Strategic Leadership

Leadership is an important function that is responsible for formulation, communication and execution of strategies in every organization, company or state.  In all these phases, the leader should connect to ground reality, assess the status quo, then drive the change and take feedback. Most organizations have leaders sitting at top making decisions that impact each staff but barely understand them, thus leading to badly devised strategies or good strategies that are executed bad.

Formulation:

Any leader who is not connected to the ground will be bound to fail in his strategy, as he would have designed something that may not fit the situation. We are in a complex business scenario where off the shelf strategies wont work well. Leadership trying to copy strategy from successful companies are doing at their peril.  In order to device and design  strategy a leader should have a profound understanding of the situation, strengths and weaknesses of the people and the competition among others.

Communication:

Success of any strategy depends on appropriate communication of actions required for the strategic outcome. Communication of the actions forms prime precursor to its execution. A well communicated strategic actions derive much more benefits as the ground staff understand and stand committed to the strategy.  Any strategic action enforced on the staff with out adequate communication, will inevitably lead to mixed outcomes due to lack of clarity on what is expected out of actions.

 Lead the change:

Change doesn't happen automatically, it needs to be lead. Hands-off leaders will suffer the surprise that change did not bring needed results. This is because they have given directions to subordinates and relax in their cabins hoping things to beget results. How ever, in absence of leadership, change will meet resistance and finally dies down before it shows impact.

Feedback :

One potential cause of failure is when the necessary feedback is not fed back to leadership team/leader on what is not working. This happens when the subordinates are scared to give any bad news to boss or when the ‘yes men’ of the boss always filter and moderate the feedback.  This will stop the much needed corrective action to make things work and thus lead to failure path. 

When Learning is Fun

My four year old daughter shot a dozen questions at us during weekend. Most questions relate to Hindi words she picked up during the week from her Hindi speaking classmates. When we gave her answer to each question, some glow is on her face signifying she is enjoying the learning act. I was very happy to see that, because learning is the motive behind education and it is awesome when some one enjoys learning new stuff. At that tender age every learning excites the kid. Problem is with grownups when they are exposed to learning. 

Problem1:

Organizations spend lot of time and efforts on training and development of their staff, how ever its success is miserably low and the impact the training brings to the day job of the staff is minimal. Also most times training are dictated either by central training department, senior management or the line management. This can sometimes lead to sending the wrong employee to wrong set of training. Employees lack commitment to training that they have not requested for and had to go just because of compulsion. 

As one ages, a feeling I-Know-it-all dominates few folks. They are face a not so receptive to new learning, discounting them as old wine in new bottle. Their prejudices disallow from enjoying as well as assimilating the learning.

Some folks are too scared of change. So instead of enjoying the new things , they become skeptical and most times resist change. This will prevent them from enjoying the new learning.

Problem2:

At tender age kids pick up many things by the way of questioning. There is no silly or simple question to their eyes and they can ask anything and everything. Grown ups struggle to ask questions at times, not because they do not have them but because of psychological barriers.

Lets say a person who is widely respected as super performer and brilliant person at workplace. He most times feels a pressure to suppress any simple question that's deemed understood by rest of the herd. If he doesn't people will think him not smart enough. Some people have fear of being ridiculed in public when a basic question is asked. Some folks have the’sheep’ mentality and does not want to ask any question to their boss, this is sometimes looked at as disobedience. Also politics at work place causes another barrier as most often ironically, people do not see the ‘what’part of a question and instead start making absurd guesses about’why’ is he asking this question.

Conclusion:

Learning is really so much fun, if its done in right spirit. The excitement  of knowing a new thing is the real motivating factor for the act. 

Where there is a ‘Will’, There is a way

Popular misconception that a ‘Will’ is typically prepared by dying old men in 70s/80s to document how their wealth is to be distributed among the kin. Another related misconception is that its only for the rich folks who have lots of money to be distributed.  On the contrary ‘will’ is the document that gives direction on how your assets and wealth is to be distributed, in the unfortunate event of death and is so applicable to all. I try to give a perspective to this

You definitely need one, if you have complicated family relationships:

Lets say a person A got married to B and they have children C & D. A gets divorced with B and remarries with E and their children are F & G. A gets divorced with E and starts living H and they have a kid I.  In the absence of a well documented and registered will, and an unfortunate event of A’s death, there is heavy chance of dispute arising. In the end the property left by A may not be distributed in the manner he would have wanted. So its important for people in complicated relationships to have a will and register it as well.  Registering the will can help in case anyone tries to contest the authenticity.

You are an accomplished individual in 50s and above:

A person who is in 50s and has some wealth accumulated through his lifetime of hard work. Even if he/she does not have complicated relationships and had kids from single marriage,  a will would help his lifetime of earnings to be distributed in an amicable manner between the sons/daughters.

You have a single spouse and single kid:

This looks like a straight forward case where there is no need for a will, isn’t it? Yes until you hear about cases in this world where the father’s money is taken all by the son/daughter and dead man’d widow is left to struggle for making a living. So an explicit will stating how the wealth needs to be shared between spouse and kids is going to help in getting into such situations.

You have a single spouse and no kids:

Come on, nothing can be more straight forward. Why does one need a will? Okay let me explain that  Will is a document containing complete document of the assets and wealth a person has. Lets say a person A deposits x amount of money in a bank account in the form of fixed deposits. Unless spouse is aware of this account, she would not be able to claim that amount. There are many unclaimed deposits lying with banks as the next of kin are not aware of the fact. Will can serve as document of reference for the loved ones left behind.  Also if one has noble thought of donating some of his fortune to charity, it needs to be documented in will so that its executed accordingly.

You have complicated financial transactions:

In a country like India, we complicate our lives by indulging in transactions for petty financial benefits.  So will becomes a necessity. I know a situation where an uncle of mine invested his grand mother’s money in his name, as he was eligible for better dividends. Up on his death, as this element was not documented, the money wen to his legal heir. A will could have helped. 

So I would conclude that ‘will’ is a document which makes sure your preference of allocation of your fortune is done justly in your absence. For people who are in youth as well this is a must and it can be changed periodically (once in few years) to reflect accurate state of affairs and preferences.