One of the most important qualities that a leader needs to possess is empathy. The simplest meaning that is floating around is trying to put yourself in others shoes (Dictionary meaning - Understanding and entering into another’s feelings).

One could be charismatic with their communication skills, the way they carry themselves, being friendly with their people, being creative etc. But one can become a leader if and only if one has got the ability to sense what his/her people need.

But the most bothering issue for everyone in the present environment is how to be understanding when they are pressured with so many things on their plates?

This incidence took place few years back when a person joined my colleague’s team. He was teaching prior to joining his team. Seemed to be an enthusiastic chap but after few days we realised that he wanted everything in his plate and never wanted to stretch himself to learn something. He was more interested in getting involved in others business than equipping himself.

On the third day he came back to my colleague and told him that he is planning to quit. The reason being he was not able to handle the work pressure. If somebody had come to me, that too on the third day itself, I would have happily asked them to get lost (there is nothing for me loose when he is just 2 days with the company). To my surprise though my friend was really busy decided to spend sometime with him immediately rather than asking him to come back after sometime/get lost.

He was really to the point and saw things from his angle, he was in to teaching and he was not able to accustom himself to the corporate world. He encouraged him and eased things for him. Over a period of 3 months the chap who said “I want to quit right now” became one of the good finds and eased out lot of pressure from my colleague’s team and even bagged the best performance for that quarter.

This thought a very good lesson; my colleague didn’t waste half an hour on that day when he had so many things to be delivered on his desk. Leadership is all about empowering people, one need to invest their time on people to see the change. You need to get in to your team members comfort zone if you want them to give their ears to you.

Important lessons

1. My colleague spending half an hour with that fresher at a very crucial time wasn’t a waste; it proved to be an excellent investment.
2. Try to see the hidden potential than taking things on its face value.
3. People needs time to settle, you might be excellent on a job but you can’t expect others to be equally good immediately. You would have learnt by doing lot of mistakes before becoming a master.

Leadership is all about knowing your people and drive them to achieve what they think as impossible.

It was the time when
Money and fame worked
Money spoke, money listened
Money controlled everything

There arose a spark
Of a true leader
Who was away from
The clutches of worldly attraction

All merry’d with that
Time, fame and money
And covered that little speak
That could hardly touch a soul

The time was here when
Each of the leader had
To show his worthiness
By all his power

The first showed his fame
The second showed his strength
The third had nothing but
The words from his heart

He said he had nothing
But himself and himself
To give no fame and
No money and no strength

But for his ability
To share the bright light
The light of the spark which
Was deep within him

All turned silent and
Their hearts were lit
By the true leader’s heart
Melting everyone’s foolish acts

The time finally arrived when
The judgement had to be made
He may not have won the vote
But he did win their heart.

- Mohammed Shabbir.

This year Formula One champion’s race was one of the most dramatic ones that the F1 fans would have ever seen. The competition was pushed to the final race where Ferrari had remote chance of winning the best driver and McLaren was sitting pretty. The race was like an Indian movie where the hero would be victorious at the end even after facing too many hurdles. Kimi Raikkonen won the nail biting race and surprised every one with his podium finish and ran away with his first F1 title. McLaren’s team (Alonso and Hamilton) were pushed down to “also rans”.

Let’s look in to some of the key events that happened during the course of the competition and what is the leadership intake from this years F1 race?

Hamilton was the blue eyed boy of McLaren and Alonso was brought from Renault after his 2 consecutive triumphs. The move of getting in Alonso was seen as Dennis (McLaren’s boss) strategy to win the championship. Dennis promoted an internal conflict between Alonso and Hamilton, so that the competition would be intense and the team is always on the job. The first half of the year was a dream run for McLaren with Hamilton having a podium finish in all the races and Alonso showing the class of a Double world champion. On the other hand Ferrari was way behind McLaren with lot of engine problems.

Slowly, Dennis started supporting Hamilton at the cost of Alonso and there was a clear cut differential treatment seen. McLaren felt that Hamilton is a better racer and wanted him to win the championship in the debut season itself and started ignoring Alonso totally. The situation turned from bad to worse where Hamilton was seeing Alonso as his competitor than Ferrari, the team work slowly started to disappear and the blame game started. Ferrari over came all their problems and were becoming better day by day and surprised everyone with the podium finish and the best drivers title in the final race.

For being a leader one of the important qualities one must posses is being supportive and available to his/her team. It is also very important that being a leader one should
• Not to be partial to a group of people.
• Not to be swayed away by few influencers in decision making without analyzing the situation.

If the top management had not made any priorities, the McLaren team would have functioned very well and they could have finished the season with 1-2 finish.

When you make someone else your priority
• You would be under an emotional bonding and would not be in a position to analyze what is right or wrong
• You would not be in a position to see the bigger picture
• You would demotivate your team and bring in unwarranted conflicts
• You would also not be in a position to tell “No” to the prioritized person and would always be at their disposal.

Time Jar Model is about balance. You find time for everything and everything fits into its place when using this model. Take a jar which represents time and fill it up with rocks. Here rocks stand for top priority things. Then fill the jar with pebbles, which are the things that you enjoy to do. Fill the remaining space with sand. Sand represents things we have to do. And finally add water; those things which clutter up our lives and get in everywhere.

From the above, you can see that things are really fitting into the jar if it is put in an order. Prioritizing the activities within the given amount of time will ensure that we get time for everything.

Deciding to lead doesn’t mean that you stop doing things what you were doing before. Once you have the realization that you are also a leader, you start prioritizing your activities so that you end up being more productive than earlier. We need not wait till our nation faces with more problems and then act. Start prioritizing your activities. Start building your nation.

With the advent of internet world has shrunk into the screen of a computer. That means that we can do more things in a shorter period of time. Sending an e-mail to thousands of people carrying leadership message is an easy task. If you decided to be a leader, you will love to make others believe in their leadership qualities too. After prioritizing your activities, start spreading the message how and where you became a leader.

You will have your defining moment. You will have a special story to tell. Decide to write. Start penning down your thoughts. Your nation needs your time. Your nation needs your Decision. You nation needs your solution.

“Writing is thinking on paper.” - William Zinsser

WRITING, LIKE LEADERSHIP, IS A HABIT – SOMETHING SHOULD BE DONE EVERYDAY. We think that we have more problems than solutions. I bet you that we have more solutions than problems. Then why the problems are not getting solved? There are brilliant solutions in the minds of everyone that can make theirs and other’s life easier but those ideas are not expressed. Even when great leaders in history moved and rallied their followers behind a vision with outstanding speeches, they also found time to write. Writing is another form of expressing yourself and it will stay forever.

The secret of becoming a writer is to write, write and keep on writing. Writing is a habit. Decide to write. Once you start writing you will know that you can write better. As leaders, we have to write (daily) our thoughts and induce others to write so that more ideas and solutions emerge. And we can act on that.

Once Philip Humbert said, “to achieve great things requires that we become great people.” If we want to see great things happening in our country we have to decide to lead and we have to propagate the message through writing so that it reach the masses. Solutions are there in us, we just need to put across it without any fear.

Writing makes your thinking visible. Writing helps others give you feedback. Writing can help me to know You. Writing will help us in building our nation. I have started. I am waiting for your thoughts – solutions – ideas – keep writing.

- Mohammad Nibras P.K., LeadCap, Bangalore.