I got a chance to attend an attractive session of Leadership with a title “Unlock Your Leadership” by Mohsin Lodhi in supervision of platform Shana Bashana.
Mohsin Lodhi has over 35 years of experience in Training, Coaching and Consultancy in corporate, non-profit, legal firms, armed forces, teaching institutes, small firms and large multinational organizations.
Total participants were around 20 from different organizations and all of them were holding c-level designations in their organizations.
Mohsin Lodhi shared with us the keys of a leader :
- Honesty and Integrity : Leaders create an organizational culture built on these two core values and hold all employees accountable to them. Without honesty and integrity as fundamental cornerstones of an organization, they will rarely succeed long term. And creating such a culture starts at the top of the organization. Everyone watches the leader and takes their cues as to what is acceptable behavior.
- Self Awareness : A leader must understand their own strengths and weaknesses. All of us have faults and instinctive behaviors that produce unintended results and/or consequences. It is critical for a leader to really know themselves, admit their shortcomings and ask for their help in addressing them. This demonstrates humility and humanizes the leader. No one is perfect and if a leader acts like they are, they will lose credibility and trust. In the worst case they will be seen as arrogant and intimidating.
- Vision : Outstanding leaders see the whole picture and do not get too focused on specific tasks or initiatives. They have deep knowledge of related industries/organizations and are seen as strategic thinkers. They often have strong networks and consistently identify important trends early in their life cycle. They are very good at communicating a vision of the future and getting organizational buy-in.
- Courage : Leaders have the ability to make tough decisions and are willing to take risks, even when conventional wisdom would dictate otherwise. They must be willing to stand alone if they believe in their convictions. This is directly related to their visionary skills, strategic thinking and their self confidence.
- Communication Skills : Leaders do not have to be great orators or exceptional writers. What is required is that they are inspirational and persuasive. They can speak and write to the audience’s level, focusing on the WIFM (“What’s in it for me”). They communicate in a way that generates buy-in and willing followers. Because if you can’t succeed in doing those two things, you cannot effectively lead.
- Team Builder : Every leader knows they cannot do it alone and that having the best talent enhances the opportunity for success. They know they need to build a team with complementary skill sets and experiences and constantly look to bring in people that know more than they do (this is because they are confident).
These were the main things which qualities should be in a leader in fact in a good leader 🙂