Leadership is a skill, not a reward ...

We often declare the best player in a sports side as the captain. Be it cricket, football or any team sports. We feel that good performance should be rewarded with leadership as leadership is prestigious. And why should we not, they have tremendous experience about the field they are in to excel it to such extent.

But the skills you need to be the best player are different from the skills that you need to be a leader. When you are the best player, the game comes a certain way to you, you find gaps (cricket)  where other people don't see them. You know, they say talent is about hitting the goal that no one else can hit, but genius is about hitting the goals that no one else can see. And so very often when you've got the best player as a leader, the player tends to weigh everybody else in the scales  that he weighs himself or herself in. And as a result, most people tend to fall short. 

The other thing with leadership also is, can you understand the people working for you? Are they coming to work with an EMI? If you have never had an EMI, how do you know what happens if you delay salaries by a week and the EMI is hit the bank? But the guy who is coming to work or the lady who is coming to work has EMI as well. The guys are going out to play are worried about the future too. The person coming out to bat or bowl is not just a cricketer ... He is a human who is carrying his/her worries to the ground. If you've never had those worries, how do you understand those? And that's why we often say the best player might make the best captain, but doesn't necessarily make the best captain.


Similarly in work, we promote people to leadership as a reward of the hard work they have done in their particular field but to lead a team is very different from achieving your work targets. Maybe we should look as leadership as just a role, a position and not as some goal to achieve. Maybe reward should be given perhaps monetarily, or some other way. One should be made a manager or a leadership based on their skills with leading a team.

PS: In chess, Queen is the strongest player but we lose when our king is mated.

Thank you for reading,

From,

Hetansh Shah



Comments

  1. Nina28 May 2023 at 08:40

    A very important concept expressed in such a wonderful way with relevant examples. Leadership is something even small kids are expected to inculcate. And it remains one of the most required skills in professional life. Is growth determined by leadership? Or is growth encouraged by the presence of a good leader. Does everyone really need to be a leader? These are questions that need to be answered soon before many talented individuals who are not leaders, remain undervalued.

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