We have often come across this phrase – “Great leaders are born, not made“. This phrase beautifully sums up the basic tenant of the Great Man Theory of leadership.
Category: Corporate Leadership
“Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other.” – Abraham Lincoln
Today, we are living through the most transformational changes that the world has ever witnessed. The work environment is complex and dynamic, which implies that today’s success can transform into tomorrow’s liability overnight. The key to not only surviving such change, but to prospering during this evolution is human resilience.
Very often, when we ask organizations what is essential to bring organizational effectiveness and gain competitive advantage, the common replies are associated with the organizational structure, culture, technology, and management practices. However, these organizations fail to mention two primary elements that are key to bring organizational effectiveness – innovation and creativity.
Continue reading “How A Visionary Leader Can Enable Innovation?”
Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman wrote, “People leave managers not companies. So much money has been thrown at the challenge of keeping good people – in the form of better pay, better perks and better training- when, in the end, turnover is mostly a manager issue.”
Anita’s boss is traveling abroad with intermittent access to emails and chat. To make things worse, it snows heavily in the city where her boss is staying, which results in zero connectivity. Meanwhile, Anita and her teammates are working on a deadline-based critical project. Suddenly, a bug comes in and no one is able to solve it. The boss is not reachable, the deadline is tight, and the team can’t afford to wait to hear back from the boss.
Continue reading “Why Initiative is an Essential Leadership Trait?”
Former President Barack Obama was once quoted in a CBS news article, saying that if he could change one thing about his presidency, it would be to tell more stories, which got me thinking: is storytelling linked to effective leadership?
Program
Novartis | Leadership Immersion
Objective
Stage an experience in the local environment of Mumbai city, through which a group of Country heads can be coached to pick out leadership lessons and insights, by their Global CEO.
Solution
To get an immersion into an authentic Mumbai experience, two experiences were suggested – of which the engagement with the legendary Dabbawallahs of Mumbai was chosen for its learning insights.
On the day, the team was first given a brief introduction into the Dabbawallahs and the incredible fact that they actually run a six sigma operation, despite having very low levels of education. A HBR article on the same was also shared for them to munch over the details. Immediately after, the teams were split into two groups and taken to the modest headquarters of the Dabbawallah organization in Dadar. There they were addressed by the secretary of the organization and given some insights into their operations.
Then began the challenge. Each of the teams, equipped with handycams were to trail the Dabbawallahs through their entire route from the collection points to the delivery points. This involved getting a sense of the busy routes, the crowded stations, the special wagons on the local trains reserved for Dabbawallahs, understanding the coding mechanisms and finally actually meeting up and interviewing an end customer to check his experience!
When all this was done, the teams then needed to come together to tease out the leadership insight from the whole experience. All this was shot and put together as a small documentary. You could see one of these out here on our website: https://focusu.com/the-dabbawala-challenge/
Impact:
Here is what Aarti Mudaliar, the HR Business Partner of the team had to say about the whole intervention:
“It has been a pleasure and fun to collaborate with Team FocusU which has always resulted in a WOW experience for my business team across levels coupled with a lot of learning and memories to cherish. Their passion for the work they do and strong execution ensure that Ideas are brought to Life and interventions are impactful with a real-life relevance to the business context. All the very best to you and look forward to opportunities to collaborate with you in the future.”
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Leadership lessons from fifa
Continue reading “3 Leadership Lessons from the FIFA World Cup”