Leadership requirements

Leadership

What do we mean by a leader, or a great leader? And a leader has some qualities in his/ her personalities. Many people have the opinion that some pre-defined qualities or attributes makes the people to stand out from the crowd, and those people have qualities to take charge in any organization. The questions arises when we look around ourselves and talk to some of the leaders, we try to figure out why these people are so successful in their life?

From many years people are very keen to rule, they wants to be a leader and wants that rest of the humans in tier circle will follow them. There are different theories about the leadership like; what qualities a leader have that differentiate him/ her from the others or followers. What type of skill set required being a leader or etc.? Let’s take a look on different leadership theories;

1.   Every human being in our society born with some attributes, according to this theory, great leaders are born with some different qualities, like confidence, mental power and decision power that makes them naturally-born leader. This theory also emphasis on that leadership is inherent, great leaders are born not made.

2.   This theory is more or less have the same views about the leadership, according to this theory, people bring some qualities and traits that makes them suitable as best suitable candidate for the leaders. You might be disagree with this point of view, like we have many people in our society that keeps qualities (that are mentioned in these theories for being a leader) yet these people are not leaders.

3.   Contingency theory, according to this theory, there is no particular leadership style that best fit in every situation. There are certain parameters and some environmental factors that should influence on your leadership style.

4.   This theory defines that leaders must respond according the situation they are facing; they must use the practice that provides the best results based on the situation. For example, 1 leader that has strong grip on the system & processes should deal with the situation with authority.

5.   This behavioral theory is the reciprocal of the first theory. And the theory says that great leader can be made they are not born. Followers of this theory say that leaders can be made through teaching and by observing them. They either focus on the actions rather internal qualities.

6.   In this theory, leaders may involve the views or take suggestion from them as an input. These type of leaders encourages participation and contribution from their group and help them to feel more authoritative and their involved in decision making.

7.   This theory is based on the system of accountability, staff gets rewarded if they are successful, and they help responsible if they are failed to perform the tasks.  

8.   Last but not the least, according to this theory these leaders are more focused on the group activity and also concerned that every individual participate and show the potential he/ she has individually.

Leadership in the educational sector is an independent organization that empowering teaches of the specific location and educates people to grow themselves in the communities, also help building the nation as well. My leadership project is to define reforms in the educational sector.    

Scope:

To inspire a diverse and continuing movement of leaders, who shares a commitment to ending the injustice in the education sector; the inequality and empowerment to mobilize them socially and politically within their communities and across the country.

Vision:

Every child in every community has the right and gets the opportunity to reach an excellent ways of education.

Core Values:

Core values of the project are;

·      Significant impact: This project focuses on the measures where we can get the idea that the child of every community gets the education and they also explore their potential. Project also defines the different solutions to do this, because we know that you cannot implement your best practices in different communities. We will be working for “how this will be creating life-changing factor for the growing children”.

·      People Oriented: we also create values for our people. Our commitments, process & policies are designed to engage our people more effectively & efficiently that are working despite of any level for the betterment of educational equity.

·      Team Work: We will consider ourselves successful in our vision, if we able to promote the culture to work side by side with our extended group members and communities. We also encourage the feedback from individuals, who shares the background of the potential students that are impacted mostly with the inequality of the education in society. This will play critical role while making any policies/ processes.

·      Bold Decisions: To achieve the milestones and the success of the project, leaders should take bold decisions and also get help from the best practices implemented (If any). Leader should keep this in mind; real success is when he/ she is in a position to influence in the decision making. This will help in policy making and that’s how leaders ensure the fairness of education for children.

There are many challenges that leaders faced when they propose any project, and the most annoying in those challenges is execution. Execution is not the last step but it is a key step for the implementation of the project. If leaders are unable to execute this, we can perceive that there is gap between the organizational goals, expectations and the abilities of that particular leader.

Due to complexity of communities and the social circle in which we are operating this is very difficult to close this gap. However, there are some principles that we have taken into account as a leader to close this gap and execute this project successfully.

a)   Define you desired Results:

A very big questions mark is, an idea will remain idea if there is a lack of clearly defined objectives and goals; or you are unaware of the outcomes. A leader who cannot define what they want from this project is hardly expecting the others to understand the processes, strategies and their involvement at any level for the fruitful results. There is a thumb rule vague processes produce vague results. Leaders have defined the end results so that they can clearly pass on the message to their team, and mold them towards the same direction working for the same cause on all levels.

b)  Concisely, Expressive the Why

Concise communication to the team is very important, leaders must be able to effectively communicate and the flow of information should match the pace of the target audience, because leaders need the input of this audience. Clear and concise message should be what they want to do and how they want to do? Effectively communication is also important in a manner because, if people working for you do not understand your expectations then they can be frustrated at any time.

Further adding to this if you can explain what the rationale behind the working is, will give your employees a deep understanding of the vision. Without this, you might include them in working but you cannot engage them.

c)   Knowledge & Resourcing

Leaders should be able to manage the project, and make sure the strategy will be come into practice. For that matter one should have the skill set and knowledge to manage the said project. Leaders may not be able to get all the knowledge, to cop up with this you may hire some of the skilled staff.

d)  Team of Quality Managers

For any project, there must be an execution team who collectively making processes and work around. They will also determine which set of people or individuals will be initially required to start off. There are different theories that this can be the first step.

Leaders should build a team of individuals that are loyal, honest and highly qualified that bring your strategies into practice. Through the discussion you and your team will be in the position to identify loop holes in the process and you move towards the perfection. Identification of these gaps will help you for the better execution.

e)   Progress Monitoring     

Project team along with the leader should decide how and when they will meet to discuss the progress of the project. Mostly project progress requires various discussions in the begging, or possible requires some changes. Sometime we need to call urgent meetings and point the tasks that are meeting the deadlines. So we need to close these tasks with new deadlines. Project teams are well aware of the fact that this attitude and practice is not acceptable at any level. Who are under performing should hold accountable for the outcomes.  

People do not want to be observed all the times, so leaders should give them some breathing space and they should be monitored with the understanding that they will complete the given tasks in the defined time frame and will do their best work.

f)    Be open to Feedback

As the project team and leaders are not all-knowing persons, there is no way for them to know every possible happening in advance.  Even after all the back up plans are put in place, some problem can arise that was not expected and that threatens to delay the implementation process.

Therefore, leaders should listen to the feedback from all employees and customers. You cannot afford to be surrounded by the employees who cannot dare to tell you the truth about the problems that occur. So the leaders should listen to the employees.

g)   Flexibility  

As unexpected problems and issues arise in the implementation process, changes must be made on completed. With accurate and timely information which is sent by project managers, even in the face of unexpected difficulties, changes and adjustments can be made to move the implementation process forward.  Leaders should be flexible to made any change in the strategy and plan to move the execution process in any issue. But there should be a limit to how many adjustments can be acceptable, as additional resources will be used for each one that becomes necessary.

h)  Celebrations on Achievements

Leaders should break a long execution process into smaller parts and celebrate each breakthrough as they are reached. This practice allows the leaders to recognize and grant the accomplishments that their teams are making. Constantly performing for a period of time at high levels can drain employees of their energy and workforces and they can be fed up of the long efforts. When leaders celebrate the achievements, the employees will know that their works are appreciated and the efforts that are made by them are valued and are going noticed.  And the employees will know that the leaders give credit to them on the efforts and achievements that are made by their work.

There are few things worse than leaders at any level who take all the credit for what they have achieved together with their teams. It is for good reasons producers have a very long list of credit at the end of films to those who contributed in the production. Leaders should be very conscious and aware of this fact and should always give credit where it is due and payable. If they don’t do this, that will cause their employees to resent them and they will have hard feeling about them and they will not like to work with these leaders. Resentful employees will be less likely to execute your vision at a high level.

i)     Change Catalyst

This is sometimes a difficult thing to do. Very often leaders consider a strategy or project their baby and have a hard time letting go. They consider if they abandon or scrap the project, it will be their personal failure. Continual objective analysis and honest assessment should be built in to the implementation and execution process; that will allow leaders to know when to call it quits on a failing project and end on a losing of resources.