Great quality of contemplation happens when you are sick and tied to the bed to deal with it, especially when you are supposed to be out there and in action about a lot of things on your job. The insights that emerges during these contemplations are normally completely forgotten when you get okay the next day and you are on your treadmill !!. This time I thought I will capture these insights and share it with you all so that it may help to create a collective awareness. In fact I am pretty sure it may land up as just a provocative read and nothing beyond that.
My contemplation was about, what has Leadership in the current corporate context boiled down to be…?
In my 34 years of varied mix and types of businesses that I have worked with, I could find a very few leaders who I could relate as leaders who inspired us to contribute our best to a powerful intention. The Key phrase is “inspired us to contribute our best”. This is completely missing in the current leadership context.
The current leadership is all set in one herd mindset. Do Growth, Do Profit and Do your best to make it happen etc. It’s all about reminding you every single day that we are not okay the we are right now and we need to go a long way to be a no.1 in the country, a no.1 in the region, a no. 1 in the world and if you are already a no.1 in the World, keep growing so that nobody can take away your position. The bottom line message is “don’t be okay with what you are today.” I have heard some leader stylishly say that “I am paid to be not satisfied” (Felt sick hearing that and thought it was Sheepish).
How inspiring is it on a daily basis for a human being to be in an environment to be hurled upon with a message every day/week, beginning of the year, every QBR and every end of the year that “You are not okay as you are right now ” and you need to do everything that you can do to be okay. And if you do that, you will get your rewards else you don’t stand any chance. (Carrot and Stick !!) And you start it all over again every year. With a hope……
The experience is like you carry this dead weight of a rock called “you are not okay right now and you will be okay one day someday maybe” and that has been the current corporate leadership context in the World. The rest of all the good things that are communicated around it is to camouflage this core message, which I call as an Ego intention.
The few great leaders who I /we got inspired where the ones who told us to make something happen as an opportunity that we have as some kind of a responsibility for the world. They said something like; let us make our customers productive, lets exceed their expectations in the way we served them at each of their touch points, let’s make this beautiful thing happen to the world that will serve millions of people, let’s create this, let’s create that….etc etc… Which gave us the message of a profound privilege that we had to contribute and not that there was something not okay with us right now…This is an Eco Intention that inspired us.
When I look at it now…It makes me feel sick about the gradual degradation of Leadership despite getting trained at one of the finest B schools because the field where they are rated as a great leaders is determined by the topline and the bottom line they made and not on how they did it and what they left the people with, their stake holders with or the planet with. That is what the board hails them for and that is what the board feels justified about their job. And that’s another story…
I feel kind of lite sharing this out of my heart, realize how I have been allowing myself of getting sucked into such conversations and letting go who I am and what I stand for.
The intention is to create an awareness of a prevailing cancer called Ego and how we are infected by it..
PS: I do agree with the financial sense on why a business should be viable and one needs to be aware of the numbers. But you don’t play any game by watching at the Score Board, you need to focus and communicate about the ball that you are playing in that game.
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