"A leader leads by example, not by force"
Sun Tzu
- Leadership
Sooner or later in one's life journey everybody finds him/herself in a position of leadership, where you have to delegate, motivate, supervise and manage people under you.
The most interesting difficult part of the story of being an Entrepreneur is being a Leader, managing people, this is where the strength of your emotional intelligence and priorities will be tested; and it's a personal question of whether you gonna end up Great, successful or if you gonna fail and fall down.
Utmost, As an Entrepreneur you are more of a Leader, An Innovator or should I say the awkward guy with the Genius brain, we all have where our strength lies, whether it's Creating something new, bringing intelligent minds together, Analyzing Strategies or whatever you are good at. And yet we all have our weakness where we need others to handle for us and help us out, that is why the success of your organization lies on your hands, the decision you make, the leadership attitude you posses.
On the path way to been an Entrepreneur and a Leader, a Man/Woman of worth, it's not your IQ or technical Abilities or Charisma that will tell your success on being a leader, on managing people; it all balls back to your emotional intelligence how you deal with situation using your mind and not you heart.
This is a brief status of my analysis on Emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is a character of five (5) personal characteristics
·Self-Awareness
·Self-Regulation
·Empathy
·Motivation
·Social Skills
I will brief you on the each of these characteristics
Self-Awareness: As an Entrepreneur/leader this is your ability to identify your weaknesses, strength, support and priorities. You are aware that you don't have the strength and necessary resources to handle a plan and you thereby admit it and delegate others that are expertise in that field to do the job.
Self-Regulation: self-regulation is a leader's ability to keep calm when angry and reason before taking any impulsive steps. Well most Leader are known for throwing tantrums when their subordinate or work force fail at a tasks, they get too impulsive and fail to analyze the cause of the failure. They prefer to find a scape-goat to shoot the blame at someone. This skill you must learn to absorb in order to regulate your emotions. Others say being calm or gentle is a sign of weakness, No it's not, it's a sign of Reasonableness and Understanding.
Empathy: empathy in this sense is the ability of a leader to be aware of his/her subordinates feelings when taking decision. His ability to evaluate does that are affected and does that are not affected the reason and importance of the decision to your company and organization.
Motivation: A leader must always motivate his workers, make them see the reason and Importance of achieving a goal to their own benefit not he's. Well motivation goes beyond giving a full euthanized manifesto, but by admitting the importance of very individual on the Organization/Team/Company personally of the responsibility they carry irrespective of their position and off course nobody refuses a sincere gift.
And the Last one, Social Skills: well in this part your communication skills is not an opt, your ability to be connected to so many people, "As for me If you must be an Entrepreneur make friends with all kinds of people" because this world is fluiddish in fashion, you never know who you will need. Keep open mindedness with your entire Team/Subordinate it gives you an edge to what happening or what gonna happen.
Let me share a brief story of my recent encountered.
Some few weeks ago, I started building a Health Humanitarian Organization named "Save a Life, Save the World Health Organization ", it's a non-profitable organization that consist of different professional in the Health field. At the dawn of this Idea I meet with my friends and told them about my intention and what the organization will be all about, off-course it is a great idea, questions were asked on different areas, and I gave reasonable and analytic answers of the possible constraints, benefits and perceived opportunities of actualizing the dream. With enthusiasm everybody want to be part of It, Good! I was happy, so, when I got home I started designing a logo and created a group chat to give active update on our plans and sequential actions.
Well, the first action on the to do lists was to build and train the team since most of us were student in the Medical field. So we agreed to have practical class every Saturday and have the theoretical class on the group chat just to save money and time, So far so good No theoretical class was Initiated on the group chat and also, on the first Saturday which we were supposed to have practical class section nobody showed up, well, out of a number of 8 people only two (2) had the intentions of coming to class, out of the two (2), one(1) was just waking up on his bed as at the time we were supposed to start classes, off-course I was there before the designated time. So the class was cancelled and rescheduled to another time on the group chat online. I was sad and Impulsive in emotion but I rethink and analyze on the reasons for the class not been able to hold.
We had a meeting and discussed on a new improvement on how to meet up with classes, so as to get everybody involved. On the second class, Only 3 people showed up with my self numbering 4 altogether, off-course everybody was Informed and I personally called them Individual to check-up on them coming. I received an excuse from one of the Team member that he had no transport fee and vowed to pay his transportation to and fro just to motivate him and make him come, but yet he didn't, with no hesitation the class took off for the first time after the first attempt that failed.
With my social skills I decided to broadening my selection of the Team members from just my core colleagues and meet other distant friends and friends of friends which has proved to be very helpful and intelligent. Currently I have a running number of 20 Medical Professionals from different fields which I intend to select only dedicated and passionate Individuals to be on the main team.
With my self-awareness, knowing my weaknesses and strengths I delegated someone to be my assistant and help me with other tasks while I handle the rest.
Managing people and being a potential Leader takes a lot, you have to take responsibilities and charge of decision making and others. Most of all, As a Leader you must learn to take decisions without involving you emotions; but be very sure it's what's good and beneficial to your Organization/Company/Team not what's beneficial to you or your subordinate. There thousands of books on leadership, you can get one to give you a full insight on the topic of Leadership or Leaders
That's why I said in my previous post that it's neither gonna be Easy nor is it gonna be Tough, but It worth more than the pain.
Bye for now, I need to continue sailing, all through dusk and dawn; the Sea is not yet a fare place.
Don't forget to Drop your comments.
Sanusi Whenayon Oluwasegun
Mister San - Egomanage
