#65 Tata Consultancy Services Smart Manager Case Contest - AMIT NARAIN BHATIA

Often leaders are charged with the task of forging a path for the organizations, but there is more than one way to get the job done. Leaders need to handle their workforce effectively as they are the oil in the machinery to run the show. Hence handling the workforce effectively becomes important. Lets try to clear the path with a simple question: Are your leadership techniques getting you the results that you want? Well, the answer seems to be a resounding NO. Lets discuss the different styles of leadership metaphorically into different types of gloves:

Leader wearing a Boxing Glove:

If you as a leader put on your figurative boxing gloves and feel empowered to act aggressively, you can deliver immediate and visible impact, but you may not see the long-term damage youre really causing.

Leader wearing a Garbage Collector Glove:

At first, one might think that the intent is to make things clean for better development which can be true. However, another clear message is sent by the wearing of this type of glove: I dont want to get my hands dirty! Such leaders show disengagement from responsibility You two solve your own conflict, I dont want to get involved.

Leader wearing an Investigation Glove:

The way that an Investigator seeks to keep away from damaging the materials they work with, leaders with this mindset tend to do all they can to avoid imposing on their people. In trying to do everything themselves, they stand accused of micromanagement. They limit the degree of delegation out into the team and kill their motivation with kindness.

Leader wearing a Surgical Glove:

Leaders who adopt a surgeons gloves approach can function with increased awareness by sensing and reacting to the moods and needs of those they lead. This ability leads to injections of leadership that, like those of a surgeon, are based on timely, expert, and specific actions that repair or improve the situation for those whom they lead.

So what glove to choose?

All four types of glove suit different kinds of situations. The effective leader knows when it is required to use boxing gloves to create a high level of impact, but also knows to take care to limit the long-term damage that may result. Some dirty jobs in leadership may need a Garbage Collector-glove approach, and the effective leader seeks to create an element of clean development while wearing them. Where the effective leader is concerned about their intervention having a -1-

#65 Tata Consultancy Services Smart Manager Case Contest - AMIT NARAIN BHATIA
potentially disturbing consequence, they put on their investigators gloves by seeking to minimize their personal presence in the situation. And the effective leader knows when to go in there, with his surgeons gloves on and carefully cut out that which threatens the organization or its progress. Most importantly, in the current climate with todays intelligent workforce knowing exactly when you are trying to deceive them, the one glove you DO NOT want to wear as a leader is a velvet glove to mask your iron fist.

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