In this article, I will not use my typical leadership development jargons, but will make it easily understandable to a 17-year-old. I hope to encourage all of you who are struggling to be a great leader.
Being a leader
When you tell someone that you’re a leader or have a leadership role, they automatically think that you have it made. They think that you get paid the big bucks, don’t have to do much because you’re the boss and have it easy. However, they these perceptions about leaders couldn’t be farther from the truth! Being a leader isn’t always as easy as it sounds or looks. There are many challenges leaders face in today’s business landscape despite what others may perceive.
The truth is, being a leader is much harder than it looks. There’s never anyone that really teaches you how to be a great leader and you have to wing it most of the time. The life of a leader is more than just delegating and overseeing subordinates. It’s about imparting wisdom, creating results and reaping the rewards if the job is done right by upper management. Leadership is really hard, especially when you’re in a work environment that puts most of the emphasis on profits and production. This makes your job as a leader that much harder. You’re expected to be on top of people in order to be as productive as possible to add to the company’s bottom line.
Another reason why I find leadership hard is because adults can act like big babies. As a leader, you’re in charge of a group of people and people are petty, fickle, quirky and act like big kids. It’s hard to predict how people will act daily, so it’s often a very tiring position to be in day in and day out. You’ll have to change how you approach each subordinate in order to effectively communicate with them, which can be tricky, especially if you oversee a large pool of workers. Making others uncomfortable is also part of your job description. This makes others upset, which in turn makes you the bad guy all the time. At first it’s bothersome, but once you get used to it, you’ll find that it’s another day at the office. Since you first started being a leader, you’ll notice that you’re less empathetic since you have to deal so much regularly.
Also, the demands for leaders are relentless. You’re held at a higher standard than many and you’re only considered successful if you get results set forth for you and your turn. You always have to produce results and it’s all about how well you do each quarter, each project and the like. Plus, you’ll always be expected to do more and more next time, with your reputation in the company constantly on the line.
Leaders constantly have a lot on their plate despite what others see. The work is constantly getting piled on you no matter how caught up you get. But no matter how under siege you feel by all the challenges of being a leader, the cavalry won’t come to save you. You’re forced to tread on, making it up as you trek ahead. Because you don’t have a clue as to what you’re doing as a leader, you often feel like a fake or an imposter even though you try to portray confidence to your co-workers and subordinates.
A revelation…
Having said this, what I have learnt is that the biggest problem about being a leader is myself! I often let being a leader get into my head, which leads to me being too judgmental, holding others to unrealistic standards and caring less about people and more about their results. I can be such a jerk.
Things change…
However, the day I set my eyes on great leaders as role models and made a choice to become a good leader myself, marked the start of a beautiful journey. Whether I lead a team of one, or a hundred, the right mindset, motivation and the desire to acquire great leadership behaviors has helped me progress daily as a purposeful person, helping my team become happier and better at what they do.
You can too!
I hope I spoke the truth about how you feel as a leader, especially a new one. However, I want to also encourage you that as you make mistakes, learn from them, gain experiences, and commit to improve, you will, surely, become a leader who will transform the people in your team.
Speak to your company’s learning/human resource team, find out how you can be part of other peoples’ development, and how you can sharpen your leadership skills. Wishing you all the best. Yes, you can.
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Kelvin Kong, Founder & Mentor, Voices Of Asia & Senior Vice-President, Learning & Development, Lazada Group
