Great Leadership: Beware of These Nine I’s

I wrote earlier about Nine I’s and Great Leadership. The post received a very good response (on twitter, in blogosphere and in comments) and that led me to further think about Nine I’s that leaders should be careful and conscious about. These are personal traits of a leader that have a direct impact on a team/organization’s performance. Here they go:

• Ignorance: A leader cannot afford to be ignorant. Lack of knowledge can be your biggest bottleneck. Leaders are expected to solve important problems for which sufficient knowledge is at the core.
• Inaction: This simply means ‘lack of action where some is expected or appropriate’. People expect leaders to take actions in the right direction. Actions that change people. Actions that have an impact.
• Ineffective: Leadership delivers performance. Results that matter. Ineffectual means ‘not producing any or the desired effect’. When leaders lack ability to cope with a role or situation, they become ineffectual.
• Inattentive: Leaders have to be mindful. Attentive to people. To details. To the upcoming trends. Being attentive also means that a leader listens actively. A leader who does not pay attention to things eventually becomes ineffectual. 
• Incapable: Capability is as much about strength and power, as it is about qualification and capacity. A leader needs to have strong personal traits, strength to deal with difficulties and power to take right decisions.
• Impolite: Leaders, as they ascend in their positions, become more polite and humble. It is said that success should go to your heart and not head. When it goes into head, leaders become impolite and rude. Would you work with a rude leader?
• Inconclusive: When dealing with people and customers, leaders face many issues. The key is to resolve those issues conclusively. A leader has to be conclusive in thoughts, words and deeds. Inconclusive leader creates chaos.
• Inconsistent: Leaders who are inconsistent in their behavior, or who have self-contradictory elements, never generate trust. People look for continuity in character and integrity in actions. Consistency is the key in building trust.  
• Indifferent: With indifference, leaders cease to be leaders. They have no particular interest, concern or sympathy. Indifference is the first step to mediocrity. Effective leaders are concerned, they take work personally and really care about things.

Have a Wonderful Wednesday!

Tip: For a better understanding and correlation, read this post along with my earlier post Nine I’s and Great Leadership. As a further reference, you can also download 25 Things Managers and Leaders Should Never Do [PDF]

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Also: Thanks to Amit Agarwal (India’s first Professional Blogger at award winning Digital Inspiration blog) for listing QAspire Blog in Directory of Top Indian Blogs under ‘HR/Management/Business’ category.