As the business/company grows, entrepreneurs start to see challenges in prioritizing and setting goals, knowing and providing Dos and Don’ts for the team, identifying resource performance and assigning right jobs to the right people, measuring progress and keeping record of it. And, doing all this while keeping the bigger picture in mind! Doing this myself, I felt that operational changes are not enough to offer the transition, which all businesses have to go through to manage new demands and stay relevant. Understanding and accepting that- aid of ideological change was also required- was one of the brightest ‘Eureka’ moments I had in my career. However, my realisation that change is necessary is not that only thing that transformed my business, the management team leading my organization has played an equally important role in etching success.
What I am trying to say is that even the greatest leaders need help to accomplish the smallest of tasks. Therefore, in a sense each component of the organization is a leader in his/her own right and have to evolve to succeed.
Evolving Equals to Doing More of Everything
Leaders in the organization are already responsible for ‘The Big Picture’, as in the company’s future or primary vision. It is easy to glean that this responsibility encompasses the whole business mechanism. However, in order to ascertain continuous growth of the company, the leaders must shoulder even more responsibility and play many more roles within the organization.
Inspiring the Team
Since the Leader has the perfect idea of where the company needs to go, I believe it is his/her responsibility to find and communicate the path to success. Leaders need to evolve and find ways to inspire their team through communicating their vision. Just as Mr. Rajendra Parakh, Chief Financial Officer of Vikram Solar does. Communication and interaction have been Mr. Parakh’s tools to inspire his team. His words, articulate portrayals of the goals and the paths have helped the team to handle one of the toughest and complicated jobs (money management) with distinction.
Being a Teacher/Trainer
Sometimes transference of business vision turns out to be too much for the team members. Sometimes they need to forget about the ‘Big Picture’ and only focus towards the best way to complete the work at hand. I always believed that a Leader must evolve into a teacher to help the team understand problems and provide instructions that can support ‘on the job learning’ and building careers. And Mr. Ivan Saha, Manufacturing Head of Vikram Solar believes so as well. Mr. Saha’s guidance and prompt response to find solutions even in day-to-day assignments have given him the mantle of a Teacher within the manufacturing team.
Being Open
Being professional is a priority for a leader of course. However, I learned in a very young age that business is a living, breathing organism. It needs human touch as much as strategic decisions and calculated operations. I have always tried to incorporate a friendlier and open approach at the organization to walk on these identified steps.
Being a Good Example
Leaders must lead by examples. I believe that becoming an example of his/her own ideals and teachings can help the leader easily inspire the team. Just like Ms. Neha Agrawal, Head of Corporate Strategy & Rooftop Business. Being dedicated, focused, and precise at every point of work, she has inspired her team and the entirety of Vikram Solar to always be ready to work beyond expectations and overachieve.
Leading the Team Involves Learning from the Team
Leading a team of admirable professionals, each one a leader in their own right, inspires, pushes, and challenges one to break conventions, to be bold, to excel. And If I have achieved even a fraction of these great attributes, it is because of my team. From the very inception, all I wanted to build was an organization that would work in unison with a noble purpose and give something sustainable back to the community, to the world.
In the end I would like to say that besides evolving to play numerous roles in an organization, a leader must collaborate and learn from his team while leading the team towards success.
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