Leadership
the art of
BY DR SRINIVAS KOTAMARTHY
As leaders and people managers, we have to be excellent at finding, hiring, developing and retaining top talent. Simultaneously, we have to have great strategic thinking, organizational design, manage operational issuesm perceptions and complex matrices of relationships. It’s an often thankless, unenviable task that makes us question why we tried so hard to get there in the first place.
The reality of a leadership role is that it takes a delicate balance of your personality, leadership and management in order to succeed. It is most definitely an art and not a science. Your talent with leadership is most definitely comparable with creating great music or a beautiful painting. The reality of getting there is the same journey too.
I recall learning to play the piano as a child, it was hard work and the only thing that kept me going was that I enjoyed it. Music and art are a mixture of talent, knowledge and applied skills that come together in one place – the same is true in leadership.
Traditional management tasks such as interviewing or performance management need to be balanced with the empowerment of employees to own projects with full accountability, manage complex relationships and support their own development.
The final part is your personality, it is your charisma that makes you a great leader, your ability to articulate a strategy through vision and inspire others is what helps to drive people to follow you. The same way that when I play the piano some of the sound comes from pressing the keys and pedals, some from what I want it to sound like and some comes from my own personality/talent.
For many years, I have used the approach developed by (the late, great) Stephen Covey within the book 7 Habits of highly effective people. Although it was published in 1989 it’s still just as relevant to being a successful leader.
Personally, I find it helps guide the balance of leadership and management activity. I draw a cross
playing sounded good. Music and art are a mixture of talent, knowledge and applied skills
that come together in one place – the same is true in leadership.
52 | TRAINING MAGAZINE MIDDLE EAST oct 2014
leadership
BY SIMON MUSKETT