Leadership Perspectives

Practice Competency Insights for Leadership Evolution in Business

Sundar Ananthasivan

• Publisher: Fulton Books, Inc.
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781637103067
• eBook ISBN: 9781637103074
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Leadership
• Index: Business

Do you desire to have more impact within your organization? Have you been striving for the promotion, yet seem stuck at the same level and you don't know why? Leadership Perspectives will provide the clear insights and practical, easily applicable guidance you need to close the gap between where you currently are and where you want to be!

-Patti Schutte

CEO/Founder and Principal Coach

Be Brilliant Presentation Group

Typical business organizations are humming with activities in various areas to develop products and service customer needs. Organizations are filled with value stream leaders, managers, directors, and vice presidents across various functions. These are individuals working at various levels and processes to achieve metrics and business targets. How does a growth-minded individual know if she or he is making a difference to the team and the business?

In this book, Sundar Ananthasivan outlines the concept of a leadership quotient matrix and identifies four stages of leadership evolution in a typical business organization. He identifies the typical tasks at each leadership stage and outlines the actions needed by the individual to evolve to the next stage. Ananthasivan explains how self-awareness, reflection, and empowerment are key elements of leadership in building strong teams and engendering trust. He emphasizes the concepts of impact and engagement as key differentiators in the leadership evolution of not only an individual growing from a subject matter expert into a more formal business leader but also for any leader who is growing from one stage to the next.

This book provides actionable techniques to assess an individual's leadership stage and help evolve it to the next level. It quantifies leadership in a business into four clear stages and guides the individual in steps for preparing for the next stage. If you are an individual seeking leadership growth in your business or a mentor trying to encourage an associate's growth or an HR partner seeking to help an associate understand self-awareness and empowerment in their leadership journey or preparing a student to understand leadership growth patterns in business, read Leadership Perspectives.

Chapter 1

The Leadership Premise

Be true to yourself.

—Coach John Wooden

Everyone is intrinsically a leader at some level in their daily lives. There is some focus on family, finances, relationships, health, all of which involve elements of people and processes. This fundamentally suggests that everyone is somewhat structured and disciplined in following some processes to get to somewhere one must be. This also indicates that everyone is already somewhat trained in elements of task management to get somewhere or get something done. After all, every day, everyone must get up, brush one’s teeth, shower, make eating choices, take care of family, help their friends and loved ones, keep their minds and body healthy, and through all this work at something that is their passion. This passion, when it matches their purpose with work, allows for a wonderful equilibrium, which then allows for great leadership. What is it then that elevates this individual task management capability—that many of us have at home and in our personal lives and allows us to exist as useful individuals—into leadership in a team environment at work that people will want to hear and act on to achieve a higher common work purpose?

I believe it all starts with, “Are you true to yourself?” If you are reading this book, I am sure you are aware of many of the wonderful folks who are recognized as true or great leaders for their approaches in various team activities, work or sport. John Wooden is one who is well-known and respected for his coaching and mentorship. I believe those two elements are also very critical leadership elements in work as well as sport. His Woodenisms1 are well-known, but the fundamental essence of his leadership style was that he was true to who he was and what he believed in.

So does that mean anyone who is true to who one is and believes in coaching and mentorship can be a respected and successful leader? Well, those are two key elements that one needs to have as a basis to be a great leader. But there is another very key element as well. Coach John Wooden had one of what I believe is the most important aspect of leadership that was completely aligned with him in being true to himself: faith. I fundamentally believe that faith is the key element that transforms a good leader into a respected, loved, and successful leader. Faith is the glue that links the two elements of coaching and mentorship and allows them to shine through in highlighting the potential of people and bringing them together for a higher common purpose.

By faith here, I am not suggesting religion or a belief in a god but an intrinsic belief in the universe and humanity and having a purpose in making things better. I am referring to the innate desire to be useful to do good with the learnings and experiences one has acquired to allow for the benefit of the larger universe one wants to make an impact in—work or sports or any other effort. I do fundamentally believe that this one aspect is critical to a genuine acceptance of one’s ideas in a leadership position by a larger audience which then translates to truly meaningful and successful leadership helping drive a common purpose.

Think of the four questions in the circle above as it applies in a typical large business environment today. These days, whether one is a functionally called an associate, supervisor, manager, director, or senior leader, one has access to many if not all the same tools, i.e., emails, smartphones, projectors, PowerPoint decks, Excel spreadsheets, project plan creation tools, and many more. Why then are many managers and leaders still unable to meaningfully connect their message or purpose to many folks in the business environment? Why do many associates or supervisors feel they should be in higher positions to achieve their purpose or make an impact? After all, one is expected to perform some calculations or track some sales numbers or convey or understand revenue growth numbers, implement some elements standardization procedures, set some performance goals, achieve some major project deadlines, implement elements of technology, develop elements of customer satisfaction and related, right? These are the typical elements of jobs in many businesses over the last few years, right? In today’s day and age, with all the trainings, standardization of metrics and procedures, simple funnel diagrams to show new product and service launches, all managers and supervisors should be great leaders, at least in their realms, right? It feels so, in today’s value-stream-driven, task, and efficiency-based organizations. If all managers or leaders do this, why are still some more successful than others?

I passionately believe the answer starts with the statement of John Wooden above, “Be true to yourself.” All living creatures are possessing intelligence. In human beings, we have been able to identify and differentiate and even somewhat quantify emotional and logical intelligence. When you present the metrics or technology or customer satisfaction message through any of the mechanisms above, all associates and leaders around you can very quickly pick up on how much you truly believe in it or if you are just espousing a set of data/message metrics through the set of corporate business tools. People understand...

Table of contents

• Chapter 1
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3
• Chapter 4
• Chapter 5
• Chapter 6
• Chapter 7
• Chapter 8
• Chapter 9
• Chapter 10
• Chapter 11