“Kuddos to the new concept of learner-centred education. This is what will create efficient leaders” – John F. Kennedy
The career world is now on a verge of evolution. Laid-back attitude doesn’t work anymore. The world is looking out for leaders. Educational institutions have understood this need and are now changing their course of education. It has now become learner-centred. Passé are the days when only gaining bookish knowledge was enough. No more! Now practical training has gained popularity. Career relevant education has gained prominence. Leadership and managing capabilities are being given a boost. Quality and Competition are at its peak.
Educational institutions and B-Schools have introduced learner-centred curriculum to help and meet this demand. The world is in for a positive educational revolution.
Saying this, it would also be exciting to understand what the attributes go into making a leader. Let’s focus, in a nutshell, on the competencies companies are looking for in today’s leaders.
People Development
Facilitate people’s development by providing constructive guidance, feedback, and opportunities in order to deliver superior performance. Walks the talk and build trusting relationships and is perceived to be fair and objective. Encourages people to give their best to the job and gives feedback on their strengths and areas of development. Fosters an environment of trust and encourages people to learn from their mistakes. Builds a culture of constructive feedback to help people grow. Acts as a role model and leads by example. Inspires ordinary people to deliver extra ordinary results.
Vision and Strategic Orientation
Ability to integrate long term visions and ideas with daily work. Aligning goals and inspiring people to achieve these goals. Formulating a vision and ensuring alignment with vision. Understanding business and analytical ability. Understanding of how strategy impacts role and provide inputs for strategy. Link strategy to operations in variables such as market share, cost leadership, entry into new markets, etc. Ability to understand the overall business environment – external and internal. Ability to evaluate the alternate strategies in the light of the overall vision. Visualize and address interests of all critical stake holders towards the strategy. Communicate the vision and strategy effectively. Visualize the business and financial implications on a long term basis.
Result orientation with Execution Excellence
Ability to continuously identify opportunities for improvement and set well defined goals and priorities. Leverage all possible resources towards fulfilling objectives whilst maintaining process rigour. Is able to develop a systematic road map and measure results at every critical milestone. Seeks out opportunities to continuously improve performance. Ensures that the process adopted to get results is in line with company values. Sets challenging targets for self and team effectively and manages priorities Delegates and reviews progress using methodologies such as PDCA cycles. Anticipates & plans for dealing with obstacles. Commits significant resources even in the face of uncertainty to try out new alternatives towards achieving desired goals.
Global Mindset
Ability to identify global opportunities and leverage them to continuously raise the levels of excellence in one’s business. Invest in cross cultural learning and global opportunities for business. Bench mark against the best in the world. Keeps abreast of developments in the industry on a global basis. Is able to interact with global experts from the centres of excellence and identify opportunities which could be applied in own company. Anticipates global economic and political developments and acts upon them. Creates road map for building company business in the global scenario. Takes advantage of global trends & applies them for company business.
Customer focus
Ability to bring customer delight at every step and every action by fostering a spirit of quality orientation and service centricity. This would entail flawless product or service for the client. Follow up on customer enquiries. Put customer before self. Develops systems and processes to consistently delight the customer.
Team work
Ability to leverage self and collective capabilities to work seamlessly. Believe in the power of collaboration. Supports and encourages cooperation across all the teams. Creates environment of learning, ownership and commitment. Builds self and team in the following areas:
1.Flexibility (going beyond one’s own area of work) 2.Building an environment of pride and camaraderie
3.Conflict Management 4.Trust Building 5.Managing Diversity 6.Feedback
Innovation
Thinking out of the box, alternate thinking, to come up with new and feasible solutions. Leverages innovation as an opportunity to lead change and transformation. Openness/flexibility to new ideas and creativity. Tries to understand change by seeking relevant information. Implements change in own work environment consistent with organizational needs. Researches all available sources to identify trends, opportunities & problems. Believe in continuous improvement.