‘THE LEADER IS NOT ALWAYS THE BOSS’
Elphege Joseph, executive director, RBTT, Roytec, in an address during the 2005/2006 launch of RBTT Young Leaders programme at Crowne Plaza in Port-of-Spain, gave an insight into leadership. She told the students that leadership held fundamental challenges that must be overcome. Here are some suggestions: 1) Acknowledge that you don’t know everything and you can’t monitor everything. This is the essence of teamwork. Most business leaders will tell you that much of the direct control has to be exchanged for more indirect control: through the setting of values by which people exercise ethical conduct and respect for each other; by leveraging strengths to overcome weaknesses; by encouraging creative thinking to achieve breakthrough results; by developing strategies and goals as your environment changes; by utilising your resources efficiently, by pushing team development and by giving rewards or acknowledgment to team members when they do a good job. 2) Collaborate because giving orders is very costly. The culture of learning functions best when collegiality exists. You should seek consensus in every phase in every process. However, that kind of culture is dependent on how you use the power that is entrusted in you as a leader. Progress can be slowed if you misuse this power. Successful teams always make decisions as a team. 3) Getting to know what’s really going on can sometimes be a task in itself. Leaders are flooded with information and you have to know what information to keep and what to dismiss; what is reliable or the brutal facts and what cannot be trusted. I say trusted in the context of honesty - let me tell you that everything revolves around the truth in life and that the unvarnished truth is all too often marked by turning points. When you are asked "How are we doing?" tell the truth even if there is no progress and don’t mince words in conveying it. 4) Your pulse is visible — you are always sending a message. In other words, through your behaviour/attitude, your non-verbal communication you are always sending a message and you must be aware that different constituencies respond to the same message in various, sometimes confounding ways. For a leader, "he microphone is always on," so that even informal remarks or ideas get amplified. Keep your communication clear, consistent, and simply crafted. A good strategy for young people is to emulate your school teacher or principal who use the storytelling technique to capture the essence of the lesson. Ask yourself, "What story can I tell that will embody and convey a principle we need to embrace, for example, in our value system if we are to put our differences aside and move forward?" 5) The leader is not always the boss. In organisation life, it is the board of directors that has the ultimate power. They, in the end, hire and fire the CEO; set evaluation procedures and salaries; and confirm or cancel the next steps. Like CEOs, school principals are increasingly at the mercy of more assertive boards. It is through your principal that the board or the ministry shares both the vision and leadership most likely to produce victories for all. So, don’t shoot the messenger. 6) Show respect for each other at all times — the meaning of diversity is changing. Diversity has to do with how hard a person works and what he or she wants in life. Every student belongs to several different groups that transcend race and class. If people think of all the different ways they could be identified, they might be willing to expand their horizons, from joining an activity none of their friends favour to taking a class they never considered before. If students have the courage to identify themselves by their interests, abilities, and ambitions, they will, at least by example, teach others to look beyond the colour of their skin. In the end, the truth is that life is full of inequalities and what really separates individuals is how much ambition, responsibility, and talent they have, or how little. Ambition crosses racial categories. So do talent and the drive to be successful in life.
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"‘THE LEADER IS NOT ALWAYS THE BOSS’"