Leadership - This or That?
Piyush Mangal
Whole time director and Vice President Operations & Commercial - India @ Signode India Limited | Senior Leadership Team
From the time I started handling teams, one question always bothered me- Is it this or that?
Sometimes "this" worked and sometimes "that" worked. Read so many books on leadership, and had various discussions to find out the answer to this very question. Every paragraph I read and every bit of advise I received seemed right. Again the same question- is this or that?
After many years of my learning and experience, realized that its something like one envelop does not fit all. There is no one approach that works in all scenarios and with everyone. Always thought the Leaders are people with high this or high that but then realized that all highs are also not good. For example there is no clear line between confidence and overconfidence. Our old scriptures talks about something called middle path. For many years thought that middle path means not being aggressive, middle path means not being confident, middle path means lack of full clarity. Finally I realized that the middle path actually gives the answer to the very question. Its neither this, nor that, but both.
Leadership is all about paradoxes. Successful leader is not the super human but like you and me. He is the one who understands this art of balancing between the paradoxes of this and that. Clock runs because of the pendulum that does not stay at one position, but swings between the two extremes on continuous basis. Have been seeing the clock from childhood but took many years to understand this behavior of the system that keep the clock run day in and day out.
Paradoxes, paradoxes and paradoxes ! Will try to explore.
Sr. Director, Global Procurement, APAC
3 年Great thought Piyush & "penned" down perfectly.
Seeker, Lifelong learner, Effectively connecting (stranded) reserves to barrels through innovative techniques, Safety and Performance coach, Leader in well design, construction across Deepwater, shallow water and Land
3 年Mangal, Good reflections on your journey. One of the key underlying ingredient is curiosity. It is the fuel energizing your thought engine to navigate dilemmas as decisions are made. And then embracing consequences of the choices made. In this journey, there will be some good decisions and there will be some life learnings. Important is to have key ingredients like, staying authentic - to yourself and with others, uncompromising integrity, unquneching curiosty - being a lifelong student, and courage to accept the consequences of the choices made.
National Sales Manager Waterproofing
3 年So true !! Very nicely expressedleaders dilemma.? Leaders ability to strategically scan? their environment ahead of rest, and steer their team? is a constant work in progress.?
LinkedIn Top Business Strategy & Business Dev Voice | Founder GROWSCALE | Advisory board member | Partner Strategii At Work | Fractional CXO | Regional GM | Sales & Mkt Leader | Startup Mentor | ACC trained Coach |
3 年Agree with the idea of paradox especially in today’s environment. In the end there is no one size fits all and it’s really situational and leadership needs to be adaptable to every different situation & individual
Very true sir. The challenge is that the middle path may not be as evident as mathematical calculations of mean, median or mode.