Lead with out a title

 One week ago I did a speech (CC2) in toastmasters session where I got this comment from my evaluator "Your speech content was rich. You must have done a lot of research."  Well,actually I did not do that much of research for this speech as most of the points were taken from the book "The Leader who had no title" by Robin sharma. Definitely the author must have done lot of research before writing this book. The book has so many lessons but toastmasters speech is limited to 5-7 mins hence I was able to pick only a few important points for the presentation and at times I have presented things as it is there in the book. My intention was/is not to take any credit for my work but to pass the message in an effective way.

I would like share the wealth I found with you all. :)

Here it is.

Recently I read a story about mother Tresa in an article.
There was a time when a new Sister that joined the missionary discovered a dirty toilet and hid away horrified in disgust. At the same time Mother Teresa happened by, rolled up her sleeves and quickly cleaned the toilet, not noticing the Sister. Mother Teresa then went on with her business. The shamed Sister never forgot the lesson.

Yes.Leadership is more about being an inspiration; lead by example.

We all are capable of being a leader.  Today my topic is “Lead without a title”. The fabulous thing about lead without a title is no one can take the power from us anytime but this is not the case for title power. Ideally we do not need be a CEO/manager/team leader to lead people around us or to be an inspiration in our field. Leadership is very less about ordering or commanding people to do things but more about taking responsibility, pushing excellence in whatever we do and inspire others to do the same and showing enthusiasm in everything we say and everything we do.

The ways or lessons am going to talk about were mostly taught by some wonderful people around me especially there is a book called “The Leader who had no title” written by the world famous author and leadership guru Robin Sharma(One of my favorite authors). I’m going to share what I've learnt with you all. Hope you are ready for the learning session.

• Lead your self – We must be able inspire ourselves, motivate to do some great work and we must have some disciplines on our own. If we are not doing our best, we cannot bring out the best in others.

• Do your work extraordinarily well- No matter which we field we are in, every individual matters, every one’s contribution makes a difference in the world. There is a saying from Martin Luther king Jr

     "If a man is called street sweeper he should sweep as Michelangelo painted or Beethoven composed music. "

Perfection or the quality of the work is the most important thing.If normal people put 80% or 90% or may be 100% effort in their work, leaders put 130% effort; they go an extra mile; when people look at their work they will be just amazed. If we take this company, each and every one of our performance has an impact on the overall performance of the company. If everyone understands this and take some steps towards excellence definitely the company will soar high. Is not it?

• Give kudos- We humans yearn for appreciation from the smallest to big achievements that we make.We must appreciate the good things in people as much as possible.  Say congrats even for a smallest achievement. That encourages people and it makes them put more effort and brings out a better result next time.Leaders understand this well and they deliberately look for opportunities to find good things and appreciate them.

“Catch them when they are good” is a really good motivation tactic.

• Leadership language- Words have magical power. Do you believe that? Your words can shed some light on people or they can destroy them. Our tongue, it doesn't have any bones but it has the ability to break people into pieces.The choice is up to us. Leaders understand this well and use the words that uplift others.

Let say some one in the team is not doing well. How can we put that? We normally say that “You are not doing a good job, and the things better improve” The same thing we can put it in a better way
“ I appreciate that you are putting a lot of effort and I would like to share some of the opportunities I have for you to take your performance to the next level” .The same thing right? wording/language is the only difference. Let us use words to encourage people, motivate them not to tear them down.Leaders are people builders.

What we give out the good or bad will come back to us multiplied.Let's make sure that we send out good only so we will receive good only. Let’s give the best of us to the world and we shall reap the enormous rewards life gives us back.

The definition of happiness is the full use of your powers, along with the line of excellence.- Jon F.Kennedy