Guest Talk by Dr. Sitwat Hussain on Strategic Leadership.
Dr. Sitwat Hussain, Group Head HR at Habib Bank AG Zurich, came to
deliver a lecture on the grounds of Strategic leadership and related topics to
the students of Leadership Class at IoBM.
Dr. Sitwat carries
a diverse background of working in different industries while he himself is a
Doctor in Medicine and carries an MBA degree in Marketing. He shared his views
of whom he deems a leader and what actually a strategic leader is all about.
He persisted on the fact that every person is born a leader. However
a man is polished into being a leader through his environments and the
situations he is based in.
Dr. Sitwat mentioned Mc. Gregors Theory X that says a man is
always pushed to be working, Theory Y speaks of how a man is always self
motivated to achieve better and Theory Z focuses on giving security to
employees so that they offer loyalty to the organizations. X and y are what we
see commonly being practiced in all organization.
He also mentioned of the Managerial Grid that actually helps you
check what your potential is. Whether you are a Team leader, which is of course
the best of the lot, or you are a person who only seeks his own benefit and doesn’t
care about the organization. A team leader makes sure his company, his
employees grow with him however a Solo leader is only focused on how he can
collect yes men and interfere in other peoples business.
A leader should not embed fear in his people because it only gives
rise to compliance rather than innovation. A perfect leader, is not necessarily,
an all rounder. He may be sometimes a hero, sometimes a zero. But that’s how
they learn, from mistakes just like Thomas Edison or Michael Jordan. They repetitively
make mistakes to realize in what matters they were wrong and then don’t repeat
the mistakes. Hence, success follows.
So what exactly is needed to form a Leader? Integrity is needed.
They will put in extra effort and try and innovate rather than moving with the
flow. A positive mental Attitude is needed to carve a positive pathway to
success for all. Passion helps a leader to identify whether he can put in extra
efforts. Self Awareness is needed to help you know yourself and Self Belief is
the key in this. Adaptability to change and flexibility should be there so that
a leader can see from all perspectives. He should have an out of the box
thinking and should look at alternatives that will help all improve. Last but
not the least, a leader should never quit. He needs determination to stay
steadfast about his objectives.
Strategically, it is essential for a leader to be able to
anticipate and prepare for any sort of ambiguity and perseverance. He should be
able to look at others mistakes and anticipate their mistakes. He should be
able to challenge the status quo and invite innovation into the organization. A
leader must be keen on interpreting his environment properly so that he is
flexible to more options that he can induce in his organization. His decisions
should be accurate yet nimble but shouldn’t be so agile that they come right
out of his gut feelings. They need to be well calculated because he indirectly
or directly impacts the firm. He should be able to align all the stakeholder together
to embed participatory management into the organization yet there should be no
room for malicious compliance. A leader never knows adequate. He should always
keep learning. He should discuss the bad problems and the best practices to
cure and improve them respectively.
In the end, he left the students with just
one mind boggling question, “ Are you really a leader?”
From the guest speaking session of the Dr Sitwat Hussain Group Head of HR provides us the knowledge of concept of Strategic Leadership Skill. The interactive session starts with the concept that leaders are born or they made? According to our guest speaker every human being is a leader. There is difference between Manager and a Leader. The functions of manager involve Planning, Controlling, Organizing and Directing. On the other hand Leader is the one who support innovation and change, but in an organization we need both paths.
ReplyDeleteHe discussed the Mc Gregor’s Theory X, Y in which he discussed with us that according to the theory X people inherently dislike work and according to this theory threats and punishment is required to meet goal. Theory Y suggests that work is a natural activity. He also discussed the Japanese theory Z in which he includes that if we secure the job like if we say to employee that your job is confirmed and we will not fire you like in this way you tell employee that your job is fixed then it will increase the job engagement of employee towards the work. He has also discussed the leadership grid. The concept of situational leader has also discussed that leader style match the situation It involves Telling, Selling, Participating and Delegating.
We have also learned the role of solo leaders and the team leaders. Solo leaders are the one who are the transactional leader, they get involved in everything and direct team member’s activities set objectives. On the other hand team leaders who are also called Transformation leaders in this the leader delegate the roles to others, recognizes the value of diversity in the team. It all depends on the leadership and management, Transformational leader develop the team member’s growth. Leader believes on the win, win, win situation which means own profit, employee profit and for organization’s profit. Leader has the ability to motivate others. Its all about the hard work and not luck at all. We have also learned about the tree model concept it involves Integrity, Intent, Capabilities and Results. According to him there are some key competencies for the success. It involves1: Integrity which involves ethics and values and the example he gave about the story of the Emperor and the Seed. 2: Positive mental attitude this is how you look things your attitude is everything. It is easy to criticize but to deliver the solution is tough.3:Passion it should be build up. 4 : Self belief in which he has discussed the story of cracked pot which gives us the lesson that we are not perfect all. We should have a attitude that we can do, we have passion.5: Flexibility it is important to be flexible as a leader, we should have empathy to look from other side. 6: Never quit it’s all about determination and we can take the example of Thomas Edison he failed many times but he said he found the ways like opportunities. 7: Out of the box thinking is important. In the last the 6 skills of strategic leader has discussed which involves the Anticipate, Challenge, Interpret, Decide, Align and Learn.
Dr. Sitwat Hussain a doctor by profession entered into the corporate world in 1998 and completed his MBA with majors in Marketing and later HR. He carries a diverse set of experiences in many industries including Pharmaceutical, Engineering, Insurance and Banking. Presently, he is working as a Group Head Human Resources at Habib Bank AG Zurich looking after the operations in nine countries such as Switzerland, Kenya, UAE, Pakistan, UK, Canada, South Africa, Hong Kong, and Isle of Man.
ReplyDeleteDuring his session he talked about a leader, his qualities and attributes. He also shed some light on the characteristics and qualities that transform a leader into a strategic leader. According to him nothing in marketing is bad, it can be good, better and best. He encouraged a sense of questioning and curiosity which is necessary in life.
According to him every human being is a leader. They are born leaders. They have it in their DNAs however; leadership is subject to environment in which a person is nurtured. A single person can act as a leader in certain situations while as a follower in others. He can be a hero and at times a zero. Having said that a leader is not perfect, there is nothing like a perfect leader. Every human has some strength which makes him a leader in some situations while he is dependent on others in areas where he is weak. The main thing to think about is how to nurture in a way to overcome those weaknesses.
He also talked about Douglas McGregor’s famous theory X and Y. Theory X assumes that an employee is naturally unmotivated and dislikes working, and this encourages an authoritarian style of management. According to this view, management must actively intervene to get things done. Theory Y on the other hand expounds a participative style of management that is de-centralized. It assumes that employees are happy to work, are self-motivated and creative, and enjoy working with greater responsibility. However, an extension to XY theory presented by Ouchi who gave the idea of Theory Z that focuses on increasing employee loyalty to the company by providing a job for life with a strong focus on the well-being of the employee, both on and off the job.
Moreover, Dr. Sitwat discussed situational leadership by Blanchard which says that a leader of an organization must adjust his style to fit the development level of the followers he is trying to influence. With situational leadership, it is up to the leader to change his style, not the follower to adapt to the leader’s style. He further talked about transactional leaders who are solo leaders while the transformational leaders who are the team leaders.
Moreover, he talked about the tree model which says that the roots are actually your character, the trunk is your intent, capabilities are your branches and fruits, leaves are your competence. As a leader you all have the qualities such as integrity (uncompromising principles in life), positive mental attitude (how you look at things, optimism), passion (having a burning desire), self believe (I am good enough to do it), flexibility (change your angle), perseverance (never quit) and out of the box thinking (going where no man has ever gone).
Lastly, Dr. Sidwat talked over Strategic Leadership. The first point discussed was the ability to anticipate which talks about risk appetite to unleash opportunities. Second, is the ability to challenge where you question status quo. Third, ability is to interpret with flexibility and options. Don’t take decisions with rigid mindsets. The fourth one is the ability to decide, the agility, the nimbleness of decisions. The fifth one is the ability to align where you need to align in a manner promoting participatory management. The last one is the ability to learn where you need to learn from lessons and share best practices.
Dr. Sitwat Hussain, Group Head HR at Habib Bank AG Zurich delivered a very interesting session about Strategic Leadership. He started his session by telling the difference between managers and leaders. He explained it to the class that managers plan, control, organize and direct. Whereas, leaders support innovation & change, develop & coach, maintain functional expertise and form values. Furthermore, he told in his session that an organization needs both managers and leaders as it needs the qualities of both leaders and managers to run its day to day work and achieve strategic goals.
ReplyDeleteHe also talked about the theory of leadership in which he elucidated Mc. Gregor’s theory X and Y. In theory X people inherently dislike work and try to avoid it. They are forced, threatened and punished in order to reach goals. Employees need direction from their boss and works better under autocratic leadership style. However, in theory Y, people work in a natural active way and enjoy their work. They are motivated and have control on themselves. This theory works better under participative leadership style. In addition to this, Dr. Sitwat mentioned about theory Z that has been proposed by a Japanese person named Ouchi. Theory Z emphasizes on the fact that in order to have good employee engagement, it is essential to secure the jobs of your employees; job security automatically leads to more engagement and belonging of the employees to the organization.
Moreover, he showed the managerial grid that helps the organization to measure its employees’ potential. A team leader is the star of the organization as only on the grid he has a score of 9/9 which means that he has concern for both task and his people. He is progressing in his career as well as taking his people and organization towards success. While others on the grid are categorized as managers. He also enlightened the difference between a Solo Leader (transactional leader) and Team Leader (transformational leader). A Solo leader gets involved and interferes in everything. He collects yes men employees for himself. While a team leader creates the vision and develops team members’ growth. Further he said, a heterogeneous team if have a good leader then they will work much better than a homogenous team under a good leadership.
He accentuated that a leader must have the following key competencies: integrity, positive mental attitude, passion, self belief, flexibility, should never quit and think out of the box.
For a leader to work strategically, it is important for him to anticipate. The more unpredictable the environment, the greater the opportunity he will find. He should be prepared for ambiguity and persevere. Secondly, he should challenge the status quo for continuous improvement. There is nothing permanent than change. Then the next step is that he should interpret the trends & patterns and should analyze his options. He should also be quick in his decision; should not get stuck in analysis paralysis. He should also align his team, stakeholders, etc in his decision. Lastly, he should accept his mistakes and learn from them. Also, should share his failures and best practices with his team.
He ended his session by saying that there is no leader as a perfect leader. He might be a hero in one context but zero in the other.
Guest speaker session of Dr. Sitwat Hussain, Group Head HR at Habib Bank. On the grounds of Strategic leadership. In introduction he told us that he has a diverse background of working in different industries while he himself is a medical Doctor and carries an MBA degree in Marketing. He further said that, every person is born a leader, but a man is polished into being a leader through his environment and the situations he face in life. He further discussed about the theory X that says a man is always pushed to work, and theory Y speaks of how a man is always self motivated and Theory Z focuses on giving security to employees so that they offer loyalty to the organizations. X and y are what we see commonly being practiced in all organization. He further told us about the Managerial Grid that actually helps us to check our potential. Whether one is a Team leader, which is of course the best of the lot, or you are men who only seek his own benefit and don’t care about the organization. A team leader makes sure his company, his employees grow with him however a Solo leader is only focused on how he can add yes men in his team and interfere in other people’s business.
ReplyDeleteHe further emphasized on that, a leader should not embed fear in his people because it only lead to compliance rather than creativity. A good leader is not necessarily an all rounder he may be sometimes a hero, sometimes a zero. But that’s how they learn, from mistakes just like Thomas Edison or Michael Jordan. They repetitively faced failures but they didn’t give up and stayed determined till they get the success.
Further he emphasized that for a leader Integrity is must, because he cannot inspire people without integrity. A leader should put in extra effort and try and try to be creative rather than moving with the flow. A positive mental Attitude is needed to overcome the pathway to success for all. Passion helps a leader to identify whether he can put in extra efforts. Self Awareness is to know yourself and Self Belief is the key in this. Adaptability to change and flexibility should be there so that a leader can see from all perspectives. He should have an out of the box thinking and should look at alternatives that will help all improve. Last but not the least, a leader should never quit. He needs determination.
In the end he talked about strategic leadership is which he said, that strategically, it is important for a leader to be able to anticipate and prepare for any sort of problem and threats. He should be able to look at others mistakes and anticipate their mistakes. He should be able to challenge the status quo and bring creativity and innovation in the organization. A leader must be keen on interpreting his environment properly so that he can be flexible to more options that he can operated in his organization. His decisions should be well calculated because they will directly or indirectly effect the organization. He should be able to align all the stakeholder together to organize participatory management into the organization yet there should be no room for malicious compliance. He should always keep learning. He should discuss the problems and the practices to overcome and improve them.
It was an honor hearing Dr. Sitwat Hussain, Group Head HR at Habib Bank AG Zurich talk in our class. He started his talk on leadership by talking about the most common query that is are leaders born or made and he added that it’s the environment and how you are groomed aids into your chances to become a leader. Then he compared leaders and managers and said that managers only follows the management functions which are planning, organizing, implementing and controlling but leaders are the one who support innovation and change, develop and coach, modeling values, maintains functional expertize.
ReplyDeleteThen he talked about the McGregors thoery X and theory Y in which he said that people who follows theory X are transactional leaders and people who follows theory Y are Transformational leaders. Theory Y people are the one who likes work, who are responsible, they enjoy what they do. On the other side theory X are the one who just wants to get the work done. Then he talked about the recent addition which is Theory Z which says that loyalty has to driven among workers so that they feel more comfortable that their job risk is low.
Then he talked about the leadership grid in which he defined that there are there are 7 type of leaders:
9/9: He is a Team leader.
9/1: He is an Authoritarian Manager.
1/9: Country club manager
1/1: Impoverished Manager.
5/5: Middle of the road manager.
9/1 and 1/9: Paternalistic .
ALL 5 ABOVE: Oppurtunistic.
The best among all these is the 9/9 who is a Team Leader.
He then further talk about solo leaders and team leaders. Solo leaders are the transactional leaders who get involved in everything, expect others to perform according to his or her standards, direct team members activities and sets objectives. Team leaders are transformational leaders who delegate team roles to others, recognize the value of diversity, encourage others to contribute and is not threatened by team members special abilities and they creates vision for others.
He further added that the leader is the one who has the ability to MOTIVATE others and they spread HOPE not GLOOM. He also said that there is no perfect leader. He also added that its not only Luck which leads a person to become a leader. There are three things which are practice, preparation and persistence.
He then talked about the Tree model in which he described character and integrity to be the most important thing for a leader he defined it as the root of the tree which means cause of becoming a big tree. He also said that its desire not ability that determine success. He also said that negatives are more than positives but we need to focus on positives. We should have passion for what we do and self belief is the most important thing. Flexibility is also very important to become a leader we should see a thing from every angle and just rely on one dimension. And we should never quit and be determined. Failure teach everyone a lesson. You should be able to think out of the box.
Then he further talked about the strategic leadership in which he described each as:
Anticipate: to gather the information.
Challenge: out of the box thinking.
Interpret: Flexibility and options.
Decide: agile and nimble/shoot from the hip.
Align: particapatory management.
Learn: lesson learnt/ best practice sharing.
Dr. Sitwat Hussain, group head of HR at Habib Bank AG Zurich delivered his guest speaker session on strategic leadership and shared his detailed insight which he earned throughout his life with the students. His background has been very diverse which gave him the ability to experience different progressions of life and become the man he is today. He initiated his session by asking students if leaders are born or made. According to him every person is born a leader and that right from the start of our lives we have been winners therefore all of us can be leaders given we are nurtured in the right way. After that he emphasized upon the difference between managers and leaders and according to him managers are responsible for planning, controlling, organizing and directing but leaders are those who initiate change and innovation. He also mentioned Mc Gregor’s theory X and Y. This theory has been the foundation of many management principles. Theory X is a more autocratic which focuses on getting work done through punishment and threats. Theory X by default assumes that people dislike work whereas theory Y on the other hand dictates that people are self-motivated to perform better. Dr. Sitwat also mentioned about a third theory which was given by a Japanese name Ouchi and this theory is called Theory Z. In theory Z loyalty and job security plays a vital role. Through this theory you give job security to employees which results in them being loyal to the organization however there has been some serious criticism against this theory.
ReplyDeleteDr. Sitwat mentioned and explained the leadership grid in detail which had various styles of leadership adopted by leaders and the extremes at which these styles are executed as well as how they are executed. After this solo and team leaders were discussed and according to him solo leaders are more towards transactional side and getting things done whereas team leaders are transformational leaders who actually see the greater good and direct their teams accordingly while having the power to motivate others and great leaders spread hope not gloom. According to him great leaders need to have some key competencies which involve integrity, intent, capabilities and results. He gave a very good example of a Chinese emperor and how he chose his heir by judging young boys of their integrity the one who did not lie to him and presented the most truthful results was chosen to be his heir. Secondly great leaders need to have positive mental attitude and it is the desire which determines success not ability. Criticism on you means that you are successful in light of being a critic which everyone can be. Thirdly, the passion to be successful also needs to be there. Fourth, Self-belief. Here he again shared an interesting story about a cracked pot and how that pot was upset because he was not serving his owner the purpose of carrying water from one place to another but one day his owner told him that the water that leaks from its crack is basically helping the flowers grow on the way. Fifth, flexibility and sixth being Never Quit. He shared the example of Edison here and how he was determined to invent the light bulb and never gave up. Dr. Sitwat also mentioned how important out of the box thinking is as it allows you to gather information from multiple sources and go beyond the standard way of thinking. Lastly he mentioned six skills of strategic leaders which include Anticipate, Challenge, Interpret, Decide, Align and Learn.
Dr Sitwat Hussain- A Leader
ReplyDeleteDr Sitwat Hussain a man of versatile interest, courage beyond the realms of society, knowledge beyond the boundaries of any field, personality to look after. A man of inspiration, a persona to cherish, A leader is Reality.
Dr. Hussain, Group Head HR at Habib Bank AG Zurich, leading the department in 9 countries resides in Pakistan to lead the biggest subsidiary of the bank- Habib Metropolitan Bank (HMB). He had his initial degree in medicine and worked as a Certified Practioner for not only private hospitals but served in the Military, Navy and Airforce Hospitals as well. The journey from Medical to Marketing speaks for the courage itself, following your passion, leaving behind decades old career at its peak itself is a nerve wrecking decision that not all has the courage to take.
Dr. Hussain was invited to guide us the students to learn what responsibilities executives perform in Organizations; he came in to guide us on strategic leadership but he not only helped us learn strategic leadership style he guided us on all the leadership style practiced in organizations from the born leaders to Mc Greggors Theory X & Y and the Theory Z by Ouchi. The Leadership/ Managerial Grid and the Hersey Blanchard Situational Leadership was explained by the help of the graphs he prepared for better understanding of students, INDEED a Teacher in itself. He further went on the explaining the difference between Transactional and Transformational leaders, accepting the reality of today’s organizations but giving hope of not all being the same. He also guided us on what qualities we can adopt ourselves to achieve success being integrity, positive mental attitude, passion, self-belief, flexibility, out of box thinking and the most important being to NEVER QUIT, never accept defeat, mend your ways and learn to succeed. The Blue Ocean Leadership followed while the lecture ended on what the strategic leadership is actually about and how to achieve it, through anticipate, challenge, interpret, decide, align and learn.
I being a student not only learn about the different styles of leadership but I learned what a leader actually is, he is not afraid to answer questions from curious students, the humility and the respect given to those junior than you or people observing you speaks about the character of the leader itself. The leader never treats people below the knowledge scale they own with disrespect but he is willing to share the knowledge to whoever willing to learn.
Dr. Sitwat Hussain indeed a leader himself inspired me to the core with a small gesture of remembering our names to the body language making everyone feel comfortable in his presence with the smile he boosted our confidence to the knowledge he had gained through sheer hard work touched my heart. And thus I learned that leader does not only inspires you by his words but also by what he does not speaks.
#INSPIRED!!
Guest Speaker Session by Dr. Sitwat Hussain
ReplyDeleteOn Saturday, 8 October, 2016, Mr. Shiraz Ahmed's Leadership, Ethics and Change class had the privilege to enjoy a leadership seminar by Dr. Sitwat Hussain, who is currently the head of HR for Habib Bank AG Zurich. What seemed like an ordinary session on leadership quickly turned into a 60-minute session on some powerful yet simple concepts that worked parallel with his own practical experience to provide a unique guest speaker session.
Background
Dr. Sitwat Hussain currently works at Habib Bank AG Zurich and has worked for numerous companies across 9 different countries across the last 2 decades. Interestingly, the Dr. title is from his degree; MBBS. He began his career as a doctor and after differing views later in his career, he chose to acquire an MBA in Marketing and is currently working as the head of HR; truly a man of many talents.
The Session
The session formerly began with the question of whether leaders are born or made. He explained that leaders are essentially made because 1 out of millions of sperms - the people in the room - reaches the egg. However, it's the grooming and environment that truly makes a leader.
He went on to talk about how organization require both managers and leaders, unable to work without both. He likened this to Theory X and Y, and how you will see both types of people in an organization.
The session continued with an explanation of the Leadership Grid and how it shapes your own personality and reflects the type of leader you are, further giving guidance on what type of leader you could or need to be. He contrasted the leadership with situational leadership before continuing talking about the differences between transactional and transformational leadership.
In his opinion, transformational leaders empower you but simultaneously make you liable.
As the talks went on, he began to quickly move away from theory and talked about how the perfect leader doesn't exist, and is essentially absent in practicality. While some may say they exist and they had great luck, it doesn't have anything to do with it; it has to do more with their own hard work. He then taught us about the Tree Model of Leadership and what it means.
While a lot may have seemed like theory, Dr. Sitwat interweaved numerous practical and model stories to illustrate his concepts rather clearly such as with "The Cracked Pot" and The Emperor and the Seeds" stories. He used this to illustrate the fact that you need self-belief and a positive mental attitude to be a good leader.
More than just that, you need to be passionate about what you want to do, be a great teacher, never quit and occasionally think out of the box. Towards the end, he recapped the HBR article we studied prior to the class and offered a more practical perspective on it.
He finished by handing out a leadership assessment that gave us a rough idea what type of leader or stage of leadership we were on, which we got to take with us.
My Thoughts
In truth, while the start of the session may have seemed to be filled with theoretical concepts, it quickly turned into a practicality fair where he injected his own experience and opinions into the concepts we learned to provide a rather unique approach to a flourishing concept of leadership.
With plenty of experience, he firmly believes that you can't be the perfect leader but you should always try your best to be the best leader you can be, if you can be one. In essence, you have to "check what's yours" and work on your strength. He states you don't have to be a leader in everything, just what you can be in.
The discussion began with the classical argument of Are leaders born or made? One factual/scientific statement defies all the theories; It takes only one sperm cell out of 200 million sperms to fertilize a woman's egg so practically every one is a born leader because you have that something that beats the others. At the same point in time not all born are leaders. Leaders are the one’s who are groomed, taught and tailored by mentors to become leaders.
ReplyDeleteTaking the discussion forward Dr. Sidwat Hussain discussed the classical theories of Theory X (which is an authoritarian style where all the stress is on “productivity), Theory Y (which is an opposite talking about motivation of employee leading to performance). Another theory by the name of Theory Z by Dr. William Ouchi's focuses on increasing employee loyalty to the company by providing a job for life with a strong focus on the well-being of the employee, both on and off the job.
Another theory of “The Leadership Grid” was discussed which talks about five different style of leadership covering different combinations of care for people and care for results. The theory talks about 05 kind of leaders who are ranked on 05 different scales in which some are more task accomplishment oriented and less employee care focused while other are more focused on winning employees then accomplishing task.
In the same context there is a situational leadership study by Hersey and Blanchard which focuses on the mix of supportive behavior and directive behavior. Like The Leadership Grid this talks about the perfect mix of supportive and directive. During the session he point came out which talked about that whether one leader should be selfish enough or not to apply changes. The guest speaker rightly replied that the leader has to be selfish to the extent of making a win, win + win for all. Win for the employee, win for the leader and ultimately win for the organization. He has to be taking shifts between high directives to low directives and high support to low support according to the need of time and task. A Leader should be ready to shift gears with context to the need of time.
One last theory that Dr. Hussain focused on was about The Tree Model, focusing on key pointers to success i.e.
Integrity; where he discussed the story of emperor and seed which was all about sticking to the situation and not deviating from core values because they will lead you to success. The path can be long but not and endless one.
Intent; focusing on the positivity of the mindset.
Capabilities; Always trust and be passionate about what you do.
Results; They will come if you go by the process. Work hard and wait for them.
To conclude I believe it was rightly said that “Statues are made of the people who are criticized and not the one who are the critics.” So trust your abilities and be true to your values success and followers will follow.
Dr. Sitwat Hussain, Group Head HR at Habib Bank AG Zurich delivered a session about Strategic Leadership. His session started with the differences between managers and leaders. He told that managers plan, control, organize and direct. Whereas, leaders support innovation & change, develop & coach, maintain functional expertise and form values. He told that an organization needs both managers and leaders as it needs the qualities of both leaders and managers to run its day to day work and achieve strategic goals. Are leaders born or made (true or false)? This was the question asked by the honorable speaker. He responded that leaders are made. Every human being is a leader; the matter of the fact is that grooming makes the difference in your personality. Therefore, a leader is not perfect; nobody can be a perfect leader. He further discussed about the theory X that says a man is always pushed to work, and theory Y speaks of how a man is always self-motivated and Theory Z focuses on giving security to employees so that they offer loyalty to the organizations. X and y are what we see commonly being practiced in all organization. He further told us about the Managerial Grid that actually helps us to check our potential. Whether one is a Team leader, which is of course the best of the lot, or you are men who only seek his own benefit and don’t care about the organization. A team leader makes sure his company, his employees grow with him however a Solo leader is only focused on how he can add his own people in his team and interfere in other people’s business. He added another theory of leadership which was Hersey-Blanchard situational leadership, this is the most popular leadership style promoted in today’s world. It basically outlined four styles taking an interest, assigning, offering and telling. He also, highlighted contrasts between solo leaders (transactional) and team leaders (transformational).Then he talked about the leadership grid in which he defined that there are there are 7 type of leaders:
ReplyDelete9/9: He is a Team leader.
9/1: He is an Authoritarian Manager.
1/9: Country club manager
1/1: Impoverished Manager.
5/5: Middle of the road manager.
9/1 and 1/9: Paternalistic.
ALL 5 ABOVE: Opportunistic.
The best among all these is the 9/9 who is a Team Leader. He said that in today’s business scenario there is win (employee), win (leader), win (organization) idea which is floating all around. In addition, individuals do say that leaders are fortunate yet it is not absolutely true. Its 3 P’s that is practice, preparation and, perseverance. Leadership is all about diligent work and commitment. For a successful leader, the following are the key competencies which a leader should have integrity, positive mental attitude, passion, self-belief, flexibility, never quit and have the ability to think out of the box. The session also covered some parts of Blue Ocean Leadership, he gave us the example of Telenor’s program to support women who want to work after the break after marriage. Eventually, we discussed strategic leadership and ended the session with discussing the 6 factors (Anticipate, Challenge, Interpret, Decide, Align and Learn) for Strategic Leadership. Dr. Sitwat told us how we should unlearn to relearn and ended the session by telling us that there’s no such leader as a perfect leader.
Dr. Sitwat Hussain, Group Head of HR, AG Zurich, conducted a session on strategic leadership. He asked question that are Leaders born or made & answered that every human being is leader when he or she is born. Leadership skills can be polished.
ReplyDeleteMC Gregor’s Theory X & Theory Y of leadership: Theory X assumes that people dislike work; they want to avoid it and do not want to take responsibility. Theory Y assumes that people are self-motivated & thrive on responsibility.
Theory Z: It’s a controversial, it’s says job security is very important, if employees know their job is secured so they will be more loyal and engaged.
Managerial Grid Model – Also known as Leadership Grid: Measures performance, highly used in today’s organizations, Allows for self-analysis of leadership style.
Managerial grid model is composed of different leadership styles. The motivation dimension really provides the underlying motive of the leader behind a successful leadership style. Thus the managerial grid model categorizes leaders into one of 81 possible categories.
The Country Club Manager (1, 9): These leaders will go above and beyond to ensure that the needs and desires of his employees are met.
The Authoritarian or Control Manager (9, 1) :These leaders focus all of their attention to production-related matters and very little towards the needs of their employees.
The Indifferent or Impoverished (1,1): These leaders have minimal concern for people and production. In short, the indifferent leaders are ineffective and are sorely lacking in any of the traits that can be attributed to successful and effective leaders.
The Status Quo or Middle-of-the-Road (5, 5): These leaders balance out the needs of their staff with those of the organization, while not adequately achieving either. These leaders will balance and compromise their decisions, often endorsing the most popular one.
The Paternalistic Style (1, 9) tor (9, 1): These leaders will guide their employees and define initiatives for others and themselves. They will praise and reward employees for good performance.
The Opportunistic Style (Any of the 5 Positions)
These leaders, as the name suggests will seek any situation that will be of benefit to themselves. They will adopt any style that will increase the likelihood of reaching their objective.
Hersey-Blanchard Situational Leadership: Leadership depends upon each individual situation, and no single leadership style can be considered the best. For Hershey and Blanchard, tasks are different and each type of task requires a different leadership style. A good leader will be able to adapt her or his leadership to the goals or objectives to be accomplished.
There are two types of leaders: Sole leaders (transactional) & Team Leaders (Transformational)
Now, new trend is Win-win-win situation i.e. for the benefit of employee-manager-organization instead of win-win situation.
Leader has the ability to motivate others. Good leaders spread hope.
The Tree Model: The Leadership Tree combines the conscious as well as the unconscious aspects of human thinking. The conscious, rational aspects are represented by the branches, the unconscious aspects by the roots within the soil. The trunk stands for the tasks and the responsibility of the manager.
Key competencies for success:
Integrity
Positive mental attitude
Passion
Self believe
Flexibility
Never quit
Out of the box thinking
He gave an example of Telenor that “Telenor has tapped potential market of married women who left job because of children”.
Leaders have the ability to:
Anticipate: prepare for ambiguity & presence.
Challenge: out of the box thinking / continuous improvement (Kaizen)
Interpret: flexibility & options
Decide: agile & nimble / shoot from hip
Align: participatory management
Learn: lessons learnt / best practice sharing.
Dr sidvat Hussain came in our leadership class as a guest speaker. He gave his insights about leadership theories. He told us that leaders are made not born, it depends on how you are brought up. Organizations need managers and leaders both. He also talked about theory x and theory y personalities. Theory x people dislike works and tries to avoid the work. They need someone to force them, threaten and punish to meet goals. However theory y enjoys doing work. They are naturally motivated but they also take responsibility and accountability for the work that they do. He also enlightened us with the second theory that came after it. It is theory Z which says that if you want to motivate the employees then you need to give them the confidence that their job is secured. This theory is given by Ouchi who is a Japanese person. He says that if you secure the job of the people they will be automatically motivated. But with this theory a lot of criticism also comes people think that with job security only 20% of people work the rest 80% becomes more lethargic and takes their job for granted.
ReplyDeleteAfter that he showed the leadership grid. On the x axis we have the concern for production and on the y axis we have the concern for people. There are five kind of leadership styles. One is the country club manager who has a great concern for people but very less concern for production. Second is the team leader where he has the highest concern for production and highest concern for people. Third is the impoverished manager who has less concern for production and also less concern for people. Fourth is the authoritarian manager who has the highest concern for production but the least concern for people and lastly is the middle of the road manager who decides which way to go and then selects the leadership style. After that two more styles has been added one is paternalistic styles and second is opportunistic style.
After that he shared the situational leadership grid with us which consists of four grids consisting of participating, selling, delegating and telling. It varies with the relationship behavior and task behavior. He also highlighted the differences between the solo leaders Vs Team leaders. According to him the solo leaders are transactional whereas team leaders are transformational leaders. Solo leaders interfere in work of everyone, directs the team, look for “yes sir” admirers and set objectives for the teams whereas, team leaders delegates team with the task, they empower the team and also keep them accountable at the same time, they look for diversity in the team and they also want their teams to grow. Before we had win win situation but now it is win win win. Win for the employee, win for the manager and lastly win for the corporation.
He told us that the perfect leader is the one who doesn’t know everything. They could be the hero in one aspect but a failure in another at the same time. The leaders are not lucky by chance they go there where they are now by PRACTISE, PREPARATION, and PERSISTENCE. After that he talked about the tree model which represents the leadership. If someone wants to be a successful leader then they need to be like a tree. Integrity as a deep rooted roots, Intent as trunk, capabilities as the branches and then results will be like fruits and flowers.
Dr. Sitwat Hussain, Head of HR, AG Zurich, conducted a session on strategic leadership. He started his session with the question that are Leaders born or created & answered that each soul is leader once when he or she is born. Leadership skills will be polished throughout the life.
ReplyDeleteDr.Hussain was invited to direct and guide us about the strategic leadership, and its main elements. He urged on the fact that every organization needs leaders and managers both. He started off with the McGregor’s Theory X/ Theory Y Model. Theory X assumes that workers and dislikes operating. Hence, manager is needed to push them to figure. Theory Y assumes that workers are happy and self-actuated. Hence, a participative type of management is needed. He additional added another theory Z that focuses on loyalty. He aforesaid that offer workers job security and that they can automatically be loyal to the organization. Another theory of “The Leadership Grid” was mentioned that talks concerning 5 totally variety of leadership covering different combos of take care of individuals and take care of results. The idea talks concerning on 05 totally different scales during which some square measure a lot of task accomplishment familiarized and less worker care centered whereas alternative square measure a lot of centered on winning workers then accomplishing task. Hersey and Blanchard characterized leadership style in terms of the amount of Task Behavior and Relationship Behavior that the leader provides to their followers. They categorized all leadership styles into four behavior types, which they named
Telling – is characterized by one-way communication in which the leader defines the roles of the individual or group and provides the what, how, why, when and where to do the task;
Selling – while the leader is still providing the direction, he or she is now using two-way communication and providing the socio-emotional support that will allow the individual or group being influenced to buy into the process;
Participating – this is how shared decision-making about aspects of how the task is accomplished and the leader is providing fewer task behaviors while maintaining high relationship behavior;
Delegating – the leader is still involved in decisions; however, the process and responsibility has been passed to the individual or group. The leader stays involved to monitor progress.
Of these, no one style is considered optimal for all leaders to use all the time. Effective leaders need to be flexible, and must adapt themselves according to the situation.
In the end he also discussed the Tree Model, and the out of the box thinking, he urged that we should not limit ourselves, and look outside for the opportunities. In the end he discussed the six steps to attain strategic leadership, Anticipate which he described as ambiguous or persevere, he described challenge as out of the box, where you challenge your own instincts. Interpret which is flexibility and availability of options , whereas Decide is described as agile and nimble , align as participatory management , and lastly Learn as the lesson you learn throughout your journey , no matter how many times you fail you always learn new things.
The session was concluded with the fact that no leader can have all ticked boxes, since no leader is perfect ever; there are always imperfections and inabilities which the leader overcomes with time to time.