Poor Me...

I went to one of my favorite blog and saw the Daisypath where the blogger doing the countdown for her anniversary day. So sweet and i was thinking of putting that here too. Unfortunately, after browsing the Daisypath website then only I realize that I have nothing to countdown... No ANNIVERSARY, FORGET how long i have been friend with my dear darling "bestest" friend, got NO plan for holiday/vacation, and NO TTC.

Poor me...

Management???Business Management??? Leadership???

When people talk about management, they tend to associate it with leadership skill/traits. As for me, I agree with the statement. Good leadership skill/traits will always lead to proper management.

From my experience... what I can see is a good leader will always be respected. Once the subordinates/employees/staff/whatever you may call put their trust on the leader, this will make the business easier to manage. Proper management may affect the working environment. Nevertheless, this will somehow motivate the subordinates/employees/staff/whatever you may call to move forward with the company.

Criteria of good leadership (traits):-

-Honest
-Forward-Looking
-Competent
-Inspiring
-Intelligent
-Avant Garde
-Confidence and Ability to Communicate
-Confidence
-Integrity
-Munificence

Honesty as a Leadership Quality

People want to follow an honest leader. Years ago, many employees started out by assuming that their leadership was honest simply because the authority of their position. With modern scandals, this is no longer true.

When you start a leadership position, you need to assume that people will think you are a little dishonest. In order to be seen as an honest individual, you will have to go out of your way to display honesty. People will not assume you are honest simply because you have never been caught lying.

One of the most frequent places where leaders miss an opportunity to display honesty is in handling mistakes. Much of a leader’s job is to try new things and refine the ideas that don’t work. However, many leaders want to avoid failure to the extent that they don’t admit when something did not work.

There was a medium size organization that was attempting to move to a less centralized structure. Instead of one location serving an entire city, they wanted to put smaller offices throughout the entire metro area. At the same time, they were planning an expansion for headquarters to accommodate more customers at the main site. The smaller remote offices was heralded as a way to reach more customers at a lower cost and cover more demographic areas.

After spending a considerable amount of money on a satellite location, it became clear that the cost structure would not support a separate smaller office. As the construction completed on the expanded headquarters building, the smaller office was closed. This was good decision making. The smaller offices seemed like a good idea, but when the advantages didn’t materialize (due to poor management or incorrect assumptions) it made sense to abandon the model. This was a chance for the leadership to display honesty with the employees, be candid about why things didn’t work out as expected, learn from the mistakes an move on.

Unfortunately in this situation the leadership told employees that they had planned on closing the satellite location all along and it was just a temporary measure until construction was completed on the larger headquarters building. While this wasn’t necessarily true, it didn’t quite cross over into the area of lying. Within a few months the situation was mostly forgotten and everyone moved on. Few of the employees felt that leadership was being dishonest. However, they had passed up a marvelous opportunity to display the trait of honesty in admitting a mistake.

Opportunities to display honesty on a large scale may not happen every day. As a leader, showing people that you are honest even when it means admitting to a mistake, displays a key trait that people are looking for in their leaders. By demonstrating honesty with yourself, with your organization and with outside organizations, you will increase your leadership influence. People will trust someone who actively displays honesty–not just as an honest individual, but as someone who is worth following.

Forward-Looking as a Leadership Trait

The whole point of leadership is figuring out where to go from where you are now. While you may know where you want to go, people won’t see that unless you actively communicate it with them. Remember, these traits aren’t just things you need to have, they are things you need to actively display to those around you.

When people do not consider their leader forward-looking, that leader is usually suffering from one of two possible problems:

The leader doesn’t have a forward-looking vision.
The leader is unwilling or scared to share the vision with others.
When a leader doesn’t have a vision for the future, it usually because they are spending so much time on today, that they haven’t really thought about tomorrow. On a very simplistic level this can be solved simply by setting aside some time for planning, strategizing and thinking about the future.

Many times when a leader has no time to think and plan for the future, it is because they are doing a poor job of leading in the present. They have created an organization and systems that rely too much on the leader for input at every stage.

Some leaders have a clear vision, but don’t wish to share it with others. Most of the time they are concerned that they will lose credibility if they share a vision of the future that doesn’t come about. This is a legitimate concern. However, people need to know that a leader has a strong vision for the future and a strong plan for going forward. Leaders run into trouble sharing their vision of the future when they start making promises to individuals. This goes back to the trait of honesty. If a leader tells someone that “next year I’m going to make you manager of your own division”, that may be a promise they can’t keep. The leader is probably basing this promotion on the organization meeting financial goals, but the individual will only hear the personal promise.

An organization I was working with was floundering. It seemed like everyone had a different idea about what they were trying to achieve. Each department head was headed in a different direction and there was very little synergy as small fiefdoms and internal politics took their toll.

Eventually a consulting firm was called in to help fix the problem. They analyzed the situation, talked to customers, talked to employees and set up a meeting with the CEO. They were going to ask him about his vision for the future. The employees were excited that finally there would be a report stating the direction for the organization.

After the meeting, the consultants came out shaking their heads. The employees asked how the important question had gone to which the consultants replied, “we asked him, but you aren’t going to like the answer”. The CEO had told the consultant that, while he had a vision and plan for the future, he wasn’t going to share it with anyone because he didn’t want there to be any disappointment if the goals were not reached.

Leaders can communicate their goals and vision for the future without making promises that they may not be able to keep. If a leader needs to make a promise to an individual, it should be tied to certain measurable objectives being met. The CEO in the example didn’t realize how much damage he was doing by not demonstrating the trait of being forward-looking by communicating his vision with the organization.

The CEO was forward-looking. He had a plan and a vision and he spent a lot of time thinking about where the organization was headed. However, his fear of communicating these things to the rest of the organization hampered his leadership potential.

Competency as a Leadership Quality

People want to follow someone who is competent. This doesn’t mean a leader needs to be the foremost expert on every area of the entire organization, but they need to be able to demonstrate competency.

For a leader to demonstrate that they are competent, it isn’t enough to just avoid displaying incompetency. Some people will assume you are competent because of your leadership position, but most will have to see demonstrations before deciding that you are competent.

When people under your leadership look at some action you have taken and think, “that just goes to show why he is the one in charge”, you are demonstrating competency. If these moments are infrequent, it is likely that some demonstrations of competency will help boost your leadership influence.

Like the other traits, it isn’t enough for a leader to be competent. They must demonstrate competency in a way that people notice. This can be a delicate balance. There is a danger of drawing too much attention to yourself in a way that makes the leader seem arrogant. Another potential danger is that of minimizing others contributions and appearing to take credit for the work of others.

As a leader, one of the safest ways to “toot you own horn without blowing it”, is to celebrate and bring attention to team achievements. In this way you indirectly point out your competency as a leader. For example: “Last year I set a goal of reaching $12 million in sales and, thanks to everyone’s hard word, as of today, we have reached $13.5 million.”

Inspiration as a Leadership Trait

People want to be inspired. In fact, there is a whole class of people who will follow an inspiring leader–even when the leader has no other qualities. If you have developed the other traits in this article, being inspiring is usually just a matter of communicating clearly and with passion. Being inspiring means telling people how your organization is going to change the world.

A great example of inspiration is when Steve Jobs stole the CEO from Pepsi by asking him, “Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life, or do you want to change the world?” Being inspiring means showing people the big picture and helping them see beyond a narrow focus and understand how their part fits into the big picture.

One technique to develop your ability to inspire is telling stories. Stories can be examples from your customers, fictitious examples from your customers, or even historical fables and myths. Stories can help you vividly illustrate what you are trying to communicate. Stories that communicate on an emotional level help communicate deeper than words and leave an imprint much stronger than anything you can achieve through a simple stating of the facts.

Learning to be inspiring is not easy–particularly for individuals lacking in charisma. It can be learned. Take note of people who inspire you and analyze the way they communicate. Look for ways to passionately express your vision. While there will always be room for improvement, a small investment in effort and awareness will give you a significant improvement in this leadership trait.

Intelligence as a Leadership Trait

Intelligence is something that can be difficult to develop. The road toward becoming more intelligent is difficult, long and can’t be completed without investing considerable time. Developing intelligence is a lifestyle choice. Your college graduation was the beginning of your education, not the end. In fact, much of what is taught in college functions merely as a foundational language for lifelong educational experiences.

To develop intelligence you need to commit to continual learning–both formally and informally. With modern advances in distance, education it is easy to take a class or two each year from well respected professors in the evening at your computer.

Informally, you can develop a great deal of intelligence in any field simply by investing a reasonable amount of time to reading on a daily basis. The fact is that most people won’t make a regular investment in their education. Spending 30 minutes of focused reading every day will give you 182 hours of study time each year.

For the most part, people will notice if you are intelligent by observing your behavior and attitude. Trying to display your intelligence is likely to be counterproductive. One of the greatest signs of someone who is truly intelligent is humility. The greater your education, the greater your understanding of how little we really understand.

You can demonstrate your intelligence by gently leading people toward understanding–even when you know the answer. Your focus needs to be on helping others learn–not demonstrating how smart you are. Arrogance will put you in a position where people are secretly hopeful that you’ll make a mistake and appear foolish.

As unintuitive as it may seem, one of the best ways to exhibit intelligence is by asking questions. Learning from the people you lead by asking intelligent thoughtful questions will do more to enhance your intelligence credibility than just about anything. Of course this means you need to be capable of asking intelligent questions.

Everyone considers themselves intelligent. If you ask them to explain parts of their area of expertise and spend the time to really understand (as demonstrated by asking questions), their opinion of your intelligence will go up. After all, you now know more about what makes them so intelligent, so you must be smart as well. Your ability to demonstrate respect for the intellect of others will probably do more to influence the perception of your intellect than your actual intelligence.

Emotional Intelligence

A leader has the emotional intelligence or EI traits to control his emotions. Often, ordinary persons break under pressure or give up when pushed a little out of their comfort zone. On the contrary, a leader, in such a situation, takes up the task as a challenge and an opportunity to learn. The truest and the best leadership qualities are always witnessed at demanding times.

Avant Garde

Being a visionary and having an avant garde attitude is an undeniable leadership trait. A leader only becomes a leader, when he has an aim, objective, motive or a goal. The desire and the capability of leading people, arises, because there is an aim to be achieved. This leadership traits enable an effective leader to understand that 'united we stand and divided we fall'.

Confidence and Ability to Communicate

The confidence of the leader, instigates his followers to believe in him. He speaks his every word with the zeal of an evangelist, which assures his followers of building excellence, par belief. A good leader, can always speak in the listeners language, which is what helps him to communicate better. An efficient leader in never stuck up in the jungle of jargon, which leaves his audience baffled. He is always clear and concise, while communicating his motives and plans.

Integrity

A leader preaches, only what he practices. His integrity, i.e. his moral values and his actions are always in tandem with each other. His actions are always centered towards his integrity. His integrity is what wins him the trust of his people.

Munificence

Leadership principles imbibe the importance of being munificent in a leader. A leader is leading people to accomplish his mission. If his followers fail him, then the mission in itself fails. Thus a leader understands the role of people and hence, he never wavers from giving them the due credit and appreciation. Motivated people in an organization are attributable to leadership traits like munificence.

The other leadership traits are personal charisma, undying enthusiasm, team spirit, maturity earned over the years, intuitiveness, his experiences and the most crucial one, competitiveness. In my opinion a leader is born and not made. No school, no text book or no training programs can teach you how to lead or instill any leadership skills. These leadership traits are something that you are born with.

As for those who are not born with the leadership traits, it's not an excuse for them to not learn to be a good leader. By the way, there's nothing to loose but a win-win situation for both employer & employees or superior & subordinates or whatever you may call...

Footnote:
http://www.leadership501.com
http://www.buzzle.com/

150 Juta _Fynn Jamal

Dedicated by a loving young guy...
Trimas!!!

Pandanganku Tentang Mereka

Aku. Sering dilihat seperti manusia yang tak punya rasa. Hidupku kelihatan tak berwarna. Yang ada cuma palitan lumpur atau warna kotoran yang melekat tanpa sengaja. Aku dilihat seperti seorang yang selalu kalah. Yang selalu jatuh tanpa banngun. Aku rimas. Rimas dengan telahan yang langsung tidak tepat. Rimas dengan persepsi basi masyarakat. Mengapa perlu dijaja cerita orang? Apa rasionalnya?

Kadang-kadang aku jadi jijik. Jijik dengan pemikiran mereka. Katanya sudah merdeka tapi masih begitu juga. Tak senang dengan kelebihan orang lain. Dengki, khianat, hasad dengki sudah menjadi satu kelaziman. Acapkali mereka mengeluh. Negara semakin maju, tapi taraf hidup masih begitu. Mahu saja aku jawab, setakat angan-angan Mat Jenin, sampai ke sudah masih begitu.

Entahlah. Aku tak tahu dunia mana yang sesuai buatku. Ke mana aku pergi, tahap pemikiran masyarakat tetap begitu. Pernah aku terfikir untuk pergi jauh. Jauh ke tempat di mana tiada yang mengenaliku. Tapi kalau tahap pemikiran yang sama mengekoriku, duduk mana pun takkan ada beza. Akhirnya aku pasrah. Aku pekakkan telinga. Biar apa saja yang mahu mereka kata. Asal aku tahu aku masih berpijak di bumi yang nyata, tak perlu ku endah kata mereka.

Jatuh bangunku, aku yang rasa. Mereka hanya tahu bertepuk tangan dan bersorak melihatku yang bagi mereka ibarat badut jalanan yang membuat ceritera.

Berserah

Aku hidup kerana Allah. Aku mati juga kerana Allah. Segala yang aku lakukan niat kerana Allah. Tapi kenapa aku terasa jauh dariNya? Aku perlukan seseorang/sesuatu yang boleh mendekatkan aku dengan Maha Pencipta. Aku tak rela dibiar sendiri. Aku tak rela menjauh sepi...

Allah, hanya padaMu aku meminta. PadaMu juga aku berserah. Bagiku Kau selalu diingatan. Bantu aku mengharungi liku-liku hidupku. Bantu aku mengejar cita-citaku. Izinkan aku merasai secebis nikmat cintaMu.

Tuhanku, kupohon padaMu. Andai hidup itu terbaik untukku, izinkan aku hidup di atas bumiMu. Andai mati itu terbaik buatku, Kau redhakan aku bersemadi di dalam perut bumiMu.

Biar Aku Saja Yang Rasa

Hampa
Kecewa
Gembira
Bahagia
Biar aku saja yang rasa

Titis air mata
Sebak di dada
Saat hati berbunga
Biar aku saja yang rasa

Jatuh bangun aku sendiri
Seorang aku jalani sepi
Mengapa aku perlu kau di sisi
Sedang aku mampu berdiri

Pergi kau dari sini
Tak ingin rasa dikongsi
Tak rela kau bawa pergi
Semua rasa yang telah aku lalui

Biar aku saja yang rasa

untitle...

Jangan kau tanya kenapa
Usah ditanya bagaimana
Kerana aku tak tahu jawabnya

Kau yang beria
Bila aku bersahaja
Saat aku terlanjur suka
Kau berdiam pula

Jangan kau tanya kenapa
Usah ditanya bagaimana
Kerana kau tahu jawabnya

Pergi kau bersama kata-kata
Muak aku dengar semuanya
Kesal manjerut rasa
Biarkan aku sendiri sahaja

Kad Raya...

Dari Jauh Kupohon Kemaafan

Aku memang menjengkelkan
Apa kau benci, itu yang aku suka
Apa kau larang, itu yang aku buat
Maaf...

Aku suka ikut perasaan
Banyak kali kau tegur, tapi aku tetap buat
Aku tahu kau bengang
Maaf...

Sekarang kau tak ada untuk tegur aku
Kau tak ada untuk larang aku
Aku rindu masa lalu
Maaf...

Aku tak pernah menyesal tentang masa lalu
Aku tak akan pernah serik untuk buat kau tegur aku
Sebab dengan cara itu, aku tau kau sayang aku
Maaf...

Pabila kita sudah berjauhan
Masing-masing punya kehidupan untuk diteruskan
Tapi bukan bermakna kita perlu putus hubungan
Untuk itu, dari jauh kupohon kemaafan...



Salam kemaafan dariku buat semua...
Andai ada yang terluka dek kekasaran bahasa sama ada sengaja atau tidak sengaja, sepuluh jari kuhulur tanda maaf dipinta.

Nota kaki:
Aku sedang buntu. Tertekan dengan projek yang mendadak.
Lain kali insyaAllah aku perhalusi tulisan ini...
Maaf ya..?

Salam sayang,
Zaffadz