#learningfromlife

Growing Up Without Role Models I didn’t grow up with role models in the traditional sense. Instead of having someone to look up to and aspire to be like, I was surrounded by people who showed me exactly what I didn’t want to become. Whether it was their choices, their behaviors, or the situations they found themselves in, I saw a lot of examples of what not to do and who not to be. Every day…

Many of us want to be great leaders and lead our team to next level of success. So what makes us an eligible leader? Of course good numbers of managerial qualities & soft skills and don’t worry I am not going to start a leadership training session now. 

With all those acquired behavioral and technical skills leaders have a great amount of experience. Experience where they survived a tough situation , experience where leaders turnaround the unfavorable situations to their favor, experience of giving great results to business and achieving objectives. Simply we call them “ Success Stories”. 

We heard the term, right? Yes we do. During training sessions your trainer told his success stories , during daylong review or meetings you boss or super boss told you their success stories , during the so called “ motivational talk” your business head came and shared his/her success stories and all of them considered that you would learn from their stories and do better management with motivation. Think now and tell to yourself , have you learnt anything other than whenever you are going to lead the team you will also share your success story to them. :) I also did the same way in many sessions , shared stories which I used to consider as my success.

Once while i was delivering a session to a sales team who were at low business numbers my co-trainer was a senior business guy. He with his great experience of fighting various difficult business situations started sharing his success stories. Proud “ he” continued around 90 minutes with his success stories. Although the session was absolutely screwed up I got a very important lesson . Some said from inside , “ Dear Abhisek , no one is interested in your success stories , success story is a trap. let people find their success strategy in their situations and give them confidence of committing mistakes” 

Think this before you jump into the trap of sharing your success stories to you team members and participants. Ohh!! the big question is then i we are going to tell them? 

Well, if you take my opinion ( you can think of your own too) go and tell the mistakes committed by you , situations where you have failed to achieve numbers, strategies did not work for you and analyse why did you fail? 

Yes, it needs a lot of courage . Want to try it?

What you think about your next generation ? what's your opinion after watching them ?

Am I starting with a leading question today? Well that's important for me now. Normally i consciously try not to form strong opinion for anyone and in different situations I failed in that belief . Same happened about my opinion about my nephew , a member of my next generation. He always sticks with his mobile games ,online music and cartoons . He is eighteen now and eligible to cast vote.

May be because of my experience with him for long I took the liberty to form an opinion about him that he is quite disassociate from the realities of world like what is happening outside , society and politics in which I used to have a quite strong stand at his age.

One day my wife asked him that as this will be his first opportunity to vote , who he is planning to vote in coming election. He promptly said , " i don't know , probably NOTA". That made me more confident about my opinion and I said , " Look as you don't know any thing other than your mobile games , NOTA is a safe escaping option for you"

He smiled and didn't answer the comment but my wife kept on asking why he is confused and deciding to cast for NOTA.

Can't believe how well he explained about his opinion about leading political parties and his stand on that. He spoke for around 10 minutes to explain which points of each party he like and on which point he differ. Finally concluded by saying, ".... Mami ( aunt), that's why till now I have not decided "

And the judgmental me got my answer .

How about checking your opinions about next-gen?

We believe in sharing feedback and all our training modules , learning sessions are based on that. As in our daily routine the more we grow in the ladder of vintage , wealth , designation it becomes obvious that we become entitled to share feedback about others .. It’s normal , isn’t it ?

and it happened during a session on business communication where I was showing a content on how to serve a good feedback .. sandwich method and bla bla bla. 

it was a very routine session and I was not expecting any thoughtful question from any of the participants ( of-course a judgmental thinking as participants were mostly new to the managerial role). This mental state stayed with me only till a serious participant raised his hand and ask , “ Sir, what makes one eligible to give feedback to others?” . Somehow I had survived the question but it stayed with me. What makes you eligible to get the authority to give feedback?

Is it knowledge , which normally needs to be regularly sharpened ?

Is it experience which we have got in some different scenarios, different situations, in different generations and may be in different markets ?

Is it some technical or behavioral skill which could be obsoleted within a specific time ?

Just being on this journey now I feel the quality which makes someone eligible to give feedback to others is whether he himself can receive feedback with no bias and  prejudice.

Think about that , how are you in receiving feedback ?