1Steven Tan Chong Yew
1 Brand & Marketing
1(chongyew.tan@gmail.com / steven_tan@oum.edu.my)
Abstract
What makes good leaders have been profoundly research? The academic world has also given many brilliant definitions for leadership, and devises many leaders’ attributes, and yet there is no absolute answer of what constitute a good leader; even in English lexicon is defined only as the state or position of leading a group of people or organization. There are no perfect leaders in the market, there is only ‘model’ for leader to practice, and develop their leadership skills.
Keywords: Self-improvement, leadership, model, management
1.0 INTRODUCTION
What makes good leaders have been profoundly research. The academic world has also given many brilliant definitions for leadership, and devises many leaders’ attributes, and yet there is no absolute answer of what constitute a good leader; even in English lexicon is defined only as the state or position of leading a group of people or organization. There are no perfect leaders in the market, there is only ‘model’ for leader to practice, and develop their leadership skills.
2.0 THE DOCTRINE: ‘CHANGE IS VALUE’
A leader with inappropriate leadership attitude is difficult to change, this is especially true for some corporate people climbing up each and every stages of the corporate ladders, they are up many ‘level’ but hardly change their attitude to be better. The organization is then said to be ossified when it consists of many of these people. So before we venture into our discussions, let’s believe that ‘Change is Value’, and leader must be willing to change their attitude, and reset their mindset for greater management challenge ahead.
3.0 UNDERSTANDING THE 3 DIMENSIONAL LEADERSHIP FOR SELF-IMPROVEMENT
The simplicity of leadership model as I perceive should consists of three elements supported by an inner value; the element of Education & Delegation, Motivation & Control, and Sharing & Recognition, and all these are supported by the inner value of ‘Passion & Patience’.
4.0 EDUCATION & DELEGATION: MENTORING AS THE NEW ERA OF MANAGEMENT
Organization starts to adopt mentoring management; ‘Mentoring’ is believed to be able to stimulate the inner ability of employees to be proactive. It cultivates the correct attitude in employees, and nurtures the sense of responsibility and creativity. Although ‘Mentoring’ is a new name that is easily understand, but it is difficult to execute. Managers, who well-adapt to their own set of management value, may find this difficult to comprehend.
4.1 MANAGEMENT IS TO PROVIDE EDUCATION IN ORGANIZATION FOR EMPLOYEES
Mentoring is possible to implement with, firstly, the understanding of ‘Education’ in management. Education is about teaching, and as a leader, you must be willing to teach, and leaders must understand that it is part of their role and responsibility to nurture their successor for long term success.
The essence of teaching through mentoring process is to provide guidance. Employees are not lone-ranger in an organization; they belong to a team, and require guidance from the leader. Managers as leaders, should not expect subordinates to acquire certain skill by reading a manual, proper guidance is still needed. This is Education before delegation, you can’t delegate without educate. Leaders need to be passionately and patiently educate employees, and to provide the proper guidance to perform their function.
Organization must also understand that the failure of employees in task execution is blamable on leaders, because leaders may not have taught their subordinate well, and also,
You often heard leaders said, ‘I have taught them, I have advised them, but all were not taken seriously, that’s why they make mistakes’, ‘I have reminded them many times, but it happens again, its frustrating’
As important as Education, leaders should move on to delegation when subordinates have gone through the proper modules. Delegation is about trust between leaders & subordinates; which both has to build on this platform of trust in order to have the best delegation.
Leaders may perceive delegation as if passing off responsibility, so that they’re personally off the work! Hence, you may hear this sometimes, ‘Please keep me out. I am not responsible anymore! I have done my job!’
Delegation is absolutely not giving away responsibility! Leaders still have to perform follow-up, provide guidance, and assist subordinate when needs arrive. Delegation also means ‘empowering’ in management, when a subordinate is delegated a task; they should also be empowered for decision making. Leader can devise criteria where subordinate can make reference when trying to reach a decision.
5.0 INJECT MOTIVATION INTO CONTROL MECHANISM
Often, leaders perceive control as monitoring. In fact, monitoring and control are not similar. Control is too harsh for management, and often creates dissatisfaction. Monitoring, on the other hand, is a new term to management and often empowering employees.
Leaders who use ‘control’ in organization tend to overdo. When leaders exert too much control over subordinates, they become self-obsesses, and start to over-do. This is more commonly seen in local context, Leaders tend to deprive subordinate’s weekend, keep subordinates after working hours, or delegate subordinates more task simply to keep them busy (to justify company spend on head-count!). Eventually, it would turn out a disastrous relationship between the leaders & followers.
Leader should transform controlling into monitoring. Monitoring does not mean reprimanding or scolding upon mistakes. Monitoring does not mean asking your subordinates to report every moment, every minute. Monitoring means giving proper guideline to subordinates to ensure things done smoothly before the given deadline.
It is also widely believe that employees need to be motivated before they are willing to be ‘monitored’ – to bridge a harmonious relationship between leaders and subordinate. Leader must also understand that monitoring is to ensure work done has achieved the set quality and standard.
Monitoring allows organization to practice decision making at the bottom of hierarchy, while bring forth the effectiveness of the task handled by their people. In the progress, is to inject Empathy into the monitoring system, the process itself is creating psychological motivation that works as a push for employees. The process itself is motivating, where people realize their learning curve in the company.
6.0 BOAST MORAL THROUGH SHARING & RECOGNITION
Sharing and recognition are not difficult to understand. Sharing can come in many forms, share of credit, share of company vision, share of company benefits, and many more. Leaders are always encouraged to be open to ‘share’ with subordinates because sharing helps to create a strong team, and in return, enhance subordinates’ learning, and increase job satisfaction.
Sharing needs to be positive, leaders need to have positive thinking in order to have positive sharing with subordinates. Hence, Positive thinking is important; when leaders are positive, their sharing and recognition are sincere, and truly for their subordinates. All these can help to boast morale of the organization.
Recognition means appreciation of the effort contributed by employees, it can be in many form, promotion, pay increase, incentive trips, but for Asian, the most expected appreciation are in monetary term. Leaders also need to understand what subordinates expect in term of recognition. Sometimes, high employees turn-over leave good company wander for reason. They simply neglect the employees’ expectation for recognition.
Sharing & Recognition are part & parcel of leadership, both are important to boast employees’ morale. However, there are no clear guidelines of what should be shared among the subordinates or how recognition should be given; but all these can be done if leaders are willing to understand the need of employees better.
7.0 PATIENCE MAKES THEM HAPPY WITH THEIR WORKS; PASSION MAKES THEM MAKE LOVE WITH THEIR WORK
‘Patience makes them happy; passion makes them make-love with their work’. Leaders need to have the passion to teach, passion to learn, passion to work, and many more. Passion is crucial for leaders because leader with little passion could not exert high influences in organization.
Passion can only nurture through continuous reinforcement from top down. People with passion are the possible influential factor for others; they are always happy, energetic, enthusiastic and love the work; those around tend to feel release, joyful, open, and active.
Passionate leaders are willing travel extra miles, and make the 3 dimensions possible to achieve, and fostering high employees morale. For example, leaders who are passionate to teach could enhance employees’ learning curve, and more delegations make possible. Let’s not forget about patience too, one example is that leaders with this quality can teach patiently, and patiently adapt to your speed of learning, to ensure you absorb the skills taught.
Organization culture is built around people in the organization, and Company will have good culture if leaders are willing to change for betterment. Sometimes, company environment may not be conducive but leaders must stand for change, and spreading their aura of positive thinking to others, they can become a positive in organization, and to work towards the model of this leadership.
***************** END *****************
(1) Worth sharing: Is empowerment meaning the ‘lost of power’?
It is especially true for some leaders, who may believe empowering staff means losing power on their end. Empowering is difficult when leader is shadow with this concern of the ‘lost of power’. You can find this type of leader in any organization. This fall on human thought of jealousy and self- defend. This leader will only teach you the minimal to allow your routine operation run smooth as expected. Leader of this category will make change management difficult.
(2) Worth sharing: Management can assist leaders to be good leaders
Management should design a training modules, which should pervasively used in organization. The modules should also state the duration of the training, and what employees should expect to learn in the process. In the modules, it should clearly specify the role & responsibilities of employees for pre- training & post- training. An effective module, should also cover assignment given from time to time, and ensure every participant understands the job role. For example, FMCG products always engage seasonal promotion. Participants may be given task to implement those promotion activities with a mentor for guidance.
(3) Worth Sharing: Professional Salary Man, how does it become?
Company without the correct leadership skills will resort to two possible-ends, (1) high employee turn-over, or, (2) transforming employees into one of the many professional salary-men. Salary man are neither love nor like their work, they work for living, and do not emotionally attach to their work, and hence, it makes re-structuring tougher in organization.
Steven Tan Chong Yew
B.A (Hon) Bus. Admin (Marketing Mgt), Anglia Polytechnic University,
MBA (International Business),
NOTE: The views expressed herein are solely writer’s personal opinion. Readers may email writers at chongyew.tan@gmail.com
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