The "Big Heart" leadership

As part of my current role, one thing that has really changed in me is to be able to handle my responsibility towards people with more care. Numerous situations and incidents have helped shape me better to play my role today. Here are few thoughts from my journey over the last few years. Via your feedback/comments, we can learn more from each other.

Finding your way: I think it is very important that one find their way of leadership. As you work with your seniors and leaders, you will imbibe some of their ways. At the same time, it is important you also think about how you would have handled a particular situation if you were in that role. What would you do differently or perhaps better? What works with your inherent personality (which will also evolve)? Every leader ends up developing a personal brand, and that brand should relate well to your ways (walk the walk).

Handling mistakes and failures: How you handle mistakes and failures, defines you best as a leader. If you are in leadership position, you have to own the mistakes and failures. There will be times when you will tempted to get bitter or feel like venting it out. But that is precisely the time to maintain the poise and convey the message in a constructive and assertive way. How we recover, rebound and learn from our mistakes/failures, is more important.

It is interesting how our personal space and work space kind of inspire us to handle things better in both areas. In a recent situation in personal space, my daughter has been struggling with one of her subjects and did not do well on that exam as well. She is rather developing a blockage/barrier in her mind towards that subject. So, when the result of exam came, I decided to take her out for her favourite food and in that stress free environment, spoke to her about how we can improve things there on. The effect is we are on a better path but most importantly her fears are addressed. Similarly, at work, mistakes will happen and how we address those are important. Team members should not fear mistakes as that will also evaporate their appetite to try new things (innovate etc.) as well. Stewarding for joint success / achievements must be the motto and you need to show a large heart always!

Handling expectations: At the end of the day, we are all human beings and while we will have some expectations from our team, they will have much more from us. Be it the type of work, the environment, the raises...to very many things. If you are looked upon as someone who is a good listener, someone who tries to do best to meet the commitments, lot of expectations will get managed. Please note fulfilling everything is not the goal nor possible, an honest attempt to try is what matters more. False promises, failed commitments can dilute you as a leader quite fast.

Along my journey, I have been blessed to work under great leaders who have help shape me into a person I am today. As I wrote at the start of this article, one should have their way of leading, for me it revolves around 4 pillars as following:

HELP | EMPOWER | RESPECT | CARE

As a leader, we must always be there to help our teams. We need to enable/empower them at the same time so that they can take decisions. Respect is two way road - the more you give, the more you get (but you must not work for latter :)). Lastly, but not the least, genuine caring in each action must speak loudly.

And that is why, I think leadership is about having a big heart, where whenever things start to go down south, you are able to rally behind your team (while leading form front), to give them that assurance of safety and care, that no matter what, this shall pass and we will come out fine (and as winners). A lot of what I wrote above it is mostly stating the obvious, but doing it may not be easy all the times and that is why we must speak and continue to practise it tirelessly.

Open for thoughts!