Leadership- Nature or Nurture - By Shohrat Shankar

I have spent many years researching “Leadership qualities” by attending programs, reading various authors, articles, studying models, having intense discussions with some people (especially my father) and finally consolidating them into a 12 point list. Though everyone might not agree with this list, I feel there would not be many who would completely disagree.

The qualities are listed below:

Passion
Honesty & Integrity

Visionary

Empowering

Optimism

Role model

Engaging

Influencing

Empathy

Learning Mindset

Flexibility

Self- awareness

The question however is; are people born leaders? Or can Leadership be developed?

Many people say that we have certain qualities or personalities and no matter what we do, these qualities cannot be changed. This is the eternal debate between Nature vs Nurture.

The point though is that can we nurture a child to have a head start with some Leadership traits?

Can we Nurture a child to have:

• Passion for things that he does?

• Honesty & Integrity ingrained as a part of life?

• More optimism and courage to take things into their own hands and be the “Masters of their own fate”? 

• A dogged and persevering approach to convincing and influencing people?

I believe that some of these traits might be natural; however, need to be developed and nurtured. If not done, then a child with potential might never fulfil his or her destiny.

Passion

Do we as parents let our children explore their passions, do we help them choose and chase what they desire? Or is it what “we” desire? 

Do we demonstrate and inspire them by showing how passionate we are about things? Can they see the Passion for achievement, success and most importantly “Life”, in all that we do?

Or do they see someone working hard and toiling listlessly, not knowing what they are aiming for?

Do they see fun, excitement and enthusiasm in our eyes when we talk about our work or the drudgery, fatigue and stress? 

Can they sense and understand what drives me as a person? Is it me “the parent”, “the spouse”, “the bread winner” or just “ME and My Passion for Life”?

I wonder ….. I really wonder….

Honesty & Integrity

Many of us would want our children to be honest and have integrity, yet do not want to take the effort to instil those qualities.

How many times have we seen parents make small false promises to their kids? I’ve heard parents say, “Let’s go home and I will give you a chocolate”, even though they have no intention of doing so.

Or something simpler where they will promise to take the child for a movie the next day, just so that they keep quiet now.

In fact I could go on and on…. I’m sure many of us could.

Now what happens when promises made to a child are left unfulfilled, what happens to his sense of trust and belief? How much is he driven to keep to his promises and commitments?

From experience I have seen my son tends to listen and accept when I say “When Daddy makes a promise, does he always fulfill it?” he doesn’t really have much to say, nor does he throw a tantrum when he is sure that what is promised WILL happen. 

This teaches him the importance and necessity of sticking to his word and commitments.

The other day while riding on the bike with my son, he suddenly started   saying “Come to your side, come to your side” at first I didn’t get what he was saying. On asking him I realised we had crossed slightly onto the other side of the road and I was on the dividing line. It seems he had learned in school about rules of the road and some do’s and don’ts. I immediately apologised to him and came back onto my side of the road. 

Now in this case some parents might have justified what they were doing or even mocked what the teacher said or just ignored the child and continued to drive the way they wanted. 

Any behaviour the child sees that clashes with what he knows to be right can cause him to question what truly is, ‘the right thing to do’? It then leads to a dilution of right and wrong in his mind and that further magnifies as he grows up.

What we need to ask ourselves is….. What value system are we nurturing and developing in our children? What values are we demonstrating? Are we strengthening their sense of what is right or diluting it?

Optimism and “Masters of their own fate”

When my son had just learnt to stand and walk…I saw him standing in front of a pretty high stool one day. I could see that he wanted to get on top, but wasn’t too sure. I remember saying to him, “you can climb and you will surely reach the top”. He looked at me and tried to tell me that he wanted me to put him on top. Now that was the easy option!

Instead I told him to climb and showed him where to put his first leg, next leg and pull himself up. With a little effort and a few slips and falls he managed to get up (I was there to save a big fall, the little ones I let happen).

On the top he looked very pleased with himself, but soon he wanted to get down. Getting down looked really scary to him and just then my wife walked in and told me to “Put him down this instant, he can fall and hurt himself.” 

I believed that as he had learned to climb by himself, he would do it more and more often and maybe sometimes when there is no one there. Keeping that in mind it was necessary for him to learn how to get down on his own. That way he is less likely to hurt himself when we are not there. So I taught him how to get down and like any good kid, he immediately practised going up and down a few times. Much to the dislike of my wife.

Now what would some other parents have done? 

•  Stopped the child from climbing for fear of him hurting himself. Told him not climb as it is risky and he can get hurt.

•  Picked the child up and placed him on the stool

•  Then lifted the child down

In doing any of these behaviours repeatedly in different situations, how does it affect the mind-set of the child?

•  Does he start doubting his capabilities?

•  Is there a chance that he will grow up unwilling to take risks?

•  Will he always be scared of falling and hurting himself?

•  Could he always expect people to do things for him?

•  What would happen to his Locus of Control?

Influencing people

How much do we as parents encourage our children to discuss, question and negotiate with us? I agree it is exhausting and tiring, yet if we do not what could the long term outcome be?

Have we seen people at work bend their heads and quietly accept whatever a person in authority says? No matter whether they agree or understand.

Where does this behaviour come from?

I believe it comes from the nurturing received at home and in school. It comes from how much the child is allowed to express himself and most importantly how we interact with him when there is a disagreement or a clash in views and wants.

A child always looks for a WIN in any discussion that he gets into, what happens if we do not give him that WIN and enforce our view instead.

A child used to a LOSE-WIN or WIN-LOSE during his childhood grows up expecting or behaving in the same manner when he grows up. This is better explained in “Transactiona

l Analysis”.

Do we:

•  work towards WIN-WIN negotiations with our kids

•  treat our kids as equals 

•  value and respect their views, needs and desires

•  discuss, debate and be willing to negotiate with them today so that they have the skills and the mind-set to be able to do it tomorrow

Do we introspect enough about our behaviours and actions with our kids and how they will influence or impact the kid in his or her journey as an adult?

HABITUAL TENDENCIES IN DECISION MAKING - By Shamika Khatawkar

Recent times have altogether given a different dimension to organizations. Surviving and growing in this contemporary world of work is thus becoming an extremely challenging task. Every organization has to indulge in intensive forecasting, organizing, planning, strategizing and decision making to ensure, successful accomplishment of its organizational goals.

The growth of an organization largely depends on several interdependent factors. Business strategies drive growth, and they in turn are driven by all the important decisions taken within the organizational context.

Effective decisions facilitate an organization by contributing to enhanced profits, while unsuccessful ones contribute to losses further affecting the organization negatively.

When it comes to decision making, we can clearly see that individuals are required to take decisions every now and then. All employees, no matter what level have to indulge in some sort of decision making. Like the top management has to be involved in taking decisions organization wide, the managers; in taking decisions department wide, and the team leaders, in taking decisions within teams. 

As decisions do not happen in isolation, all employees also have to be abreast with the factors affecting decision making. These factors may be organizational or individual. If we see within an organization, we can understand that an organization largely focuses on the ‘organizational factors’ affecting decision making and generally tends to ignore the ‘individual’ ones. 

So what are these individual factors which can affect decision making? 

These individual factors are nothing but the ‘Habitual Tendencies’ of individuals. That is, an individual’s perceptions, habits and cognitions.  Many research scholars have debated that these Habitual Tendencies influence individuals to approach various problems in consistently similar ways (Scott & Bruce, 1995).

Meaning, individual habits and perceptions make people apply a set formula or pattern while approaching problems or while making decisions of any sort. Scholars have also stated that once a pattern is cognitively formed it becomes a Habitual Tendency and people tend to apply it in all walks of life. As individuals grow, their Habitual

Tendencies get strengthened and they stay fairly stable over a period of time.

Researchers Scott and Bruce have done a considerable amount of study on decision making styles. According to them, individuals can fall under any of the five habitual tendencies, namely Rational, Intuitive, Avoidant, Spontaneous and Dependent. 

• The Rational decision making tendency focuses on using logic by considering alternatives to arrive at the best possible decision.

• The Intuitive one relies on feelings or hunches to make decisions. 

• The Dependent one relies heavily on other people for advice and guidance.

• The Avoidant one attempts to evade making decisions altogether.

• The Spontaneous decision making tendency inclines towards making decisions quickly.

Now that we know of, what these ‘Individual Factors’ or ‘Habitual Tendencies’ are, we can definitely be a little more aware in future while making decisions. We can certainly identify which ‘Habitual Tendency’ is the most prominent in us and which is the least characteristics of us.

This self-awareness will truly aid us in making decisions of any sort at personal as well as organizational level. To reap the benefits of our decisions we can certainly identify the pros and cons of our decision making tendency! 

 Can you recollect?-

The last time you had to struggle enormously?

 A time when you barely finished your project, assignment and were left with nothing but exhaustion, frustration and unhappiness.

A time when you thought, “This is it. I can’t do it anymore.”

I bet you can. In fact, I bet you can think of more than one such incident.

Why is this?

Even though we all want to run, or even gallop towards success, often when we think about some of the greatest moments in our lives, it’s not success that we recollect, it our failures, our weaknesses and our breakdowns.  Does this mean that we are a breed of thoroughly pessimistic and masochistic people who give more weightage to failures than accomplishments? Maybe… Maybe not!  But if we do, there is absolutely nothing wrong with it. Because these are the moments when we decided not to back down, to learn and to grow. Even though we might have struggled at one point of time, we overcame our hurdles and can now look back and feel satisfied, maybe even surprised at the way we conquered our impediments.

One of the greatest authors of our time and a personal favourite of mine, J.K Rowling gave the following words of wisdom at the Annual Meeting of the Harvard Alumni Association:

“You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.”

When one hears her name, one cannot possibly fathom her ever failing at something. After all she is United Kingdom's best-selling author, with sales in excess of £238m. But in her own words, she has experienced failure at a, ‘grand scale’. 

Before, Harry Potter became a household name, Rowling was penniless, recently divorced, and raising a child on her own, she wrote the first Harry Potter book on an old manual typewriter. Not one, or three or five but twelve publishers rejected her manuscript. Eventually, Barry Cunningham from Bloomsbury, agreed to publish the book but advised her to find another job as, ‘there was no money in children’s books’.  

Rowling’s success came after her various bouts with failure and she wasn’t the only one.

The King of Cartoons: Walt Disney’s first animation company went bankrupt. A newspaper editor fired him for, ‘lacking imagination’ and ‘having no original ideas’. His theme park idea was trashed 302 times. But he never gave up.

Vincent Van Gogh: He only sold one painting in his lifetime that too, to a friend. In spite of that he kept painting and finished over 800 pieces. Today, his most expensive painting is valued at $142.7 million.

Michael Jordan: One of the world’s greatest basketball players, Jordan’s name is synonymous with basketball. However, he was cut from his high school basketball team but he did not let this failure deter him.

Thomas Edison: This list would be incomplete without the man who gave us many inventions including the light bulb. He too, never ever gave up.

Ludwig van Beethoven: Young Beethoven wasn’t good at playing the violin and neglected to practice as he preferred to work on his own compositions. Despite his love of composing, his teachers felt he was hopeless and would never succeed with the violin or in composing. Beethoven kept plugging along, and composed some of the best symphonies of all time–five of them while he was completely deaf.

As is evident from the above list, failure hits us all. The more we try to avoid it, the more it latches onto us like a parasite draining us of our strength, enthusiasm and happiness. The fault however, may lie within us. We are always trying to dodge failure, elude and escape it. But for once, try and embrace it. When you stumble upon failure, or make a mistake, it’s imperative to accept it and understand that it is absolutely acceptable to fail. Don’t make your mistakes, ‘an end of my life tragic melodrama’. Acknowledge that you did not succeed this time and that it is perfectly alright. Do not let the people or the situation around you make you feel dejected and unhappy.

Part of accepting failure is also accepting that you may be at fault. Do not pin your failures on, ‘fate’, ‘circumstances’, other people or the almighty. He has enough things to take care of and does not have the time to ensure that you fail in every undertaking that you take. Instead of accusing and attributing your failure to any and everything else, take a step back. Try to analyse why you did not accomplish your goal and where you might have gone wrong.

Do not relinquish at this stage. You might feel desolate and depressed. After all it is not easy accepting one’s own faults or perhaps finding faults where there aren’t any, (as in the case of Rowling). But Do Not Give Up. Find the courage to move on. Find a reason to move on. What’s more, you don’t have to do this alone. Ask for help. It maybe for ideas, other’s views and opinions or simply for emotional support from friends and family. Don’t shun your helpers.

Once you find the reason to move ahead (and you will find it), re-evaluate your objectives. If they are still the same, great. If not, think clearly and deeply about what exactly you want. Easier said than done. However, if you stay true to yourself you will discover it.

After you find your goal, plan, and plan well. Your previous failures and mistakes have already cut your work short. They have taught you the right from the wrong, what exactly to avoid, helped you gain a deeper understanding and provided you with the knowledge that you seek. But most importantly, if you are at this step, your failures have taught you to be resilient and given you an opportunity to grow and learn some more. They have given you the power to be a fighter and a survivor. Use it well.

Follow through your plan, soar above all the obstacles because now you are ready to run and bolt towards your success.  Always remember that failure and success are two sides of the same coin.  In life’s toss you can never predict which side the coin will land on. Don’t let a series of successes fool you. Always be prepared to taste some disappointments and at the same time remember to not give up and face the challenges head on. It’s really one of those simple truths of life: To succeed, you must fail.

So next time when you find yourself on a cliff overlooking a sea of disasters, mistakes and failures, here’s what you should do.

Close your eyes, take a deep breath and JUMP.

Continuously Challenge yourself!- By Shruti Nair

This is not a motivational article that pumps you up to do great things. This is written just to show you the mere benefits of consciously challenging oneself. Of course we take up challenging tasks in our day-to-day lives, it comes naturally as we are working and ‘growing’ constantly. I am talking about the planned, defined, out-of-comfort zone scenarios that we create for ourselves. For example, taking up that job that does not compliment your strengths, rather demands you develop your weaknesses; planning a trip alone to a random place or leaving your paid job to fulfill your dream of becoming an artist.

I took up one such challenge of going on a trip alone for a week to the mountains. As the person that I am, before leaving I researched all about the place, the safety measures, experiences of other travellers but in all this, I forgot to really sit and introspect (research) about myself. Now, when I reached my destination, on day one, I visited the places I had planned for the day, ate at the restaurants I’d read about and returned to my room before dark. Around midnight I decided to sleep but I couldn’t switch off from my alert zone. Around half past midnight, I realised I won’t be able to sleep at all. The silence that existed in the room was piercing, one such I have never heard before. The kind of silence that I experienced there, brings negative emotions in you, it engulfs you in it. The three nights i spent there, I didn’t sleep for a minute.

In this trip, i saw beautiful places and made great friends but the highlight of my trip was learning something about myself. I always had trouble sleeping alone in a room. It’s not that I’m scared of ghosts, I just feel really insecure in sleeping alone. But when I returned from the trip, I can sleep anywhere, peacefully. This trip solved a problem I had, I never realised I needed to work on.

Therefore I suggest, take up challenges! You never know what you learn about yourself! Taking up challenges have many benefits:

1) You will get out of your comfort zone.

We, as humans, are conditioned to seek out comfort. Therefore it is difficult to let go of things; but letting go of things mean taking up new things, which will always lead to growth. What is the point in living the same routine life day after day? On my trip, I was thrown completely out of my comfort zone. I had to meet and talk to people, which is not my dominant nature. This made me realise I am the way I am by choice and if needed, I can adapt.

2) You will become more creative

When you take up challenges, you are basically figuring out solutions to different problems. This will force you to think out of the box, broaden your perspectives on things. You will also become more confident with 

your decisions and views on things. When you travel alone, you have to figure out everything on your own, from simple directions to dealing with language barriers. This allows you to approach problems in various different ways.

3) You will increase your strengths and work on your weaknesses.

When is something challenging to you? When you can’t do something naturally, easily, it becomes a challenge. Continuously taking up challenging tasks mean you work on your weaknesses and increase the list of strengths you posses. I was never good with handling money or saving. Travelling alone requires me to save up for these trips and manage money during trips. I’m not great at it but I’m better than what I was!

4) You will never be bored.

Regardless to say, when you take up challenges, you start working on yourself. Challenges remove the mundane nature that life easily falls into. A person who takes up challenges will never complain of a boring 

routine life. My journeys are what I look forward to and they also account for great conversation starters with people meet!

For me, going solo travelling is the way of challenging myself. How are you going to continuously challenge yourself?