Leadership has become so common a word that it is used nowadays in every context without understanding the complete meaning of a leader. What is leadership then? Some of the common ideas that others include in leadership definitions include exerting influence, motivating and inspiring, helping others realize their potential, leading by example, selflessness and making a difference. Here are some other common definition of Leadership
The Collins English Dictionary. ( © 1998 HarperCollins Publishers ) leadership (n) 1. The position or function of a leader. 2. the period during which a person occupies the position of leader: during her leadership very little was achieved. 3. a. the ability to lead. b. (as modifier): leadership qualities. 4. the leaders as a group of a party, union, etc.: the union leadership is now very reactionary.
This dictionary definition of leadership focuses on the position (singular or collective), tenure and ability of leaders. As such, it misses key points about the purpose and hallmarks of effective leadership.
Peter Drucker : The foreword to the Drucker Foundation's "The Leader of the Future" sums up leadership : "The only definition of a leader is someone who has followers." To gain followers requires influence (see John Maxwell's definition below) but doesn't exclude the lack of integrity in achieving this. Indeed, it can be argued that several of the world's greatest leaders have lacked integrity and have adopted values that would not be shared by many people today.
John C Maxwell : In the 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, John Maxwell sums up his definition of leadership as "leadership is influence - nothing more, nothing less." This moves beyond the position defining the leader, to looking at the ability of the leader to influence others - both those who would consider themselves followers, and those outside that circle. Indirectly, it also builds in leadership character, since without maintaining integrity and trustworthiness, the capability to influence will disappear.
Warren Bennis : Warren Bennis' definition of leadership is focused much more on the individual capability of the leader : "Leadership is a function of knowing yourself, having a vision that is well communicated, building trust among colleagues, and taking effective action to realize your own leadership potential."
Both George Bush and Barack Obama has been the President of the USA. Can we equate George Bush to Barack Obama within the guidelines of leadership. Yes, we can. However, are they two viewed by the public being a successful leader? No they are not. Obama of course towers over Bush in every respect.
Here is my take on the qualities of a successful leader though not in order of priority. These are the traits I believe based on my personal experience that will help distnguish a succesful leader from the crowd:
1. Never take credit of your team’s success. If you and your team is successful people will associate you with that success.
2. Take the blame for your teams failure : Most of the time your team will fail not because of their inherent abilities but lack of proper guidance from you
3. Praise others : If someone working for you has done something good then praise him in front of others without being judgemental. Such praises will allow people to align themselves very distinctively with your goals and vision
4. Never admonish people in front of others. They will start hating you and however, good you are you will not be able to reverse the trend. Always communicate the failure in person to absorb the negative feelings failures and giving the other a chance to reflect on one’s mistake and a strong shoulder to lean on, if required. Your respect will magnify.
5. Respect the absence : Don’t say bad things about others in their absence. people don’t get chance to put their views across when they are not present.
6. Don’t think what you think is right: Views from others will always add value to your decision making and make your team feel good
7. Empower : Empowering your people and your team is the single most trait of successful leaders to get an ordinary team do extraordinary work
8. Create environment for people to freely air their opinion : Creating right environment for free flow of ideas will eliminate need for lot of transactions that would otherwise be required for you to spent time on
9. Respect Others : Leadership position should be earned rather than asked for or thrusted upon. In the case of later, people will not open up
10. Lead from the front by showing examples. This will generate the excitement in your team
11. Communicate as frequently as you can: The more you communicate the more you will understand where is the bottleneck for your people or your team to work effectively.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Monday, March 16, 2009
I am a Half Marathoner
Yes, that's correct. Till a few months back I would not have imagined running half marathons but with some coaching, training and encouragement, I finsihed Kaiser Permanente sponsored half marathon in San Francisco on Feb 1st. I would like to provide my heartfelt gratitude to the following people to help me achieve this milestone
1. Simmi, my wife for providing the encouragement
2. Rajeev, my mentor in providing the guidance and support when chips were down
3. David Severson, my physical therapist who helped me recover from my injury and providing constant dose of self belief including teaching me how to run strong
If you are interested you can continue reading the race report...
Start : It was my first Half Marathon and I was trying to look for the starting point. However, after seeing a sea of people (came to know that there were around 9000 runners) who packed around 100 meters of strip behind the starting line, I decided to join the crowd along with Mukesh. After a couple of minutes, I saw runners in the front slowly walking as the runners at the start line started running. I too started walking and off to my first half marathon
Mile 1 & 2 : There were so many runners that I didn’t realize when I passed Mile 1 and 2. I was running at a comfortable pace of around 12 minutes.
Mile 3: We went by the side of the starting point through a winding road to hit Mile 3. Mukesh was surprised that there was no water stop till Mile 3. I was running strong and motivated.
Mile 4 & 5: Stopped at the water pit before Mile 4. Took just a sip of water as I was running with my own water bottle. Mile 4 & 5 was uneventful, the course was mostly bland and there were many runners around me. I was keeping pace with Mukesh as I didn’t carry my cell phone and was not prepared to lose sight of Mukesh lest I need to struggle to find my way back to the car alone after the race. The pace was still 12:00 minutes.
Mile 6 : We saw the finish line on the other side of the road and also saw some of the early finishers. I was less than half finish and the sight of runners finishing their race made me kind of a bit embarrassed. Anyways, keeping my age and my fitness in mind I shrugged off that thought and kept my focus of finishing strong
Mile 7: We took the turn on Highway 1 and I saw the unending blue Pacific Ocean ahead of me. It was nice to run along the coast line. I checked the time with Mukesh and we were still maintaining 12:00 minute pace inspite of walking for a minute at every mile sign. It was beginning to feel hot though I think I was still doing strong and no signs of fatigue yet. The runners returning to the finishing line on our left also gave me some added motivation to keep moving strong. There were a few spectator cheering along the way and it was nice to say hello to a few of them
Mile 8: Stopped a bit at the water stop. I was no longer sweating like in the early few miles though it was relatively hot @ 63-64o . The run was becoming a bit monotonous seeing the sight of so many runners returning to the finish line after making a U turn ahead. I did try to crane out my neck and look for the U turn ahead but seems that we still need to go a couple of miles before I could be running towards the finish line. I also saw Coach Char and after few minutes saw Rajeev on the other side running strongly towards the finish line. I believe they were already around 3.5 miles ahead of us. Let’s see if I can run like them in years to come.
Mile 9 : I saw a Cop telling us that the U turn is just 300 meters away and that gave me a renewed sense of strength to focus on finishing strong. I felt happy while taking the U turn as I was now moving towards the finish line.
Mile 10 : I checked with Mukesh and surprisingly we were still doing around 12:00 minutes pace. Mukesh told me that we can complete the race before 2.5 hours. I don’t know if 2.5 hrs was good or bad but it definitely helped me to run stronger though I started to feel hungry. Interestingly, I had brought with me some Channa and Gur in a small sachet that Mukesh graciously agreed to put ia pouch in his running belt. I ate that stuff while running and to my surprise Channa & Gur can also be considered as an excellent alternative to Gu to give you quick round of energy. I had decided earlier that I will not take Gu and hence decided on this makeshift alternative that is very cheap and considered a poor man’s diet back in India.
Mile 11: I think we slowed down a bit by Mile 11. I started feeling some blistering sensation in 2nd finger in my right leg. We were running all the while on hard asphalt road which was progressively getting hotter and I thought that because of the hot asphalt I might be getting blister. I was too scared to open my shoe and look what happened and hence decided to continue alongside Mukesh. Between Mile 10 and 11 we took two short run-break as I was beginning to feel the heat and exhaustion of running for more than 2 hours. However, since I ran 11 mile during one of the weekend run in January, I was just saying to myself that how can I feel exhausted when I have earlier finished 11 miles.
Mile 12 : A distance between 11 and 12 was the most difficult as some funny sensation in my finger besides my right toe made me nervous. I thought that my nails of that particular finger has come off and hence I am having burning sensation. Again I was too sacred to see what actually happened and continued running to the best of my abilities. I was sure we had dropped our pace and might be running @ 13:00 minutes pace instead of 12:00 minutes, but I was the least bothered in my head about my pace. I just was trying to run with Mukesh lest I don’t lose him and end up trying to find the car on way back home. Mukesh was still running strong. I was feeling exhausted.
Mile 13.1 & Finish : Little did I realize that I have sweated heavily and have only replenished water but no salt. I was surprised at myself as to why I was getting exhausted. However the sight of finish line and people lining up on both sides did helped me to finish with a timing of 2:35.
I started to cramp after the finish line and still didn’t realize that I did the stupid mistake of not taking some Gatorade at regular interval or any other kind of salt intake. I went to a booth in the post run expo to get myself a flexibility test and that’s where I realized when the volunteer there told me that I am feeling cramped because of some excessive salt loss.
Overall I think I did pretty well considering this was my first half marathon except not knowing how to handle salt loss. An overall timing of less than 12 minutes was also not bad and more importantly I could manage to keep pace with Mukesh as not to struggle to find the car on way back home
1. Simmi, my wife for providing the encouragement
2. Rajeev, my mentor in providing the guidance and support when chips were down
3. David Severson, my physical therapist who helped me recover from my injury and providing constant dose of self belief including teaching me how to run strong
If you are interested you can continue reading the race report...
Start : It was my first Half Marathon and I was trying to look for the starting point. However, after seeing a sea of people (came to know that there were around 9000 runners) who packed around 100 meters of strip behind the starting line, I decided to join the crowd along with Mukesh. After a couple of minutes, I saw runners in the front slowly walking as the runners at the start line started running. I too started walking and off to my first half marathon
Mile 1 & 2 : There were so many runners that I didn’t realize when I passed Mile 1 and 2. I was running at a comfortable pace of around 12 minutes.
Mile 3: We went by the side of the starting point through a winding road to hit Mile 3. Mukesh was surprised that there was no water stop till Mile 3. I was running strong and motivated.
Mile 4 & 5: Stopped at the water pit before Mile 4. Took just a sip of water as I was running with my own water bottle. Mile 4 & 5 was uneventful, the course was mostly bland and there were many runners around me. I was keeping pace with Mukesh as I didn’t carry my cell phone and was not prepared to lose sight of Mukesh lest I need to struggle to find my way back to the car alone after the race. The pace was still 12:00 minutes.
Mile 6 : We saw the finish line on the other side of the road and also saw some of the early finishers. I was less than half finish and the sight of runners finishing their race made me kind of a bit embarrassed. Anyways, keeping my age and my fitness in mind I shrugged off that thought and kept my focus of finishing strong
Mile 7: We took the turn on Highway 1 and I saw the unending blue Pacific Ocean ahead of me. It was nice to run along the coast line. I checked the time with Mukesh and we were still maintaining 12:00 minute pace inspite of walking for a minute at every mile sign. It was beginning to feel hot though I think I was still doing strong and no signs of fatigue yet. The runners returning to the finishing line on our left also gave me some added motivation to keep moving strong. There were a few spectator cheering along the way and it was nice to say hello to a few of them
Mile 8: Stopped a bit at the water stop. I was no longer sweating like in the early few miles though it was relatively hot @ 63-64o . The run was becoming a bit monotonous seeing the sight of so many runners returning to the finish line after making a U turn ahead. I did try to crane out my neck and look for the U turn ahead but seems that we still need to go a couple of miles before I could be running towards the finish line. I also saw Coach Char and after few minutes saw Rajeev on the other side running strongly towards the finish line. I believe they were already around 3.5 miles ahead of us. Let’s see if I can run like them in years to come.
Mile 9 : I saw a Cop telling us that the U turn is just 300 meters away and that gave me a renewed sense of strength to focus on finishing strong. I felt happy while taking the U turn as I was now moving towards the finish line.
Mile 10 : I checked with Mukesh and surprisingly we were still doing around 12:00 minutes pace. Mukesh told me that we can complete the race before 2.5 hours. I don’t know if 2.5 hrs was good or bad but it definitely helped me to run stronger though I started to feel hungry. Interestingly, I had brought with me some Channa and Gur in a small sachet that Mukesh graciously agreed to put ia pouch in his running belt. I ate that stuff while running and to my surprise Channa & Gur can also be considered as an excellent alternative to Gu to give you quick round of energy. I had decided earlier that I will not take Gu and hence decided on this makeshift alternative that is very cheap and considered a poor man’s diet back in India.
Mile 11: I think we slowed down a bit by Mile 11. I started feeling some blistering sensation in 2nd finger in my right leg. We were running all the while on hard asphalt road which was progressively getting hotter and I thought that because of the hot asphalt I might be getting blister. I was too scared to open my shoe and look what happened and hence decided to continue alongside Mukesh. Between Mile 10 and 11 we took two short run-break as I was beginning to feel the heat and exhaustion of running for more than 2 hours. However, since I ran 11 mile during one of the weekend run in January, I was just saying to myself that how can I feel exhausted when I have earlier finished 11 miles.
Mile 12 : A distance between 11 and 12 was the most difficult as some funny sensation in my finger besides my right toe made me nervous. I thought that my nails of that particular finger has come off and hence I am having burning sensation. Again I was too sacred to see what actually happened and continued running to the best of my abilities. I was sure we had dropped our pace and might be running @ 13:00 minutes pace instead of 12:00 minutes, but I was the least bothered in my head about my pace. I just was trying to run with Mukesh lest I don’t lose him and end up trying to find the car on way back home. Mukesh was still running strong. I was feeling exhausted.
Mile 13.1 & Finish : Little did I realize that I have sweated heavily and have only replenished water but no salt. I was surprised at myself as to why I was getting exhausted. However the sight of finish line and people lining up on both sides did helped me to finish with a timing of 2:35.
I started to cramp after the finish line and still didn’t realize that I did the stupid mistake of not taking some Gatorade at regular interval or any other kind of salt intake. I went to a booth in the post run expo to get myself a flexibility test and that’s where I realized when the volunteer there told me that I am feeling cramped because of some excessive salt loss.
Overall I think I did pretty well considering this was my first half marathon except not knowing how to handle salt loss. An overall timing of less than 12 minutes was also not bad and more importantly I could manage to keep pace with Mukesh as not to struggle to find the car on way back home
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