A person becomes a leader if for him an idea, an objective is so important that he uses all of his talents to achieve that dream, that objective. It's at that time when leadership quality in a person comes out. The dream that you have is the thing that is really driving you, brings those things from within you almost automatically. It's not like you wake up and say "OK, today I'm going be a leader". You don't even realize that it's happening but it is happening. And then somebody tells "Wow, you've shown real leadership!" And you say "Me? Leadership? No!". Other people can see it. But you should not be able to see it. And if you can see it and if you think than you can see it, I think there is a problem.
2. What is the most important competency of leader?
I think the strongest area is the ability to diagnose a situation, to see what is wrong with a particular circumstance. If I look at the business – I look at it from different angles to understand what are the critical issues and how they could be solved. And this is an approach that I apply almost every instance – no matter if the issue is big or small. Ability to understand a particular situation I would say is my strongest competency.
3. And how to diagnose a situation correctly?
You need to take the time to listen. That is one of the most important thing that a leader should have. Most of leaders want to talk but in reality you should listen, especially in the beginning. And not only to what people are saying but also listen to their body language – do they really believe what they are telling you or are they telling you what they think you want to hear – and you need to be able to differentiate between these two. You need to be able to ask a lot of questions but the questions have to be directed towards finding out the truth, finding out what is really happening. And therefore you need to be able to ask questions, to understand which issues are more important than others. As you have a very wide range of issues in front of you and you need to be able to focus depending on the circumstances from this wide range only on a specific issue and than come back to the wide range again and so on. This ability happens only if you have an open mind and you listen. But listening is only part of the story. The other part is you need to be able to make a decision. To make a decision you should have faith in people around you, in the data that you see and you should rely on your experience. This is the way how I try to do it.
4. How did this competency help you?
A leader's job is not to be an expert but to be able to find the experts to be able to tell him what he needs to know in order to make a decision. The most specific example I can give you was a few years back when I moved into a particular industry which was new to me. So I had meetings with all of my direct reports, then I met with the direct reports of my direct reports, in fact it was a first time when a general manager met people in the middle of the structure of organization and then I spent some time in the field. And that helped me to validate what I was hearing from my direct reports it helped me to validate the competency of my direct reports and to understand the quality of the people that we had. And it also helped me to understand where we were as a business versus to competition and also versus the market reality.
5. What is the most difficult in diagnosing a business situation?
There has to be a balance between listening and taking action. It is very important to understand when you have to make that transition from listening to action. If you're just listening than you are paralyzed if you are just taking actions than you are like a bull in a china shop. The most difficult task of a leader is to find where is that balance, at which time does that balance happen. This is why I honestly believe that leadership is not a science it's an art.
