Once upon a time, in a distant fairytale land, lived a king. He was loved and dreaded by his men alike. The stringent approach of the king towards the governance of his kingdom was a unique thing in itself. He was even-handed; minced no words; called spade a spade and flinched no time in delivering the most ruthless of the judgements for the benefit of his state. He was prudent, wise, judicious and to put all attributes together, he was an extremely capable administrator. The kingdom flourished under the watchful eyes of his sceptre and the countrymen dared not do anything aberrant. One day, the ministers and the emissaries conveyed the warning signs of an imminent war to the king as the news of the neighbouring state hoarding ammunitions become rife. The king, known for being a just man, surprisingly did not pay heed to the counsels of his own men and remained complicit. Flabbergasted as they were, the ministers realise that the success, love and fear that the king had evoked in his years have gone to his head. The king had fallen prey to conceit and his ego had made him insurmountably complacent. As the days rolled on, the neighbouring state, which had been suppressed by the king, kept on going strong by leaps and bounds. The ministers were helpless, they tried blowing whistle but the king, drunk with power failed to see the actuality and could not fathom the loopholes that he himself had created in being unapproachable. By the time the neighbour waged a horrific war on the king, it was all too late. The kingdom as well as its ruler was brought to the knees and the latter was sentenced to be executed. When he was being brought to the gallows before the curious eyes of his subjects who loathed him by then for bringing downfall with his arrogance, the clergy asked him if he harboured any remorse for any sin that he had committed. The king, with tear welling in his eyes, could only say with his voice getting chocked, “I wish I could listen to my own men!”

The king, his kingdom, his ministers and his foes are all a part of an obliterated page of history that nobody cares to turn. But the sin of pride persists and will do so as long as mankind treads the earth. In this modern world of business and finances, where success and money are elusive as well as easy, we don’t have kings and queens but we do have business leaders, the CEOs, the VPs whose sensibility and sensitivity have a bearing on the stability and longevity of their enterprise. A leader must not assume the conventional role of a frightful, omniscient ‘boss’ who is light-years away from the mundane of the ground-level works, sneers at the prospect of interacting with his subordinates, shifting blames for all the foibles running in the veins of the system and creates the halo around him, making him an ivory-tower prince, thrice away from reality. To come out of the cobwebs of ego, to salvage the company in difficult times and to be prepared for the bad weather days, our business leaders must practise one simple task which no business school would perhaps teach them: listening.

To be a good leader, one must be a good listener first. One really cannot qualify to be a good leader if he/she carries the latent agenda of intervening in the midst of conversation, denies the arguments against him and creates a bubble around him with the habit of looking at his company with pink-tinted glasses, not acknowledging any of the faults that may lie in the ambits of his business. A leader must admit that out of the several problems that arise within and without the dynamics of their organisations, some are perilous enough to threaten their existence, howsoever small they may seem to be in germination. A CEO has the onus of steering the company out of these problems and he cannot distance himself from it. More often than not, due to the terror that they impose with their demeanour, the leaders get to see a lopsided view of the companies. The reports and the data that are brought to their table are given positive tweaks, negative news is tamed down. Welled off from the operations of their organisations, such leaders end up becoming intellectually hollow, physically lazy and bring disaster upon their business ventures.  In this blog update, we bring to you some of the usual tips of being a better leader who is not only at the helm of his company like a guide and mentor but is also acutely self-aware and critical of his own self.

Hierarchy is said to be the negative evil in the complex network of businesses. You need them but it is a mistake of humongous proportion if one attributes the best of the ideas only from the higher rung of the ladder. The most groundbreaking ideas may come your way from anywhere, from any distant cue. Thus a leader has to be open to receive ideas from any end and smart enough to ideate the indications. Eventually, intelligence is a merit which is not based on how much of salary one draws from the company or how big one’s office is!

A leader must come out of the bubble of misinformation and half-truth. He must allow his employees a space wherein they do not feel intimidated in sharing a bad news. To handle good and bad news both with equal composure is the sign of a level-headed individual and that bears well for the CEOs also. While communicating with the ones working under the leaders, the vanity of being their employer must not come one’s way. The feeling of compassion and camaraderie wherein the employees are not visualised as slaves and rather co-workers who are all doing their own bits for their institution must be upheld at any cost. And to ensure this, the leaders must contemplate over hauling their image and creating such a business ambience where the employees feel comfortable, heard, included and not neglected or insulted. From the pulpit of deifying, they must humanise themselves and assume the role that they are actually assigned with: mentors, guides, counsellors, stakeholders.

As a leader of the pack, one must work readily and steadily upon the alarms and encourage his employees to go beyond the confines of the corporate offices, expand their visions and identify early signs of problems. It is the task o the leaders to feed the minds of the others with ideas to shake them out of their comfort zones and to change their policies to cope up with an ever-fleeting business world. Regular field-trips to plants, inspection outside the snug chambers and creating a pool of networks should be in the to-do lists of the CEOs. In this way, the leaders don the garb of a motivator who can go to the grimes to detect stumbling blocks or to know how to improve.

The most difficult task that emerges when one becomes high and mighty are accepting criticism, handling failure and knowing that might is not always right. If a leader does not feel challenged, does not feel the hitch and is experiencing a submissive bow from his employees, them something is horribly wrong with the organisation. To overcome this, a leader must reflect upon his own thoughts and actions. He must be kept on loop regarding his individual decisions and policies through questionnaires and continual prodding.

English philosopher John Locke had propounded the ‘Tabula Rasa’ theory wherein the human mind is compared with a blank slate, ready for new impressions to be written. A CEO must carry this blank slate aura with himself to become non-judgemental, bereft of any prior insinuation. Having certain fixed images and agendas in mind while listening to a person clouds the good discernment of the former and the leader must come out of this trap. It is only when a leader creates a business ecosystem where not only he but others listen and feels listened that a company would stay afloat, earn loyalty of its people and stay strong together even under leaky roofs.

Stories are meant to teach, preach and change. The fictional king of the distant land may have died long ago but his fool-hardiness will forever teach the onlookers of his story what not to do and what not to assume. And if there is an aberration, reality is cruel enough to weave a similar tale around a leader and would make him a protagonist of a lore where everything tasted the dust due to the latter’s vanity and self-absorption.