Key Ingredients that Helped to Become a Successful Leader - Essay Example

? Letter From the Future: my personal and leadership vision October 09, Letter from the Future 9 October 2032, New York Cluster, North America To: Mr. John Doe New York Hello John, This is I, your alter ego, writing from the future. The future of 2032 is not as bad as the past of 2012. It is very much crowded now and very much polluted. There are more than 30 billion people on our planet. There is a daily struggle for space, clean air, water and for fuel. Thanks to the efforts and direction you put in 20 years back, I have now become a highly successful and influential leader. The fledgling real estate you are struggling to build now has become highly successful. Our firm now constructs space age structures, green buildings all over the world and there are more than 5000 employees. This letter will explain some important points about my struggle and will speak about the kind of person I have become. It will also explain the steps I took, the barriers and challenges I faced and the manner in which I became so successful. 1. Key ingredients that helped me to become this highly successful leader: Along the years, I have developed some important skills of leadership and I want to share them with you. Being a leader is not just being a boss and having employees but winning their trust and faith. Some of the key ingredients that helped me to become a good leader are listed below. Vision and planning: One of the best and most important ingredients is that a leader should be a visionary and a planner. Being a visionary means that the leader should be able to look into the future while considering the present challenges and visualise future scenarios. Being a visionary is different from having visions and daydreams. A visionary is able to recognise the patterns of the present and make realistic impressions what the future holds. Having daydreams means having unrealistic dreams and fantasies of what the future holds. When the vision is relayed to the followers, they know what they can look forward to so that they can bear the hardships of the present, better. Being a visionary leader and anticipating what the future holds should be followed by planning. Such plans can be made for three years, five years and even 10 years and the quality of leadership is identified by the accuracy of the plans and the ability of the organisation to meet the challenges. I was lucky in having a dedicated and loyal team of followers who accepted my vision for our company just when it was being started. I envisioned the future as a place where there would be scarcity of land, fuel and where vertical growth in buildings was the only solution to meet the needs of the exploding population and where green buildings were the solution. With these visions as the targets, I drew up plans for green structures, renewable buildings that were sustainable and where waste is recycled and nothing thrown away. The barrier of one kilometre height of buildings has long been surpassed and our company constructs buildings that are five kilometres tall. We are the pioneers and leaders in this field and my loyal team of employees, some of who have been with me for the past 20 years are my true strengths. Technical skills: A leader must lead by example and to command respect he must have optimum technical skills. This helps to provide the right direction for strategy, helps to evaluate technologies and decide on what is the best. A leader who does not have adequate technical skills in a construction firm will become the subject of ridicule and employees will take advantage of the ignorance. It is also important that the leader should keep pace with the trends and development so that new technologies can be included in the plans. I realised the importance of having adequate technical skills and hence enrolled for a night college for a degree in Architecture and civil engineering. When I joined the course, I had very little money and attending the night college after a full day’s hard work at a construction site was very tiring. Many times, I thought of dropping out of the course but an inner resolve made me wear the hardships and complete the degree. This course helped me to understand the basic of design, form, caring for the environment and sustainability. While I now have sufficient engineers to design the buildings, I find time to visit the design department every now and then and review the drawings. This habit helps to assure me that what we build is what we believe in. Integrity: This is the quality where inner values and outward actions are honest, clear and transparent. A leader who has high integrity is seen to be honest in his dealings with customers and with employees. Such an attitude wins trust and it is hard to buy but it can be earned. A leader with integrity has the trust of his employees and customers, doors to opportunities begin to open. The construction and reality sector has its share of dishonest people who attempt to dupe people and make them buy or rent a space that differs from what is claimed. It is also known that such people become inordinately rich in a much shorter time. However, they lack trust and it is doubtful if they make more than one or two big transactions based on deceit. Bad reputation spreads much faster than good reputation but this does not mean we should adopt the former. In my 20 years of dealings, there was never even one instance when I have wilfully cheated employees, my contractors or my customers. Integrity can be seen in the structures I built where good material of adequate quality was always used. This earned me a good reputation and I never had problems in finding customers for my buildings. When word got out that a new structure was being built by my firm, customers would rush in and book the spaces. Even now when I travel to old New York where the central park used to be, I still find people living comfortably in the buildings when I had built when just starting my career. Fairness: This refers to dealing fairly with employees, vendors and customers. I always gave credit to my employees when they did a good job. I have never denied anyone promotion or their due wages simply because I could abuse my dominant position as being the owner. I was also ready to take the blame when something went wrong. Dedication: This feature refers to the extent of efforts one is ready to put in. Construction and the realty sector was my lifeblood and I immersed in my work, day and night. This dedication also inspired my employees. 2. Key barriers, internal and external, that I had to overcome: A number of barriers were evident along my career. Some barriers were internal meaning that they came from my within my mind and some were external meaning they came from the external environment. Some of the internal barriers were fears and misgivings about myself, loss of confidence and inadequacy, laziness and a mental inertia and fear of the unknown. External barriers were the construction sector that does not welcome new entrants, funding and finance, lack of initial acceptance and opportunity and an uncaring world. 3. How I overcame them: The mental barriers were the worst and overcoming them was the biggest challenge. My colleagues were content to find work and continued at their jobs. However, I had an inner resolve to break out on my own and succeed. I developed sufficient confidence, overcame the feelings of lethargy, and took courage and inspiration from other great builders who had started out like me and eventually found success. External barriers were overcome gradually. I started out with small projects worth a few thousand dollars. I did not make much profit in them but my integrity, honesty and dedication was evident. The satisfied customers recommended me for bigger projects and gradually I developed the business till my firm reached this level. 4. The biggest surprise and unexpected outcome when I became a leader: I had not realised that I was a very big name in the construction industry until this was mentioned during a formal dinner held by the construction industry to honour me. This was the biggest surprise that I myself did not know. The unexpected outcome was instantaneous acceptance of what I proposed immediate access to funds and willingness of people to continue putting their trust in my buildings. In the previous decade, about 20 people would queue to buy my apartments mainly because of my integrity and trust. Today more than 500,000 people log in and buy a flat in my buildings. 5. Advice to my younger self: My advice to my younger self is not to lose courage and become frustrated when success does not appear immediately. Do not resort to shortcut and dishonest means to make temporary gains. Success and outcome of the project is not in your hand. What you have is a strong back, a keen mind, deep hunger for hard work along with companions such as loyal employees, integrity and honesty. Make best use of them since these are worth more than any wealth. Read More