One thing for sure, leadership today is no longer about the authoritative power one possess but rather the ability to influence others to drive towards the same goals. Followers nowadays are now smarter to be able to think what is more important and what traits to look for in their leaders. Take Dr King for example. His ability to influence the majority black community to stand up actually ended up in the social reform in the States. There was no official authority given to him over the people who follows him but his exceptional influencing skills made the social reformation agenda into reality. Then take Muhammad al-Fateh for another one. At a very young age, he was able to influence the troops via his exemplary actions and later together they conquered the Constantinople. Authoritative power could only serve those who possess long enough before the rise of the people came into action. We can witness ourselves with what has been happening to the state leaders in mostly in African continent and the most popular one, the failure of Hitler's tyranny itself.
Of course, leading a team was not entirely a stroll in the park. Critical thinking, contingency planning, and firm decision making during the changes in plans at the eleventh hour is definitely a must have attribute in every leaders nowadays. There should be events where a leader would have to produce his prompt judgement with limited time to think and the decision should always be in line with the ultimate goals and mission. A leader should also think way ahead for the team. He should be able to project the journey of the team in the long run and also take into account possible mishaps might be occurring. Being a leader requires us to be able to intercept these mishaps to ensure the course of running the team would be as smooth as possible. I myself have encountered a few occasions where I have to make a few last minutes judgement calls and needed to compromise a few elements in order for the projects to keep on rolling. Definitely, critical thinking are one of the things I encountered whilst leading my teams back in school and university and I am awfully grateful to have gone through those moment.
Interestingly, I come to realise that the most valuable component in an organisation is actually the people in it; those who actually drive the organisation towards its missions and objectives. I got this idea from Simon Sinek in one of his writings. He told about how the people under our leadership are no doubt the closest to those who we are reaching out to. If they are extremely driven, passionate and sincere in doing their responsibilities their leaders have delegated, automatically the people we are reaching out to are spontaneously taken care of. Plus, showing appreciation and acknowledgement in the job they have completed will eventually boosts their performance in the long run. This logic truly make sense since being appreciated, acknowledged shows us respecting them as an integral part of the team rather than merely a worker. While leading a volunteering organisation, I found this really accurate since the thing drives them to do the works are solely the job satisfaction since money and compensation was never in the equation. Plus, listening to their problems and guiding them towards completing the tasks is important to keep then motivated. Obviously, major concern of a leader should be the people who follows him rather than the interests of the others apart from the organisation’s mission and objectives.
Another thing for sure, leading a team can be less tensing if leadership is done right. The duty of a chief is to be in the frontline, leading the followers to directions, missions and goals of the organisation. Leaders are actually the one who set up the tracks and set the directions of the team. Thus if a leader implies the attitude of micromanaging, hence the tension, stress and great pressure come to pay him a visit. The magic of delegating tasks is very much beautiful. Together in delegating tasks, you increase the level of trusts and confidence to your subordinate, making them feel important to the team, leading them to feel very much appreciated and later boosts their morale and drive. It also helped you intensify your focus towards thinking ahead of what to be done next for the team rather than busy thinking about these little things that actually can be fixed by your fellow teammates. Focus is the trick actually towards enhancement of your results. Higher intensity of focus leads towards higher productivity and greater results. Letting yourself occupied with thinking about little issues will obviously waste your precious time and focus towards thinking about those little issues.
for OCBC Bank Scholarship Award
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