Please Don’t Eat This ‘ORANGE’! ( Part One )
Mayur Kalbag is an Indian Corporate Leadership Coach, Corporate Trainer & Author who regularly does corporate training for businesses in Fiji. He can be contacted via email: mayurkalbag@ hotmail.com
This is a very different orange and it symbolises certain key values for a leader within an organisation.
Through this column I wish to, in a way, ‘pleasantly peel’ this special orange and exhibit its significance to you.
To begin with, the orange that I am referring to is an effective amalgamation of six super qualities that a leader or manager must possess within him or her to accomplish his or her short-term, medium-term and long-term goals or objectives.
Each of these six qualities emanate from each alphabet of the term orange and therefore let us unravel each of them one by one.
Opportunistic Respectful Analytical Nurturing Groomed Expansive Opportunistic
In order to be a successful leader an important quality you must possess is to become opportunistic and by that I mean someone who is alert and aware.
But alert and aware about what you may ask. Well the answer is simple.
In today’s world opportunities will not come and knock on your door! (metaphorically speaking). It is for this reason that your attitude must be that of alertness and awareness about positive opportunities that can lead you to greater success.
An opportunist is he or she who is, as we say, on the lookout for, what I call.
Progressive and productive opputunities.
For example, there could be an excellent opportunity to participate in a two-day course on a technical subject.
Once you have identified the opportunity the next best thing is to convert this opportunities into action.
Take the effort to acquire more details about this short-term course.
If there is a professional fee that is required to be paid then try your best to convince your boss to have the organisation pay for it.
There could be a situation where your boss has had to go urgently out of the office and some foreign visitors are to arrive at the same time.
I believe you must look at this as an opportunity to take the lead to speak to your boss and seek his permission or consent to welcome the visitors and also make the planned corporate presentation to them.
Like these, there are many situations where your alert and aware opportunistic mind will make you seek out and identify new and progressive opportunities to help enhance your professional as well as personal growth.
Respectful
As leaders and managers you must always feel and then show your respect to people as well as to ‘actions’.
I have seen a lot of leaders who display tremendous respect to their seniors but not their juniors. I believe there must be equality in respect.
Just as we respect seniors and also our elders, we must also show respect to our juniors and even those who may be younger to us in age.
Having said this I have come across some leaders who are rude and disrespectful to people who have not met their budgets or expectations.
Through my interactions with a multitude of corporate leaders in Asia as well as some amazing corporate leaders in Fiji I have learnt a lot of lessons.
One is that a truly positive and motivating leader is he or she who develops the attitude to respect even the ones who may have failed in their professional endeavors. This leader, despite seeing the failure, makes the effort to identify as well as respect the efforts of the person or persons in his team.
It is this kind of a ‘respectful’ leader who therefore becomes a ‘motivational leader.
A respectful leader always ‘command’ respect rather than ‘demands’ it from his fellow colleagues and his team.
Analytical
I believe you must look at this as an opportunity to take the lead to speak to your boss and seek his permission or consent to welcome the visitors and also make the planned corporate presentation to them.
Mayur Kalbag
As a leader or manager he or she must develop an ‘analytical mind’. What this truly means is that the manager or leader must have the attitude to analyse and understand a situation or scenario before drawing an inference.
There are a few managers who, due to their lack of patience or maturity, jump to their own assumptions or conclusions without making the sincere efforts to understand and analyse the situation.
Especially in situations of failure it is more important and relevant to awaken your analytical mind and thereby conduct a proper and effective root cause analysis.
This will lead to better clarity about the reasons for the failure and could hence help the manager to offer correct guidance to his or her team towards helping them to accomplish their future goals and objectives.
In my next column I will explain in detail about the remaining three aspects of the orange.