Once, I heard ‘off the record’ – “When you treat adults as kids, adults will behave like kids”. This is true, when one wants his team to behave responsibly he has to show trust and offer responsibilities with some authorities to the team members.
No one always hits the road running, except aero plane. How can you grow a leader? By giving the person opportunities to take decision; the authorities can be small and decision smaller. In fact, we always make decision whether it’s buying vegetable or hiring people. The lesson I learnt and I think should be enforced is involve people, empower them, offer opportunities and groom them to become future leaders. One cannot learn soft skills in class room and learning happens hands-on additionally that lasts for a life time.
Today, I attended a session on ‘Leadership that transforms’ by Dr Michael Hackman from University of Colorado. He was also talking on the lines of the same concept – treating adults like kids will make them behave like kids. In this informative session I came to know about what I wrote above is called as – ‘transformational leadership’.
Actually, I picked up this thought from the news item of Tata’s succession planning. Therefore, leaders should understand that there has to be a succession plan and “when you treat people as potential leaders they can learn, behave and act like leaders”. The Buddha said – you are all enlightened and he treated everyone as enlightened also treated all with compassion.