Category: Leadership

Pope’s treatise on Leadership!


The Pope really hit the nail on the head in his address to the leaders of the Roman Curia when he outlined the diseases that ail Leadership in general. Gary Hamel in his article in HBR The 15 Diseases of Leadership, According to Pope Francis translated Pope’s message of last year to corporate speak for the benefit of leaders outside of the Roman Curia.

Some of those stood out as common diseases visible all over:

A) Sense of being indispensable

B) “Leadership Alzheimer’s  disease”

C) The disease of hoarding, which I would like to broaden the scope of to include the disease of Silos and lack of information sharing

D) The disease of poor coordination- building on Mr. Hamel’s thoughts I believe this disease has its roots in the ‘better than the pack’ mindset

Definitely a great read by two stalwarts in their own fields! Enjoy!

 

 

 

Build Talent Pipeline, Manage Knowledge: Add a Mentoring Program to your Talent and KM Tool-Kit!


What are the tools in your talent management toolbox? Do your TM processes include a structured mentoring program?  Is retention one of your challenges?  Are you interested in structured, but informal learning?  Worried about the reduced half-life of the organization’s knowledge base? If your answer is yes to any of these questions, a mentoring program in your TM toolkit will help?

I’ve personally experienced the power of both formal and informal mentoring relationships, and I know how much it can further the goal of talent development.  Having advised and designed mentoring programs for non-profit organizations, participating in pro-bono small business mentoring initiatives; having a few mentor/ protege (mentee) relationships,  I vouch for its tremendous benefits.

Why mentoring?

  1. A very cost-effective tool to develop talent
  2. Identify and nurture “young” leadership and build “Bench.”
  3. Promote retention
  4. Deliver a highly impactful “onboarding” experience that does not end with the orientation day!
  5. Harness organizational knowledge
  6. Facilitate cross-functional collaboration
  7. Exchange of expertise
  8. Facilitate structured informal learning opportunities
  9. Increase morale and build  a community

‘Leaders don’t create followers, they create more leaders’.- Tom Peters

Students of Leadership training, creators and developers of Leadership training, and people in Leadership roles; all define Leadership differently!

Some equate Leadership with having followers, some with bringing success to team, some with taking initiative, and some even with empowerment.  It is the ’empowerment’ aspect that in my point of view defines Leadership, and is closest to Tom Peter’s quote.

A measure of Leadership is how dispensable one makes oneself, and empowers others to take on the baton!  To those leadership models and theories, which state that Leaders cannot be created, this would be a new way of thinking. We can create Leaders- we just need to be willing to do so. This requires commitment, confidence, and compassion ( I call it the 3Cs of Leadership development)!

Commitment to success of others, confidence in their abilities, and compassion when people falter or take baby steps-These 3Cs are qualities, which if  possessed, would set the foundation toward creating more leaders, and fewer followers.

You can hear the nay-sayers now. Their argument would be how many leaders can there be in an organization, in one division, or in one function? ‘Definitely not more than one!’ Imagine all the chaos that would arise from people doing their own thing and wanting to pull the organization in the direction they were heading, they might say.

But wait! Who said all follower turned leaders had to have the same responsibility/ job description/role?  Neither Tom Peters, nor this blog says ‘all employees have to be CEOs, or all employees have to be managers’. Both these sources, however, definitely say that if one leader is able to create more leaders, then talent management models, and succession planning models will look very different.

With this post, I want to initiate a conversation on Leadership. I welcome you to join me here, or on other forums, and add to the Leadership body of knowledge, and experience.