Welcome back friends, if you missed Part 1 : Leadership, you can check it out here. We tried to explore the LEADERSHIP qualities. Let’s continue to our second point DIRECTION
1. LEADERSHIP
Read it here if you missed Part 1 : Leadership
2. DIRECTION
To understand the importance of Direction in Leadership let me try to take small conversation from movie called ALICE IN THE WONDERLAND, a conversation between Alice & The Cheshire Cat when Alice reaches the a point where there are 2 directions on the path and she is unable to decide which direction to go.
Alice : Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?
The Cheshire Cat : That depends a good deal on where you want to get to go.
Alice : I don’t much care where.
The Cheshire Cat : Then it doesn’t much matter which way you go.
If you keep walking long enough, you will end up reaching somewhere even without direction. You might end up reaching right destination or wrong one.
The challenge will still persist even after reaching somewhere because you were not sure where you want to land or what destination you were trying to reach, so you might end up blaming yourself or satisfying yourself about wherever you reached and whatever you achieved.
So, it’s not only becomes important to have Direction being a Leader but also stick on to that direction in order to achieve the goal.
Everyone is trying to climb the ladder of success but for that the ladder needs to be leaned towards correct wall.
How sad this situation will be for any team, any business, to be climbing the ladder of success but what if the ladder is leaning towards the wrong wall.
You had been working hard to climb the ladder faster & you get top of the roof and you say wrong roof.
Good Leaders make sure that the ladder is leaning against the right wall
That’s what happens in organisations, everyone keeps following their own directions if they are not aware about the goals or destination they are trying to reach. They are working hard but not achieving anything.
“The only thing worse then being blind is having sight but no vision”
~ Helen Keller
Movement → Achievement
If you see in above example Alice is moving but she is not able to achieve anything as she doesn’t know where she wants to reach.
Similarly, in ladder example everyone is moving fast and hard but again not achieving anything.
So, it suggest that only Movement is not sufficient, Movement in right direction is required to lead us to Achievement.
Good Leaders Make Distinction between MOVEMENT & ACHIEVEMENT
Making goals and plans and then solving problems as they arise are imperative as they allow you to guide your organisation toward the future
DON’T ADOPT GOALS, ADOPT HABITS
~ Ankur Warikoo
Once we are done listing the points needed to be accomplished, now its time for important step that is Execution which we will cover in coming article in detail.
Also, you need to realistic that no team can do everything at once; some tasks are more important than others while others have to be accomplished before another task can begin. Set priorities for each checkpoint and assign someone to perform each task on the list. Develop a system for checking each other and ensuring that each task is accomplished on time.
“If one doesn’t know which port one is sailing, no wind is favourable.”
~ Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Conclusion
We saw the importance of having Direction in order to have clarity, setting goals and making others understand about the milestone or destination you are trying to reach. I will end up with quote from Mahatma Gandhi — “Speed is irrelevant if you are moving in wrong direction”.
Stay Tuned, for next part on RECEPTIVITY where we would try to find once we have the direction how we can improve on the planned items by taking feedbacks and suggestions.
Feel free to comment your suggestions. Thanks for reading. :)