Pillar 2: Competence

Hello and welcome back! This is the second edition of this newsletter, aimed at calling out to the leader within all of us.... transforming us into the leaders we all aspire to be. I will attempt to share practical suggestions for managing and overcoming the challenges that stand in a leader's path, from my own journey thus far. I am guided by the belief that?each of has the Capability to do and be anything. The question is simply what we choose to do with it!

In this week's newsletter, I shall talk about the Second of the?3 pillars of effective leadership,?that I have coined, with my experience. For ease of?recall I have coined them as?ACE.

The second pillar is Competence ( the "C" in "ACE"). This single word envelopes the entire skill set required for a role. At the outset, I would like to bust the misnomer that a Leader is someone who can talk well! No way. Its not about the oratory skills, but the skills that make him/her the professional he/she is! Didn't we learn way back in school that actions speak louder than words! Actions are a product of the thoughts which are triggered and processed based on the skills and competence!

Thus, there is no short cut to being an effective leader but being competent and equipped for the role! I recall the long hours of shining our shoes and the stars on our uniforms in the Officers Training Academy. Long after the lights out, we would be huddled over, under the small candle light, trying to shine the shoes just a little more, scrubbing the stars to get just a little more sparkle. We often wondered why we needed to struggle so much over it. Its not that we would be shining our shoes or stars, once we got commissioned! But the logic was simple: how can we set targets without knowing what realistic targets are and how much effort they require to achieve! So we built our competence to have the best turnout, knowing what was the benchmark of "best" and how much effort was involved. This logic holds true in any area of a Leader's responsibility/scope.

Bottom-line: No compromise on competence to make a leader effective!