Being Shepherd 2 : Leading from front can make you history

Being Shepherd

Leadership lifestyle for the new-age CEO

www.beingshepherd.com

Chapter 2

While the Bible too refers to Jesus Christ as the ‘Good Shepherd’, for a good reason that can very well be aligned to modern day management needs, I will steer clear from any religious or cultural references. Before we dive into Being Shepherd, the one who leads from behind, I would like to seed a thought with you.

Most leaders believe in ‘leading from the front’, but what is the origin of this concept?

History reflects that the earliest of leaders in a structured environment were the Kings and Generals of an Army. The Kings were the equivalent of today’s Promoters or Investors. They appointed the Generals who got the job done on the battle field. Thus, legend has shared many a stories of a King rewarding a brave fearless solider by promoting him at the helm of an army.

The position of the General was irrefutable as long as he had the Kings favour. They lead an army of soldier’s, who never challenged or questioned the Generals decision or intent. To do so could cost them their life. Thus, fear was a great motivator and execution strategies were effortlessly implemented. Creativity was the privilege of the top few. Most existed for their brawn and not their brains.

The Generals with their soldiers in tow faced the enemy head on. Remember movies like Braveheart and Gladiator. These heroes were cherished for their bravery. And then there were times when the Kings chose to play the role of the General as well. They themselves took the initiative of taking the enemy head-on. Think Aurenzeb, Napoleon and Genghis Khan. They all led from the front.

While kings and generals also had to strategize, they had to continue honing and displaying the basic yet primary skill of braving the enemy face-on, much like a foot soldier.

That they could strategize was an additional advantage. But brawn's were an essential need. If you only had the brains, you could be a chief advisor, a minister but never the general. A king lacking the brawns or skill to lead on a battle ground was often ridiculed. Sometimes they had to step off the horse and fight the enemy along-side the soldier. They had to lead from the front.

However, in today’s era where the world is readying itself for a new MOOC (Massive Online Open Courses) driven educational concept, doom awaits the CEO who chooses to sit on the chair of an executive and starts to make sales pitches or takes upon himself to be involved in the process of writing marketing briefs or makes it his responsibility of personally educating and nurturing the executives several levels below.

This is not to say that a CEO should not be concerned about the quality of a sales pitch or an effective marketing brief or the development and nurturing of his team. This is to say that the CEO cannot manage such responsibilities the same way as he did as a manager.

There is a need to hold back the strong urge to jump into the battle field and emulate the Generals of the past. Many such Generals have been etched in history and you will too if you fail to adapt to the needs of the future. And I say future, not today, only because in this era, future becomes today, faster than ever before.

You may also note that when the self-proclaimed ‘Greatest Nation of the World’, better known as United States of America wages war on multiple nations simultaneously, the General sits in his office and controls his armies from behind. Not the front.

And that is exactly what CEO’s of large Multi Nationals also do. Lead and manage the various companies across the globe from behind albeit knowingly or unknowingly. Sometimes they don’t even visit some critical and well performing markets for years on end.

What is it that these leaders do that most others cannot?

They lead like a shepherd from behind.

Sounds simple, well not really. Most fail to lead from behind!

Leading from behind is not the same as being hands off. It’s an extremely hands on approach, that needs far more efforts on the leaders part than leading from the front. This needs to be analyzed and understood clearly which we will in subsequent chapters.

But first, we need to understand why is it that often we hear of mid-level managers, who are rewarded with greater responsibility and larger teams, lose their jobs owing to sheer incompetence or consistent performance failure soon after assuming the new role.

Think, what is the reason that hinders many successful mid-level managers and small to mid-size organization CEOs’ from succeeding in greater roles, bigger organizations or geographically dispersed companies? Growth often spells their doom and are casually tagged as ‘not being ready for a larger role’ or simply ‘incompetent’.

But how can a person suddenly shift from highly competent to highly incompetent just because he got a greater responsibility. It is impossible for competence to shrink so starkly. What lacks is the ‘need for a shift in attitude of self and towards the team that needs to me managed’. They fail because they keep leading while banking on the same fundamentals and principles that they used in previous phases of their career. They lead from the front, like a General from the past that are best read about in history books.

Today such leaders fail to create history. They become history.

This series will help you transcend the journey from a small scale entrepreneur, mid-level manager or a CEO of a mid-sized company to reaching the top of that leadership role that perhaps was eluding you until now or is waiting to be embraced by you.

This series will not provide you with any scientific tools to bring about a great new dimension in yourself that you did not possess till date. Such claims are baseless and bogus. This series will help You understand ‘You better’ & ‘Be better’.

It will help you access yourself from within and provide indicators to be more insightful and objective on your own style of leadership. It will share with you the kind of shepherd like ‘leadership lifestyle’ that you need to possess. Very importantly, it will hold your hand through a very critical change management process to facilitate a smooth transition from a front leader to the one who leads from behind in order to help you create a highly effective self-motivated team that offers itself with complete free will to elevate the organizations objectives.

Note that the one line that forms the genesis of this ‘leadership lifestyle’ will be repeated multiple times over.

Lead from behind as a shepherd does to his sheep; align only those who go astray.

You will see that each time you too will start to find newer interpretations of this line. Your interpretation often might go beyond the written word yet closer to your own specific needs and challenges at hand. Do please go onto my website www.beingshepherd.com and share your interpretations and positive experiences on my blog http://manavdhanda.blogspot.in .

So now that the context is set and we understand that leading from behind is a concept from an era when Generals rode on horsebacks and lead from the front to defeat the enemy; in order to achieve victory in today’s era there needs to be a shift in leadership style by leading from the behind.

But what exactly are the specifics that one needs to inculcate and how does one differentiate between the one who leads from the front or behind?

To know about that, stay tuned for the next issue. Until then, keep leading J

www.beingshepherd.com /   http://manavdhanda.blogspot.in