Do you have a leader in you?

If you happen to read Times of India (TOI) these days, you will come across the ‘Lead India’ initiative by the Times Group. The winner will be sponsored to fight parliamentary election to ‘change’ the country. I do not know if this is a media gimmick or a dauntless effort to trigger a change in the country, but the topic made me to think on the concept of leadership.

If you ask someone in India that who reminds you of a leader, then you can expect the mid-night freedom era generation speaking of the freedom fighters and early post-independence politicians. If the same question is asked to the younger generation then I bet the answer will be Bhuvan from the movie ‘Lagaan’ or Kabir Khan from ‘Chak De India’.

Leadership has basically three styles:

o Authoritarian or autocratic
o Participative or democratic
o Delegative or Free Reign

Authoritarian style is the one where the leader tells her employees what she wants done and how she wants it done, without getting the advice of her followers. Some of the appropriate conditions to use it are when you have all the information to solve the problem, you are short on time, and your employees are well motivated.

Participative style involves the leader including one or more employees in on the decision making process (determining what to do and how to do it). However, the leader maintains the final decision making authority. Using this style is not a sign of weakness; rather it is a sign of strength that your employees will respect.

Finally the Delegative style is where the leader allows the employees to make the decision. However, the leader is still responsible for the decisions that are made. This is used when employees are able to analyze the situation and determine what needs to be done and how to do it.

Coming back to Bhuvan and Kabir Khan, they are two characters who have differing leadership styles. Bhuvan is more of a participative or democratic leader who considered the opinion or the feelings of all his team members. Bhuvan has a soft aggression that will not make him seem like a formidable person, but at the same time has the grit and determination to push his team members to achieve goal. Kabir Khan is a different story. He is more of an autocratic leader who does not shy away from imposing his decisions and that makes him earn the title ‘Tuglaq’ in the movie. Though Kabir pushes his team members, he does win the confidence and support of his team members eventually (movie off course!).

Usually, a leader do not follow a single style of functioning; rather she dices between the styles. There is no winner formula for a leader as effective leadership is more of circumstantial, but I feel the best recommended style in most of the business scenario is when you are 60% of the times democratic, 15% of the times autocratic and 15% of the times delegative. Thus, this will help one to take into consideration the opinions of others, give a space for others to have their say and at the same time make your decisions imposed at the right time.

Most of the times people say that leadership cannot be acquired, it is something which is in ones gene or which is accumulated by oneself since the childhood whether being the captain of the school football team or the class representative. Then the question to be asked is can leadership be taught and the answer can be yes! Then the corollary will be that leadership then can be very much taught or incubated like management. To sum it up I think the best requirements of a leader is cited by Mr. Barry Salzberg, CEO of my firm Deloitte; “every leader needs brains, courage, heart (empathy), an unwavering focus on goals, and dogged determination”. They say that there is a hero in each one of us, I feel there is a leader in each one of us also, and it’s just a matter of how we treat the leader in us.