Starting a new venture – Thoughts, challenges and what success means

Leadership is omnipresent – be it in personal, professional, or societal settings! Am sure each one of us may have had opportunity to emerge as leader or act as one in a specific role. We have all grown with our own perspectives based on personal experiences as to what a good leader means to us. Our perspectives may have also evolved and changed over time based on how we view today and the future. In this piece, we want to talk specifically about leadership in the professional / corporate environments

The rapid changes in the business environment, generational changes and expectations from people, leadership and leadership styles have evolved over time and will continue to evolve to be aligned with the times. One of the key aspects of a leader would therefore be the ability to visualize the today and tomorrow and ensure alignment.

We conducted a recent poll with over 100 participants to understand what qualities they admired most in successful leaders. While results were in line what one had expected, the overwhelming importance that respondents gave for – Authenticity & Consistency (51%) and Purpose & Value Driven (34%), were significantly higher than the other attributes such as Humility (12%) and Resilience (3%). This to us, clearly reveals the importance people place towards leaders being focused, purposeful and congruent.

Over the years of my dealing with corporate CEOs and entrepreneurial owners (leaders), the successful ones have been those who were clear in their purpose, a well-articulated vision, staying focused and remaining consistent. I also saw a lot of humility in some of them, which was their actual corner stone to being a most impactful leader. I guess it is a combination of these virtues that have taken them to great heights.

I have also experienced other leaders who were more feared than admired – very autocratic and seldom listening or allowing people around them to commit mistakes and learn from them. It was direction more through power and listening only to their closest network – this made them very inconsistent and therefore lacking in authenticity! But sadly, they still lead large companies – but, never reaching the full potential of the resources they have!

In this piece, we explore more the qualities of the leader than the style of leadership itself – Of course, both play a very important role.

Purpose & Value driven –

  • This in my view is a very important part of being a good leader – a leader who sees the purpose beyond of oneself and focuses on the people and organization around him. Good leaders are often adept at connecting personal purpose, team purpose and organizational purpose, with demonstrable communication of the same.
  • Values and alignment to them distinguishes a great leader from a good one. Most people ‘know’ what the right things to do are…but very few ‘Do’ what they ‘know’. Articulating and living the values is what sets the tone for a great leader and building the culture that they want to promote.
  • Being purposeful and value driven are strongly interconnected – purpose defines where we are headed, and values define how we get there, consistently, and together

Authenticity & Consistency

  • In today’s business environment and expectations from the teams, this is probably the most important characteristic that is valued in a leader. The erstwhile leader was viewed as a powerful façade of strength, infallibility, and indispensability. In the complex business world of today, no one can claim to have answers to every complex situation.
  • Our recent experience with the pandemic was a great example where many leaders had to think on the fly and come up solutions that worked for their organizations and people using collective wisdom rather than one where they could claim to know how to respond. The more inclusive the leaders were, the more they could adapt a solution that could see them through this crisis, which was new to almost all leaders – none of them having experienced any disruption of this magnitude.
  • The openness to learn from every situation and everyone around is a virtue that leaders must build over time and this requires a consistent approach to seeking knowledge, listening, and recognizing the strength of collective wisdom. It is completely ok be oneself and be vulnerable as well! This does not mean passing on all your problems to others or ‘throw your hands up’ in times of adversity – but it means understanding what one does not know, sharing your struggles and collectively finding the best solution for the situation.

Humility –

  • This may seem like a natural extension to be authentic, and it is not entirely wrong. Humility is a very relevant yet most under discussed virtue of a leader. Often enough this virtue is missed or masked under ‘servant leadership’ – which is more a style of leadership that encompasses humility, authenticity and being purpose driven.
  • Leaders with high levels of humility not only create greater engagement and alignment with their immediate leadership teams but have a great influence on building this important virtue amongst their second level and tertiary leaders within the organization.
  • Humble leaders listen a lot, are open to feedback and criticism, foster creativity, and innovation (by being forgiving of mistakes), acknowledge contributions and recognize other’s work – all of these motivate and help the entire organization work without the ‘fear of failure’ and build a highly engaging work culture!

Resilience

  • As long as change is the only constant, Resilience will remain an important virtue. Changes and the impact of these may vary by degree, but it is during these times of adversity (or even opportunity), that leaders need to be grounded and steadfast in their alignment to collective organizational purpose. Yet again, the pandemic thought us how to respond in times of adversity and gloom. Resilient leaders embraced this situation to reimagine a new world order, opened their minds to new possibilities and a different way of doing things.
  • Leaders who successfully navigate through challenges are more capable of guiding themselves and their teams in a new direction with courage, conviction and clarity of thought and purpose. It is at times like these that leaders need to have strong understanding of themselves (emotional intelligence) and rely on their social connections for wisdom while taking on these seemingly insurmountable challenges.
  • While these are the critical virtues of a successful leader, equally relevant are others such as being open and transparent, keen desire to learn and grow, being inclusive and being humane.
  • Successful leaders can orchestrate all these virtues to produce a symphony like experience through congruent actions that reflect their true strengths as a leader.

With the newer generation of the workforce and evolution of businesses, the traditional leader as we knew in the past – one who drives through power, fear and authority may not be sustainable anymore for several reasons. The need of the hour is more approachability, strong sense of purpose, values, and humility.

Good luck with your leadership journey as you navigate these virtues, balance them, and bring them to the fore!