Jun 4, 2022
Want To Be a Leader?
As legendary American football coach Vince Lombardi once said: “Leaders aren’t born, they are made. And they are made just like anything else, through hard work.” They learn from trial and error as well as experience.
In this story, I will share some points basis my personal experience of growing from a young software engineer to a product manager to a product leader helping organization and others to grow.
For me, Leaders are not only people leaders, they are the one who anticipates problems and create solutions before they arise. There are some key points which I think help you become a influential leader.
- Be Organized : One of the most important skills for a leader is to be organized. A disorganized leader quickly falls apart in tough situations and motivates a culture of blame game. You should be able to create a structure, policy and frameworks and continuously experiment with these to improve culture around you.
- Stay flexible : You are a thinker, people look at you to set goals and plans. You are regarded in your organization for your skills and abilities. These are great things. But be prepared to change your plan as per the situation and be flexible to adapt when things don’t go according to your plan.
- Perseverance : This is important for a leader to stick to the goal not to a plan. And this is equally important to observe all the pain and keep you and your team motivated and focused to the goal despite difficulties, failures and oppositions. You can not give up easily, you are driven by a purpose.
- Take risks : Remember that no one achieved anything significant by playing it safe. So don’t be afraid to take risks — it could be the key to achieving your goals.
- Think long term : You need to focus on short terms goals but do not get obsessed to the current situation. You need to think beyond the current situation. You should be able to think big, think about the future considering how their decisions will impact the business and consumer in the long run. You should be proactive and able to think about solutions to prevent problems to arise.
- Over Communication : Timely communication is the solution for most of the problems before they become bigger issues. Communicating regularly helps you keep everyone on the same page and prevents misunderstandings.
- Set Timeline : A timeline helps you keep track of deadlines, tasks, and progress. It also helps you understand your team potential and help you plan better to achieve your goals. It helps you develop a successful mindset, positive thinking, and habits.
- Delegate responsibility : One of the best ways to prevent problems is to delegate responsibility. You should be able to identify problems, prioritize jobs and identify right person to take the accountability for for completing them on time.
Leadership is situational and I keep on experiment with my approach to learn and improve. Thanks for reading.
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