Lessons learnt on management [Part 1]…
Everybody goes through a learning. This post is a collection of the learnings that I underwent while trying my hand at team management/leadership.
Right from school days, I always fancied leading a team. I was in a school where the SPL (School Pupil Leader) was the person who gives out all the commands (School attention..school salute..those kinds) at our school prayer. Every morning that I attended the prayer, I used to visualize myself giving out the commands. In that process, without analyzing what a leadership position meant, I had tend believe that leadership was all about commanding. It’s about giving out orders. With the turn of events and me winning few accolades at schools, I finally donned the role which I was dreaming. It was the year 2000 which gave me my turn to give out commands. I shouted the commands at the top of my voice with pride gushing through my throat for every command of mine. I certainly believed that leadership was all about commanding, until…
I carried that belief onto my college. I started playing the ‘General Secretary’ role for a society which consisted only of freshers. During one of our symposiums, me being the commander-in-charge, the leader in me started giving out commands to every single member of the team. For every of the activity that had to be done, I pulled up a guy and ordered him to do it. And as before, with every of my command, the sense of pride grew and I believed I was maturing as a leader. But hell broke loose. People were naturally annoyed at the way I was treating them and refused to work for the society. I could not figure out why they had problems in obeying my orders as I was the leader of that community. I was lucky enough to have a friend called Ajith and his team called ‘People first’ who introduced me to John C Maxwell’s 21 Irrefutable laws of leadership. Reading the book and the talks with Ajith had 2 changes in me. First, my belief that a leader is there only to give out commands was demolished. Secondly, I understood how prematured was my understanding and leadership/management is a journey.
I learnt the lesson that a leader has to be the first participant of the team and treat his team members with respect.
Leave a Reply