“It is the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.” — Charles Darwin The biggest difference between command and control leadership versus collaborative leadership is – a collaborative leader knows that position in the hierarchy is no longer the source of power. The […]
In American Management Association’s critical skills survey 2012, respondents emphasized on 4 C’s (Critical thinking and problem solving, Effective Communication, Collaboration and team building and Creativity and innovation) as their key priorities for employee development, talent development and succession planning. I have been exploring the topic of critical thinking with respect to HR, Talent […]
Being in a band is always a compromise. Provided that the balance is good, what you lose in compromise, you gain by collaboration. —Mike Rutherford At the core of being an effective leader is ability to analyze the situation and then lead in the most appropriate manner which is best suited for that situation. A […]
In an industrial age, people went to factories and worked together to produce the outcomes. When required, they collaborated in person. Supervisors commanded and controlled others and leadership was often equated with “taking power”. Factories depended heavily on rigid top-down hierarchies and people were viewed simply as dispensable workers. With technological advances, our world of […]
The caterpillar was turning into a butterfly. In that biology lab, the teacher explained how butterfly struggles to break the cocoon as students curiously observed this metamorphosis. Before leaving the class, she urged students to just observe and not help the butterfly. After a while, one of the students took pity on the struggling butterfly […]
In a fast paced environment, we notice things that are urgent, immediate and abrupt in nature. We forget to notice the gradual. One small serving of unhealthy food doesn’t seem to harm but many such servings over a long duration increase the odds of having a health problem manifold. One conversation that went wrong now […]
An elderly woman used two pots to fetch water, each hung on the ends of a pole. One pot was perfect and delivered full portion of water while the other had a leaking crack. The imperfect pot felt very ashamed and this went on for a year. One day, the woman told the cracked pot, […]
Companies spend considerable amount of time and money on developing leaders through training programs and workshops. My experience so far suggests that these time-bound and finite interventions fail over a long run in developing leadership capabilities. I have attended a number of such training programs and workshops and have observed the impact of these interventions. […]
A novice painter once put his first painting at a busy cross road for people to mark mistakes. End of the day, the painting was full of cross marks! Next day, he made the same painting and displayed at the same cross roads. This time, he kept colors and brush there and requested people to […]