The Sum

Leaders are developed not born. Anyone can develop into a leader. It requires the desire and will-power to become a Leader. The Leaders develop themselves through an un-ending process of self-study, self-improvement, education, training, and experience. I will attempt to guide you through that process.

Let’s first examine the definition and concept of Leadership. Leadership as a process deals with influencing others to achieve, attain or accomplish the objectives. In the process, available resources are deployed or used or utilized, to the extent needed or required, in order to attain the set objectives or the closest possible thereto. A good Leader achieves through a communication process to seek sense of achievement amongst the team that is on task and the organization as a whole. The Leadership is requisite as the process needs someone with knowledge, education, skills, beliefs, discipline, ethics, morals and recognition to use all these attributes to bind the team together in achievement of the goals in a comprehensive, coherent, and cohesive manner. Leadership does not require title to indicate the Leader - it is rather the practice of the art and skills of Leadership that is the underlying factor. Title, necessarily brings the authority. Someone in position of authority may simply direct instead of using Leadership. Position of authority make the organization structure whereas Leadership helps achieve making a more involved, satisfied team with higher sense of belonging.

In order to be an inspiration and to be Leader one has to continuously work hard , self-education, self-training, self-improvement, follow latest developments in technology and research. These are just a few examples but not an exhaustive list. This would be a part of the acquired qualities of a Leader.

When you provide selfless service to your organization, you set a good example of a Leader. When you are perceived as a self-less devoted employee of the organization who cares for its objectives and are perceived as a colleague who cares for other employees, you are closer to be a Leader rather when employees just follow your instructions (where the employees take you as a boss).

Most people would look for a role-model, a guide, a knowledgeable colleague who knows the details about a role, job or task and has the vision to correctly implement. If you prepare (means work hard to be one who can fit into this expectation) and are recognized by others, you can be the Leader.

Qualities needed for Leadership:
Seeking self-study, self-improvement, education, training, and experience means continuously working on your qualities. In nutshell, the following qualities would need to be worked on:

• Technical Expertise - you must be technically knowledgeable must know each component of the tasks to be performed.

• Good Communication - Communicate with all at their level. Most employees need periodic re-assurance that they are doing fine vis-a-vis expectation. Most Senior people want to know the deviations from the chartered path (like budgets, standards, etc). A good Leader is able to communicate with all at their level.

• Work with others and show personal touch - Knowing the first names of employees and addressing them in first person is a good example. The concept of “corporate community” in Japanese Corporate Management is the best example.

• Lead by example - In order to Lead, a good Leader would be seen doing what is expected of others. This is a hall mark of a good Leader.

• Good Decisions - Problem solving and decision making can have a number of different tool sets. A good Leader would use the most appropriate tools and make decisions.

• Development of employees - Through role playing or otherwise, develop greater sense of responsibility amongst the employees.

• Team Building - Promote the culture of team. A good Leader promote such things like the usage of words such as “we” instead of “I”.

• Be Responsible - On one hand you have to be researching and finding new ways to improve the way things are done, on a continuous basis, on the other hand you have to take remedial measures to fix the deviations or corrections required due to stimuli created by external factors. Good Leaders take responsibility and take blame rather than blaming others or finding excuses.

Leadership is an acquired skill and can be best achieved by staying focused on the job, objectives of the organization, developing set of knowledge required to further the goals of the organization along with the development of sense of achievement, sense of responsibility and sense of belonging amongst the employees.

Our society has strength in individuality and independence of each person. We respect the idea so much that it is close to the point of “indifference”.

We (and our children) are constantly facing competition from international talent. As a matter of fact, the economic concept of “mobility of sources of production” recognizes that talent from overseas will continue to flow in because we have better reward for any level of talent.

Once we realize this and agree on this, we need to examine how and why the international talent gets here and what can be done. Another way to look at this is to follow the model that people in some overseas countries follow.

Likes and Dislikes: We allow our kids to follow their heart in deciding the career path. Academic Education is secondary in importance to Sports. Liberal Arts draw as big a crowd as the top professional schools for Law or Business. We need emphasis on mathematics and science. The children in other countries have to study mathematics and science. As a parent you can help your child gain interest in mathematics and science. Play small game around a theme which relates to the subject. Help your child develop interest and after a couple of years your child would be bright in the subjects like mathematics and science.

Treat it like a project: We are very cautious with money. Spending money on education is like having a project. What is the pay back period? Question the basics! Apply the “discounted cash flow” method to find the present value of the “investment”. The idea is not about discouraging a child from going to college and to become a carpenter, instead. The idea is to help the child understand that education, time spent on it, money spent on it, are, all valuable and you need to look at “maximizing” the returns. If a child studies mathematics and science, he can still choose to become a carpenter but if he does not study these subjects, perhaps the child has no other option.

Imagine, your child may be a year old, at present or a senior. This is a responsibility of the parent, the guardian to reinforce the ideas in a child. May be, we need to reduce the importance of independence of individual to help the individual (the child) develop into a more successful person who can compete at home and abroad with the international talent.

The fact is that in most other countries, children are getting help from the parents and we need to adjust, accordingly.

This site has been started to share the self development, self improvement opportunities.

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How to succeed at the job interview? It is an important question we face only when we are looking for a job or change or promotion or review. In other words, it is an infrequent event and in most cases we do not attach importance. On the other hand, if you sit back and think, perhaps you could have done better or much better if you had approached the process of interview differently! That is also the difference between being successful and not so successful. There are professional companies, as mentioned in getting into job market for success who can help you prepare and present job interview(s). There are professional companies which can provide valuable help in creation of resume. If you want to attempt it yourself, here are the pertinent steps:

It may seem that I have not stated anything new. The language expected in the interview process is very different. There is more formality. Questions are more indirect than not. You have to be most courteous. There are obvious questions which are common at most interviews with slight variation. It is always better to prepare your selection of words or vocabulary and that’s where preparing questions and answers and may be memorizing your response or rehearsing works well.

Here are some of the questions:

You are being given an opportunity to state more than what you have already provided. It may also happen when application / resume has not been read. Take this opportunity to briefly state what is in your resume and then go on to add highlights of other experiences, achievements, as well. Repeating only what is in your resume is a lower than average performance.

The answer can be attempted in so many ways but an answer, say, 50k or 50,000 is not necessarily appropriate. You are being asked as to what are you after.

Supposing you are given 50k but there is no growth, from your point of view it would not be good. At the same time, you getting 50k and not deliverying what is expected would not be good from the prospective employer’s stand point.

Consider this that there are some important people working for the propective employer whom you will meet only at the time of interview and rarely would get a chance of meeting, again. At least you would not get a chance to meet where you are nearly on a one-to-one basis, in an impressionable forum.

As such, you want to para phrase in a way to communicate what is important to you, what do find good about the company, what do you intend to bring to the team, how do you intend to contribute towards the growth of the company. In most of the cases, there is a salary block within which you will be accommodated and they will repeat to get the monetary amount.

Typically, you could word your reply as: I value the opportunity to work for your company ( the company name) and the great team (you could name the team or team under so and so). I look forward to the opportunity of being able to directly ( or more directly ) contribute towards the growth of the company especially when it would allow me to steadily grow with the growth of the company. And then say, considering what I currently get (what has been offered to me elsewhere), I would be happy if you could place me in a range of $….. to $…..

It is once again, a chance or an opportunity for you to seize and explain and elaborate how your qualifications and experience make you the perfectly suitable candidate and how you could use your abilities and talents to contribute directly towards the growth of the company.

Unless it is a sports organization hiring a sports person, the idea behind the question is to find whether you are / were a team player or a not. There are jobs where team play is important. On such jobs, in an indirect manner, a candidate is adjudged for his suitability.

These are just examples. In most cases, preparing for a job interview paves way for growth on a perpetual basis.

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Planned entry into the Job Market is an extremely important step. The reason why we are talking here is because it is more important than most think. Your career is like a ladder. You may, in a hurry pick the first ladder but does it take you to the highest point or not, you may not be able to judge. You want to start at the appropriate level not at a level that you feel comfortable. Using the metaphor, you can feel that you need an objective analysis and help to help you understand where and how you need to enter the job market. The “where” is not location but how many steps up on your ladder!

A similar aspect, often overlooked, is how to present ones-self. We are not talking of dressing up but more like “branding”. You may have qualities valuable for the job market but unless those aspects get presented in a proper manner, job market does not respond. You need the stimuli to be created. That is where, a little professional help could go a long way get a better job or better evaluation for a job. Get your resume made from 1-on-1 or from bakosgroup.com or from gotthejob.com or other professional companies. This may cost but the payback is quick because you get called for the interview much sooner. Some of these companies do free evaluation and answer a lot of the questions.