Food for Thought

The inspiration of this blog is the amazing book by Eric Harvey, titled 'Leadership secrets of Santa Claus: How to get big things done in your "workshop"- all year long'. The author uses Santa Claus as a metaphor of terrific leadership. Santa’s number-one priority is his mission of 'delivering high-quality toys to good little children' and he makes sure his elves and reindeer understand how they connect to it. This is actually the role of the leader.   Santa Claus faces fluctuating demands, a challenging production schedule and a hostile work environment. He has to attract efficient employees and convince them to relocate to the North Pole. He also must adapt his production workshop and retrain his people annually to build the gifts that are 'in demand' each year. Despite the challenges, Santa Claus loves what his job. Santa and his team are delightful and productive because of their mission. The team in North Pole know the mission, and...

“Leadership skills determine the level of your success - and the success of those who work around you.” The above adage clearly implies the significance of developing the leadership skills for an individual. Now, one may argue that the leadership skills are innate; but, I have a different perspective to this opinion. This perspective of mine can be backed by a famous illustration as stated. A group of people was strolling through a village. When they passed an old man, one of them asked condescendingly, "Were any great men born in this village?" "Nope," the old man answered, "Only babies." The moral of the story: Although some people seem to be "born leaders," most need to learn leadership from experienced role models. Based on the book "Developing the leader within You" by John C. Maxwell, one can come up with ten basic principles to embark on the journey of leadership. Principle One: "The Definition of Leaders...

Book: 12 Disciplines of Leadership Excellence: How leaders achieve sustainable high performance Authors: Brian Tracy, Dr. Peter Chee Summary The authors describe 12 principles to succeed as a Leader. These can be developed over time by practice and experience. These are listed below: 1.  The Discipline of Leadership Excellence Current age employees most of the times look for what is in-stored for them in any work. Thus in current era, two types of leaders are more valuable as per author - charismatic transformational leaders who inspire people to do their best and transactional leaders who possess the ability to work with and achieve through others. Great leaders connect their team with the larger purpose by articulating their vision effectively and adding meaning to their team's work. As a leader one should make decisions and take actions and be accountable for the results. Leader should be prepared for adversity by planning for the worst-case scenario. Ope...