My Thoughts on Leadership

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.

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 

Personal Experience of Transition to High School (Part 1/5)

My daughter Tanya will move to Grade 9th (the dreaded beginning of High School) next academic year. I have been trying through various sources to get an insight into what it takes to understand the transition to High School but could not get much to chew on. Hence I decided to write my experience in seeing my daughter move from Middle School to High School. I have decided to write five installment of this experience at appropriate intervals based on the actual transition and hope some parents who will have High School going kids in the nest 2 years will find it useful. It might also be useful to just understand the US high school systems for my readers who may be outside of US

The first inkling that my daughter is slowly moving towards High School was when a small note from her school (Middle School called Thomas Russell Middle School) came around 2nd week of December 2008 while she is still in 8th grade. It asks the parent of soon to be High Schooler to participate in an orientation course in Milpitas High School on January 11th 2009. Milpitas is the city in Bay area in California where we live in .

I kept the notice from the school around my laptop for almost 3 weeks lest I forget the orientation date. Tanya never seemed to be excited about this orientation course and in fact seemed a bit amused over my enthusiasm to participate in the orientation. Finally, much to my amusement I was ready well before time and reached the High School auditorium along with my younger daughter, Tanvi. I was definitely quite excited to know what happens in High School. I never changed school from Grade 1 to Grade 10th and hence never got this opportunity when I was moving to High School. May be the lack of such experience while I was moving to High school classes though in the same school kept my excitement level higher when I get a chance to learn first hand here in US.

The programme started sharp at 7:00 PM PST with the Principal introducing himself and a few counselors. He then greeted the parents and started providing some key difference in High school from Middle school. The Principal said that everything in high School was almost 6 times bigger than the Middle school like :

1. area of the school (almost 6 times the size of middle school),
2. no. of teachers (125 in High School as against 25 in Middle School)
3. no. of students (almost 2500 in High School as against 250 in Middle School)
4. no. of classrooms, etc…

The Principal tried to assure the parents that apart from the increased size of the school including no. of teachers, no. of students all other things are quite normal. In fact he said that the discipline is more rigorous in High School than in Middle School. Here is the name by which students are called in their 4 years of High School

1. Freshmen : 9th Grade
2. Sophomore : 10th Grade
3. Junior : 11th Grade
4. Senior : 12th Grade

The Principal also informed that it will need 225 credits plus 20 hours of community service plus clearing the California High School Exit test to graduate out of High School. There are some subjects like English, Maths, Social Studies that are compulsory for everyone to take while there is couple of electives that the students have to chose from a list of electives. Here is the list of electives that are on offer in Milpitas High School

Incidentally for the first time I also came to understand that Advance Placement Course (that some students take to get some college credits) is a private enterprise / business. All along I had a notion that such Advance Placement courses are sponsored by the Government through the High School for students who are meritorious. However, that’s not true. Advance Placement Courses is a private business and it was one of the many lessons of Educational Capitalism that I have come to realize in US.

The orientation course finally ended at 8:00 PM after some routine questions from interested parents and their answers by the faculty. I especially liked the Speech and the Debate teacher who ahs earlier been attorney and judge for 35 years. He really energized the audience with his superb speech as to why students need to select “Speech and Debate course” as one of their electives. I don’t remember his name but I think I was personally impressed by his oratorical skills for me to go back and ask Tanya to think considering taking this particular elective. Being a professional attorney and Judge, to me ,gives this teacher a very unique perspective to students in his class about debates and speeches. I wish Tanya takes this elective as it might help her intangibly in her overall personality development as she grows older.

Finally, I and Tanvi left the auditorium after posing some few question to the Principal about the importance of Advance Placement courses. Looking back I think that particular evening in Milpitas High School Auditorium definitely helped me start thinking about the upcoming transition of Tanya from Middle school to High School.

Stay tuned for the second update in this series of High School Transition Experience….

Relevance of API Score in the context of selecting High School

We are all aware of API score being the guidelines for being a good or a bad school. It’s a fact that API scores and certain demographics go hand in hand. Most of the school that has a high API score has predominantly Asian population that historically has placed high value to academics. In most of the Asian countries only a good education can guarantee a good career.

However, if you look objectively, there are some serious questions about the desire of making your kids go through the same stressed environment through which most of the 1st generation of immigrants have gone in their own country. America is a capitalist economy while most of the Asian countries were either a colony of some empire or a socialist economy. The resources are plentiful in US while back home there is a huge scarcity of resources. For one seat in IIT there are more than 3000 competitors. There were more than lakh applicants for 26 seats in AIIMS, New Delhi.

The situation in US is completely different. You can literally start a career after you are barely out of High School. You can have tons of opportunities to make money without even graduating from high school. The opportunities are only limited by your imagination. No job is considered menial. A truck driver who has a passion in driving can earn the same compared to an engineer considering an early start for the career of a truck driver. In other words the options are limitless. This sort of thing was unthinkable while we were in High school back in India. The only career was a Doctor or an Engineer etc. But times have changed. With the opening of the Indian economy in 1991, the career opportunities are coming to people who are barely out of their college and in few instances out of their high schools. This trend is going to increase as India will keep on integrating with the developed world economies.

I do believe that as a 1st generation immigrant parent we have a responsibility to balance our own desire through our kids versus giving them the freedom to choose what they want. Personally, I would tilt towards making them understand the pros and cons of their choice and leave it to their judgments but at times I also would be strict and may impose my will if I see that their choice belies rationale. As my wife says being a good human being is far more important than being the topper.

I would not like to get into the rat race of getting my kids into schools having relatively superior API scores. I consider that API score has more of an economical value than anything else. A good API score will demand a premium on real estate in US. A good API score will have mostly well to do families who will always want their kids to come first. I would rather have my kid’s personality be shaped by providing them life’s lesson rather than putting them in stressful environments and making them compete if they don’t naturally show a flair for such competition. Let them enjoy their young years with a broad guidelines that help them to stay on course without being tormented to come first in schools that thrive on such competition and hence have higher API scores

Today, I was in the orientation class of High School considering that Tanya would be going to High School next academic year. The Principal of Milpitas High School in response to my question told me that you need to have good SAT scores and good academic records to get into decent college rather than having the best API schools to graduate from and thereby running the risk of burning yourself out before 4 crucial years of College.

While neither the Indian system of education that puts high level of stress on the children’s nor the relaxed way of teaching in the US are a good example of a balanced education system, I do believe that quality parental supervision and sharing of life’s lesson while stressing disciplined approach to study will eventually triumph because that’s where the equilibrium is. Let’s not get disoriented by the sabre rattling of getting your kids admitted to only in a school with highest API rankings. Didn't we come out of ordinary schools but still are relatively succesful?

I would be interested to know if you have a different opinion…

Satyam, a $1 Billion fraud

What a national disgrace Satyam Chairman has brought to all of us. Satyam means truth and I am sure till today this was the mantra of the company but the shocking disclosure of its chairman, Raju once again demonstrates that both the good and the bad exists within each of us and who takes the upper hand decides the snapshot of the action. However, what was disturbing in Raju’s case is that he was the perpetrator of the wrong deeds over a number of years and he just tried to keep it under the wraps as long as he possible could. This makes his mistake appalling and not worthy of slightest sympathy.

Raju himself has admitted that he was riding a tiger and didn’t know how to get off without being eaten. His actions to cover up his mistakes for so long are nothing short of mass financial murders akin to mass murders that we sometimes see in our society. There have been millions of small investors whose wealth just evaporated in front of their eyes and they could not do anything about it. It was their life savings and the greed of a few just took everything away from these hapless employee and small shareholders.

This debacle also poses some very disturbing questions:

1. How can one person make such a large scale fraud of investor’s money?
2. Did Satyam auditors also colluded with Raju while they were supposed to protect the shareholder’s interest?
3. Was the Satyam board sleeping and forget their fiduciary duty of overseeing the shareholder’s interest?
4. The fate of approx. 53000 Satyam employee and their families (I am glad that I left Satyam 4 years back)
5. How the small investors will regain their losses?
6. Why Raju and so many others were allowed to remain outside for almost 3 full days after their shocking disclosures and hence giving them time to destroy key evidences?

However, I do see some silver lining out of the current mess. I am sure there will lot of scrutiny in terms of audit and financial well being of the companies which ultimately will help in protecting the shareholder’s and their employee’s. Role of the Government in bailing out companies of national / international stature will also be of significant interest.

Changing Face of Gift Giving

Gifts are ubiquitous part of our social life. Right from birth to various milestones in one’s life including birthdays people do receive gifts from their near & dear ones. There have been various kind of gifts but they can easily be categorized in maximum 5 or 6 distinct categories. However, gifts have also changed or evolved over a period of time.

When I was young, I normally used to get clothes as part of my gifts. My aunts, uncles and closed relatives would all used to find some sort of clothes (mostly shirts & occasional trousers) as gifts during my young age. With age clothes started getting replaced with money. I think at that age I really liked money as gift as you can do whatever that money could fetch.

When my daughters were born, I used to see toys along with clothes and money as gifts. Of course, in India sometimes there would be occasional gold gifts like a chain etc. When we came to US, we experienced that gifts for kids were usually toys and gifts for adults were usually some household items that most of the time were difficult to use and used to mostly end up getting recycled. I also saw the prevalence of gift cards which is not bad. However, I always thought of going for books as gifts but then I believe books still do not command a universal appeal as good gifts. I have also noticed that people sometimes may find it difficult to think what to buy as gift and hence thought of making this process very easy for my guests.

Please don’t bring any gifts. Simple and clean! No hassle! Just don’t bring anything. I have talked to my wife on this and she also agrees with me. But for people who want to bring some things no matter what(or think that bringing gift is a necessary social evil), I would strongly suggest that they donate (it could be as low as $1 and no guesses on the other end) to this amazing charity called Foundation for Excellence. You can find lot of other details about this non profit organization at www.ffe.org. I really find myself closer to the objective of this organization and would like to seek help of all my readers, friends and relatives to please donate to this organization instead of bringing gift to us. Small amounts quickly add to a sizeable sum that will go a long way in helping meritorious but poor kids.

This will also help our kids to understand the value of giving and hopefully they can learn to share whatever little or big with the people who have not been blessed in life like us but has lots of potential, if well supported.

Of course the best birthday gift that I got in my entire life was to get engaged with my wife on my birthday and I am not willing to exchange her with any charity!!!

Transition Time

If you have been following the recently concluded US President election then you must be aware of the term “Transition Time” where the President elect has enough time to form his cabinet while the incumbent President still is the real President who takes decisions though in consultation with the President-elect.

However, in India, once the results for General Election is out there is hardly any time for transition between incumbent and the elected team. Most of the time after the result is declared goes in horse trading but that’s an altogether separate issue that I don’t want to concentrate right now.

Why can’t we in India also imbibe some form of “Transition Time” so that the leader of the Party-elect can take time to slowly get initiated in the nitty gritty of forming the cabinet and then planning policies that it want to implement when they eventually run the show. Most of the time we see that the President in India after getting the notification of the election results asks the incumbent Govt. to continue working as caretaker Govt. with only notional authority. While there is no concept of briefing the new leadership team on important security & national / international issues and considering them on the same footing as the ruling leadership team; on the other hand the ruling leadership is only a titular head. This creates a leadership vacuum during the transition of power in India.

The Presidential and the Prime ministerial form of democracy that exists in US and in India have their own nuances that may or may not allow the “Transition Time” in India that we see in US but it’s worth considering to follow this important concept in some shape or form suitable for democracy in India.

To me it’s following one of the best practices while not making structural changes.