Leading is not just giving instructions, but being with them
My learnings from Aruni on Leadership Qualities: Leading is not just giving instructions, but being with them 👍🏻
Today, let me share my learnings from Aruni, my husband, on leadership qualities. Sometime ago, he got transferred from where he was working as an Executive Engineer to another division. The engineers and office staff who were working in his division had arranged a small unofficial get-together as a note of gratitude. Incidentally, I happened to attend that.
I was just amused to hear the people sharing their experiences with him, a few which I have taken as my learnings that I can follow in my workplace and also in my family:
- Not just gives the instructions to complete the work ‘somehow’, but he facilitates the work by providing us the required materials for executing the work.
- He stands with us in case of any difficulty / problems we face
- He will be strict with us, ensuring that all the works are completed perfectly and on time. At the same time, he will not permit any other people or higher officials to question us. He will take care of the situation and protect us.
- He helps his subordinates to overcome the injustice, if any, thrusted upon them. He will talk with the higher officials and take all required steps to get the person to come out of the blame.
- He plans so well as to enable us to handle the emergency situation and taking the precautionary measures helped us face any adversity.
- He is very loyal to the organisation he works for and makes us understand why we should do certain things that we actually hate doing, which motivates us to do those things with dedication and interest.
An Assistant Engineer, one of his subordinates, was in tears while sharing an incident when a little boy was injured due to electric shock in his area. The boy’s parents were very emotional and angry with the Assistant engineer for the incident. In that situation Aruni was with him in the hospital, standing outside even in the late night until the boy was declared out of danger around 02.00 am. That led the AE concerned to feel comfortable to face the parents and others in that embarrassing situation.
Further, during the recent cyclone when all the other SEs (In the meantime he had been promoted as Superintending Engineer) of affected areas were struggling to restore power in their respective areas even after 3 or 4 days, as the damage caused by the cyclone was very heavy, he could complete the work within a day after the cyclone had crossed the lands.
That was possible for him because he had taken the precautionary steps like conducting meetings for the officials and workers to prepare them mentally to manage the situation and making ready all the required JCBs, contract staff for field work etc once the cyclone alert was given.
The same staff who were unhappy when they were asked to complete the precautionary works like cutting the trees etc., are now very happy that they could restore power within a day and the damage was also less compared to other regions.
These are the few things which I, for that matter, anyone can also follow in their workplace!
Observing them while they were sharing their experience with him with a sense of gratitude for guiding them in the working environment made me feel really great and understand his leadership ability. But, as a wife, I used to complain to him that he was not doing any household work at home ! We, human beings, are never complacent.
So, if we observe the people around us, our parents, our spouse, children, colleagues, keenly we can learn very good lessons for our life!
Soon, I will share a valuable lesson I have learnt from my daughter Niranjana and son in law Devesh.
