Harvard Business Review - The Mind of the Leader

At this crazy stage in my life, I feel like I'm running with three spoons in my hands and all the paintings along life's path are fast becoming a big blur. Finally have a little hard earned time to make a post on a book I read today. And it is indeed hard-earned - I spent so much time working this weekend that I even sacrificed my tennis game!

Anyway! This book is a fast read (and thankfully so!). It is a compendium of essays showcasing different views of leadership by academics. It provides another perspective as compared to the books that leaders help to write from their own perspectives.

Some learning points:

• Leaders are prone to being influenced by their followers, in two key ways. One is through followers who with-hold information. Second is through followers who, through a majority, push for a decision that may not be the wisest in reality. A few ways to deal with this. Having a clear vision will help a leader stay guided to his objectives. Making sure that people disagree on a decision is key to actually hearing alternative points of view - an overwhelming consensus may not necessarily be a good thing. Find people that you can trust, and depend on them. Delegate, but verify.
  
• A Freudian take on leaders - they often have issues during their childhood that propels them to have insane drives or need for achievement. This could be a strong need to have control over their lives (leading to a quest for power + money), or parents who never gave enough validation. Interestingly, the piecce states that many male leaders have very nurturing moms and a plain dad (who didn't have much impact on their lives). This article even went as far as to say that leaders are often people who can evoke transferrence behaviours in their followers, which leads to unwavering loyalty. This usually involves making followers respect or perceive certain "parental" traits in them.
  
• Daniel Goleman makes a case for emotional intelligence. That basic intelligence and drive are threshold requirements, but EQ really makes leaders shine - which is quite intuitively in line with what I've always believed.
• That leaders are all a bit crazy! This one I'm still trying to figure out, but apparently, this is an essential ingredient for those bursts of creatively that sets them apart from the rest.