LEADERSHIP IS LIKE PARENTING

LEADERSHIP IS LIKE PARENTING - Author @Nadiadwala Nisaar

My manager was an incharge of 450 people in the office and he was a 75 years old retired government official. He was hired at 65, a post retirement job to repay his son’s debt. It was his tenth year in the office and seventh year as my senior too. One day, I asked my CEO why he needed a retired person for such a senior post and responsibilities. He replied, “I have hired his experience of 40 years in sorting out issues related to staff”. That day onwards I started studying the old man’s performance.

One day I noticed him talking to a staff member in a closed door meeting. Later, during the lunch I inquired the reason. He said, “His wife had called me up and complained about domestic problems, his laziness, his short temperedness etc”.

How is that related to the office work? I asked

“Office is a place where a man stays awake and works for eight hours without sleeping. It is his second home and the seniors are his elders”.

“What solution did you offer”? I wanted to learn.

“I spoke to him for one hour, though I had a lot of salary calculations to do because I wanted to help him with my advice. I told him that a good wife is a blessing, so learn to tolerate her human weakness. I have him a few days paid holidays and a handsome non-interest loan to buy some gift for his wife and go out with her for a few days to some hill station ”.

That evening when I left the office, it was 10 pm and the old man was still calculating the salaries of the staff (there was no Tally software) and his house was around 90 minutes away. Few years later when he died, I came to know that more than twenty staff were the beneficiaries of his charity. His half salary went to sweepers and clerks of the office. A leader is like a father and a king over his subjects only then he can rule the people’s affairs, otherwise people’s hearts are not empires of bosses.

Author Nisaar Nadiadwala is a popular writer on human-touch stories and he is also among the Top Writers on Quora.com.