There are literally thousands
definitions of leaderships. Here few more: Leadership
is the combined quality of skills and character of a person; Leadership is to lead a group in a such a
way that help to work efficiently and effectively to attain certain goals; Leadership is the making of effective
decisions for the whole group which motivates not only people working with them
but the whole society.
You might be surprised that such
lines are not coming from very well renown (at least not yet) management guru
from some Ivy League universities but instead from 1st years
bachelor students in social work from Kadambari College.
When I met them I was literally
blown away by their intellectual acumen, vivacity, curiosity.
What I love about their
understanding of leadership is that it is not just about “being the lead”, the
number one in a group but rather being an equal among others.
Too often and possibly for
commercial reasons, the focus is really about elevating someone above those who
are “just” considered as followers.
It is true that there have been
quite a few scholars focusing on the concept of “followership” like the Harvard
academic Barbara Kellerman that highlights that the role
of subordinates can be as crucial as the one of the leaders.
Yet even in this case, the focus is
always on a dichotomy “leader-follower” where there is someone uniquely
positioned to lead, standing out and make the difference and the rest of the
groups doing their role a bit like in a sailing boat where you find the skipper
and the rest of the crew.
Sometimes I feel that all this fuss
on leadership is somehow misleading as it does not attach enough importance to
other aspects like discovering, day by day, your values and putting them in
practice through daily actions.
Stephen M. R. Covey defines this
“magic” alignment as congruence. It is one of the key elements of personal integrity,
itself a step-stone towards developing your capabilities.
Before thinking about developing
skills, we need to get our personal foundations right, the so called
character’s strengths that include other important elements like “grit” defined
by MacArthur
Fellow Angela Duckworth as “perseverance and
passion for long-term goals”.
Grit and
resilience are key determinants of successful people, especially the capacity
to maintain positive feelings and emotions when things go in the wrong.
Dealing with
frustrations and keeping at bay negative feelings is a hard job and each of us
needs to find a way to do this.
What’s the role
of others in all this? Can be followers evolve as co-leaders on par with you?
How much are we
ready to make room for others to emerge and take ownership to develop an idea?
After all, this
column is about partnerships. Partnerships are about enhanced forms of
collaborations that bring together people and organizations to develop
something with a bigger aim.
When we say “we
are partners” you implicitly think of something long term. You and your loved
one can be a life partner. When you start a new venture in partnership, you hope
this will “union” will prosper and thrive in future.
You can open a
new restaurant with a bunch of partners but how many of them are really aligned
to your vision, ideas and core believes?
The primordial
steps about being ourselves clear about what we want to do and then find
synergies and see if others are on the same page is essential.
Of course you
will always find someone like Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, who always
played alone.
Yet in most of
the cases we need others not as followers but as partners even if there is a
hierarchical relationship separating you and them.
Your
subordinate, theoretically a follower, can be your partner and showcase full
mastery in her particular area.
Embracing
partnership is not about being naïve but rather about making a big decision to
reach a common goal with someone who can make a difference, who can be
indispensible on her own way.
We are always
afraid that someone will pull your leg. There are plenty of people who love
taking short cuts instead of going for the long haul.
Remember
partnerships are never really about money but about trust and alignment and
joint commitment. Money, as essential as they are, always come later.
If we genuinely
reach out someone with some good ideas and if we do not have any hidden agenda,
then we can, step by step, generate a new, enlarged understanding of the issues
at play that is a result of positive synergies.
It is about
embarking yourself in a continuous and often bumpy journey where we have to
relinquish our fears and instead unleash trust for the deserving ones we chose
to come along with us.
Maintaining a
balanced level of excitement and enthusiastically share it with them, even when
things go wrong, is essential to create that ownership that will help find ways
to bounce back.
Listening and
interacting with those social work students makes me believe that these young
folks are step by step getting everything right.
Do not take me
as overoptimistic if I say that future generations of this country will have
all the qualities to succeed at life at personal and community levels.
Galimberti is the
Co-Founder of ENGAGE, a local not for profit partnering with youths living with
disabilities. E-mail: simone_engage@yahoo.com
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