, in a organization, or whether I have direct reports or not.

This exercise, is merely to consolidate my thought and to shape my future actions. I acknowledge that I speak from limited experience and there will be different opinions. Please feel free to comments and add your opinion on the additional qualities or ingredients which you believe a great leader should have.

Here we go! Hope you enjoy this!

0. LEADING MYSELF

I strongly believe that the first and foremost quality is ability to lead myself. Wanting to leading others without the ability to lead oneself is futile. Without this, there will always be a conflict inside myself, everything will feel difficult. Leading myself includes but not limited to:

• Knowing my guiding principles.
• Knowing where I want to go.
• Having courage, ownership and self discipline to execute my goals.
• Ability to work and communicate effectively with others.

I cannot lead other if I don't know myself and cannot lead myself.

With the exception of No. 0, the elements below are not in any order of priority. I believe that they are equally important. They are far from complete, but these are the ones which resonate the most for me.

1. VISION

A leader knows exactly where he wants to go, know exactly the state he together with the team or company want to achieve. He might not know 100% how to achieve it, but he must have the courage, confidence and conviction that he and the team will achieve the goals. The vision must be bold and well communicated. Nobody is inspired to do routines, working for the sake of maintaining status quo. We all want to be part of the winning team. We all want to work with the best organization.

I was impressed with a leader who I met in my church media team. He started with a vision on what area the media team would be like: the teams: livestream team, editorial team, video team and various media channels we need to work on: newsletter, whatapps, weekly bulletin, social media and many others. I could imagine the difficulties forming a team to realize the vision. Church is not corporate, everything is voluntary, he couldn't say I am the boss and you are paid to do X, Y, Z. I still recalled the first group meeting we had, he laid out the purpose of the team. Why we were there. Then, he told us, what media team will cover. He deeply believe and invested in the purpose and the vision. I could sense that. Everybody could sense the leader's conviction.

Conviction to realize an ambitious vision.

2. PASSION TO SERVE: Give value to others, make others people live better with my presence, make them successful. It is not easy to be a great leader. Your mind is always on overdrive, thinking, thinking and thinking, how to achieve certain things, who could deliver this part, what do they need, plus how can I deliver these within all the other constraints. And sometimes it is not just about the hardcore vision and execution stuffs, you need to look after your team. I need to be aware and be compassionate to myself and my team members, especially during tough times, when your team member falls sick, when people is discouraged and disengaged, and many other times. It is during the difficult times that true leaders emerge.

During difficult times, when everything seems to be falling apart, It is very easy to get burnt out if I don't have the passion to serve. Difficult times call for extra commitments. When we are losing, it is the time we have to fight harder. However, both body and mind are tired. Our fellow colleagues also are devastated and tired. The willingness to serve, to make the team member successful, will carry the team through difficult time. I am inspired by leaders who are willing to fight along side me. I apply the same expectation to myself, I will support my team, I will lead the charge in the battle, in good times, and especially in bad times.

Going back to the media team leader I mentioned in the previous points. He made tremendous effort to develop system for the team, to facilitate training (securing the church space and time), acquiring the right equipment, etc. He did them all to facilitate the team who are going to do the work, increasing the probability of our young and inexperience team to deliver a successful livestream for the community.

I also recall a conversation with my former supervisor. I asked to be posted oversea to lead a team. The first response was "We have to think how to support you to be successful in that role."

How can I help my team members to be successful in their roles (empower)? Does not mean I have to do the their job, but it is my responsibility. This does take a lot of effort. Do I know my team member well, their strength, their ambition, their fear. Do I even know them as a human, their family, not just as a member in my team serving a company's goals?

3. DECISIVENESS: Think fast and act even faster

Inaction will only lead to failure. There is no a successful status quo. Everyday if I don't grow (or my company does not grow), I am falling behind. Leaders need to have courage to make decisions with limited information, courage to make mistakes. Courage to accept that people might feel that I stepped on their toes. It is not reckless, but others will depend on the leader to give them direction, to concentrate their effort.

It is also about building up momentum. There is no excitement when things move slowly. First of all, the impact and progress are hardly visible. When I cannot feel any progress, effort will feel meaningless. Take action, create that first success, celebrate it, then go knock down the next domino.

Agile is the word nowadays.

4. INFLUENCE: There is no meaningful impact created by a single person. Without a team rallying behind the leader, we could never accomplished ambitious goals.

This is the most challenging for me.

My own case study: I was parachuted into leading a organization, let's call it a non-profit organization. I was not active for 2-3 years in this organization, however the leader asked me to serve. I guess only a handful of members would remember me. In my mind, how can I lead the people who are 90% are more senior than me, and who don't know this "New Kid on the Block". A calling to serve which I initially tried to negotiate and failed. Ultimately, I accepted the role.

When I am in, I am all in. This leadership journey is on going, sometime I feel encouraged, sometimes I feel discouraged. But I want to share with you what was on my mind. Rebuilding connection is the first thing come to my mind. Later, I redefine the intention from building connection to building trust between the members and myself. It has to start with myself, with a commitment to make the organization thrives. I did have their best interest in my mind. One challenge I have was that I didn't know them, I didn't know their aspiration, I didn't know their wishes, their challenges. Ask questions. I did a survey to understand those things. I believe my effort to do that showed my commitment to the group, my willingness to know the interest of the group.

Show up, do the work, and do the work. It is commitment and consistency. Commit to do the work. Consistently doing the work. Consistent between what I say and what I do. I feel that I am gaining traction, but the road ahead is still long. Willingness and humility to learn from others. Competent is important but it is something I can also build up if I do the work. I need to show up, do my work well, and hope for the best.

5. INTEGRITY: doing the right things regardless if there is people watching your back. Doing what you said you would do (accountability). This sometime also means doing things with alignment

6. RESILIENCE: Courage to keep moving forward. Adaptable, be sticky with the vision, but be flexible with the method.

To summarize these are the elements of leadership which resonate with me the most: Leading myself, vision, passion to serve, decisiveness, influence, integrity, and resilience.

I will elaborate more on integrity and resilience in my future articles.

I hope you enjoy and find this article useful.

Let's go out and make a dent in a universe!