As a leader, one must keep inspiring
A vacant chair in the Conference Room.
At first, it was intriguing. Colleagues would wonder who the mystery guest was.
Slowly but steadily, everyone knew.
The vacant chair in the room symbolised none other than our patient. Being at the helm in the pharma and healthcare sector, for me, it was essential to create an ethos of patient centricity. And not just make this a buzzword but make this patient-focused approach the core of what we do!
What this essentially meant was that all our business focus, discussions and decisions had to have a buy-in from this invisible person who was seated in our Conference Rooms. What this did was it changed the way we did business.
As a leader, many-a-times we need to simply bring in a perspective and guide teams.
Successful leaders spend most of their time questioning everything they know and also what they don’t. It is critical to do so because it only helps leaders to know more and in turn creates more impact. Why should we name the vacant chair as patient, for instance? Why should we have the patient in the room while making business decisions? What should we do differently if we want the patient to be integral to our business outcomes? These tough questions redefined our strategic thinking and, in turn, it led to impactful decisions.
But work doesn’t end by asking questions. It is just the beginning. The question focuses on the “how” rather than the “what”.
The questions effectively set up the mind for integrative thinking. Successful leaders should have the capability of managing in their heads two opposing ideas at once. Through the process of consideration and analysis, settle for the better idea which is perhaps a new one that has the best elements of the two opposing ideas. This is more complex than it sounds. But, once mastered, it is a guaranteed tool to success, as all possibilities are fully thought through. This discipline of thinking is a defining trait of most successful business leaders.
Another important dimension of a successful leader is to bring in an element of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) into thinking! Diversity is about bringing different styles of thinking, different mindsets, and different thinkers to the table at the same time and making them available for a conversation. Equity is giving each person the power to make a difference. Great leaders have the wisdom to invite different thoughts and yet find value in every individual thought process. Inclusion is about welcoming and leveraging different thought processes.
MD & CEO,
Bharat Serums & Vaccines
What a successful leader stays clear off – small thinking! Small thinking limits one’s ability to learn new things. Limiting learning translates into limiting growth – and over time this leads to teams and leaders becoming irrelevant in workplaces.
Successful leaders choose to think good and positive thoughts and not dwell much on negative thoughts. They do not stop here. They take a step forward and choose to act on the positive thoughts that lead to impactful and sustainable decisions.
As a leader, one must keep inspiring. It is a combination of strategic and creative thinking. It’s about taking the thought through into action and desirable outcomes. To summarise, Think Different, a popular marketing slogan of Apple Computer in the late 1990s is no longer just a slogan. Today, this phrase has transcended boundaries and has become the foundation of great ideas, great performances, and great leadership! Finally, great leaders do not own the “think different” label; they live it.
