Leadership Development
I recently watched an episode of Mahabharat Yuddh on television, and saw the warrior Karna was blessed with one deadliest weapon to kill Arjuna. He was blessed by the lord Indra that he can use this weapon only ONCE to kill a particular enemy. Karna kept the weapon reserve but was forced to use it against “Ghatotkchh” the son of Bhima. As a result of this the weapon has gone from his possession, and his enemy (Arjuna) was still alive and powerful.
I wonder, what a great leader with leadership development trait should have done? What if the leader is blessed with one such great weapon ? Let us first understand this in a context of leadership. What are the weapons we have in our armoury? Here, weapons mean resources, and how frequently we should use them? and if at all use them then are we sure about the time of using them? Especially post covid-19, the resources have been scarce and available remotely and/or selectively.
Covid-19 has changed many canvas and stereo types. 9 to 5 job has suddenly re-designed as ‘WFH’. Moment to moment control over the people has now gone and is now governed by online activities.Every aspect of job has undergone a shift or a change.It’s time to focus on the new evolved way of managing people and team. The new perspective of leadership development.
What if we get a standard prescription of leadership ? What if we just copy-paste somebody else’s experience and get ahead in our way? These things sounds like an ice cool water in 50 degree temperature but that is practically not possible. What we collectively can attempt is to draw a broad frame work, which can help leaders. So, to begin with what leader has to do every day as his/her task, the area that can determine the real success. Let’s take a look.
Though there are number of tasks a leader has to perform in a given day, let us try and divide our job in key task groups.
Key Task groups for a leader
- Admin Tasks that we perform daily.
- Functional tasks where accountability rest on our shoulders.
- People tasks- managing team and managing conflicts.
- Coaching & Training and Motivating people
- Reviews and Planning
Keeping this in mind, let us try and attempt to label each task group with time allocation. People centric activities need more time and ‘non-people’ activities need less time, leader should consider optimum time allocation to each task group. Let’s see how it looks if we go by the numbers. 
Time allocation for leadership tasks
Most recommended behaviour traits of Leadership Development:
- Display immense empathy to each and every employee of your organization.
- Reinstate sense of belonging to employees and not only to organization.
- Demonstrate total emotional intelligence and balancing approach with people with unique challenges.
- Constantly talk only positives about the outlook, no matter how bitter the reality is, no need to forcefully gulp the bitter pills every time, it is ok to be sweet.
- Show your team a way forward and walk along with them.
- Build trust, cause only trust will help you to retain good talents.
- Provide challenging work environment to your team, encourage them to excel in their work.
- Keep upgrading your team members skills and knowledge
- Establish a healthy competition between employees and drive them to perform better
- Do not lose the personal touch with your team. Each member should feel your presence in their life.
Consume this 10 behaviour commandment, and in the next article I will deep dive into key aspects of leadership behaviour, “Must Do” “Should Do”
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