How to show the power of leadership?

Leadership is all about teamwork, but what do you mean by teamwork? There are many superficial theories along with many abuses of the term teamwork; just because people have to work together does not mean that it is teamwork. Similarly, the fact that some people hate to work with others in a group does not mean that those people lack teamwork spirit. Further on, many tech giants tell you that teamwork often kills creativity; and indeed history does not lack lone inventors advancing the civilisation in bounds and leaps.

We all know that leadership does not mean dictatorship and we all despise and resent to that style of leadership, just as we do in any contact. If a judge in a law court tells you not to discuss a certain issue with your family by saying that it is because he says so, then you may well grumble to yourself in terms like, “what the hell…?” If a different judge tells you the same thing but explains why you must keep that issue to yourself, then you will feel that he is a shrewd and great judge and naturally you follow his instruction with pleasure whereas, though you of course meet your legal obligation to follow the former judge’s instruction, you feel not the same respect as you afford the latter judge. Likewise, if your driving instructor tells you a driving rule and explain why it is so, then you learn very fast with full of respect for his intelligence and skill. In contrast, if a driving instructor tells you a rule and asks you to abide by it because that is the law, you may well be left in a fog and may have to practice it time and again in order to remember it. If your boss at your workplace keeps issuing orders to you, you know what sort of junk he is and sooner or later you will either find you leaving the place or him ending up bankrupting the company.

What is leadership? Leadership encompasses flexibility and accommodation. A true leader recognises the diversity of temperament and specialty of people and is flexible to accommodate those diverse gifts in each individual. Each tree is different in the orchard and that makes it splendid. Each person is unique and that makes the world grand. Give me a group of uniform people and I will return the name of factory-made robot to you. Indeed, just as nature is diverse in every respect, a company faces diverse issues and needs people with diverse skills to resolve those issues. Nature is never amiss in creating diversity in animals and species and it is diversity that resolves any combination of problems. After a strong wind, the surviving trees quickly recover and bounce back just as before, but those trees that resisted flexibility are broken, lying the ground dead and ready as firewood. Some businesses go bust but others carry on ever stronger after each storm of challenge or recession. As with trees, it is flexibility and accommodation of its leadership that makes all the difference.

So, you must not dictate to lead; rather, show your flexibility and accommodation and you will find you are leading a great successful company without your realising it.