Leadership is Often about Getting Out of Your Own Way

Context: Since Power is a fundamental dimension of organizational and social life, it is foundational to the success at work and developing leadership skills.

Role of power in leadership: Possession of political skill, the ability to develop and wield power effectively, leads to better performance, employee support, and superior outcomes on compensation, career success, life satisfaction, etc.

Obstacles to leadership:

• People themselves as the biggest barrier: One of the biggest barriers to acquiring and using power is our own feelings, and our reluctance to acquire and use influence.
  • People like being unfairly treated as an excuse for under-performance; It may be comfortable to make excuses and impose self-handicaps, but it diminishes the likelihood of achieving power.
• Modesty as a virtue: People fail to define themselves and underplay their achievements (become self-handicaps) often in the name of Modesty - a middle-class Indian value.
  • Those who believe modesty is a virtue often use self-deprecate, fail to promote their accomplishments and act in ways that give away their power.

Four guiding principles to overcome hurdles: in the path to realize one’s true potential -

1. Paying attention to defining oneself: by identifying self-potential and fallouts.
2. Don’t accept constraints imposed by others: If you have something you think you can contribute to a decision, refuse to let others keep you out of it.

• E.g. The resolute unwillingness to conform to gender norm expectation by the three women running global conglomerate at a very young age.

3. Stop worrying about being liked: A leader’s responsibility is to get things done and make the business successful without worrying about being disliked by many.

• Many CEOs of start-ups, including those of Zomato and Tesla, never feared taking hard decisions and have said in public that they aren’t worried about being disliked by many.
• According to a study, people were willing to prioritize competence over sociability (or niceness) in choosing people to work with.

4. Don’t let unfairness become an excuse: For instance, gender- and race/caste-based discrimination. Reframe things in ways that make you stand out, use that uniqueness to your advantage.

Conclusion: The most powerful people describe themselves as fearless, shameless, bold and brave. They have gotten out of their own way by dropping the scripts that hold them back.