Participative Leadership Style

In this blog I will specify my leadership style, discuss how I do it, its merits and disadvantages. My leadership style is participative leadership. I always include my team members to come up with solutions. I discuss the advantages and disadvantages of these solutions. Based on the discussion I will take the decision. The final decision always lie with me.

With the participative decision team members feel ownership and will be more motivated to work as it is their decision. Moreover they deliver it with my minimal supervision. With this style I will be easily approachable to the team and they can walk in anytime with questions or issues.

One of the disadvantages with this participative leadership style is time consuming. In most of the situations I know the solution for a problem which we are discussing, but instead of telling them what to do, I ask them their options, put leading questions and finally tell them what do to. This is somewhat similar to coaching, but not exactly same.

Amazing Leonardo da Vinci

Last couple of days I was listening to the Leonardo da Vinci seven principles. In that author Michael J. Gelb said that Leonardo did too many things in his life and most of them are incomplete. It is amazing that a person can do so many things.

As a painter he did amazing painting. Mona Lisa is one of his best painting. The last supper painting still perplexes so many. As per Gelb, Leonardo did 19 pictures and all of them were great pictures. He is the first painter to use oil paint. He did many inventions in painting.

Actually painting is a hobby for Leonardo. He is actually an inventor.  He invented many items. I could not recollect them. He is also a scientist.

As a scientist he did many theories, but never tried to prove them. Some of his theories were later proved. He did an airplane model theory. Later another scientist took his model theory and made the plane that was working.

Both as an inventor and scientist lot of his work is incomplete. In addition he never organized his work. He also did learning in anatomy and religion. He learned different languages.

It is amazing that one person can do so many things in his lifetime. Some may call him a failure as he never focused on one thing.

Ask for forgiveness, not permission

I made "Ask for forgiveness, not permission" as one of my favorite leadership quotes. I first heard this from Richard Rierson and I liked this phrase very much and adopted it into my life and career.

Wait a second, it this really true? I don't think it's always true. I cannot let loose my team to do whatever they want and come back to me asking for forgiveness. Both me and my team members should earn this. As a delegator, I am responsible for my teams actions. So it is my job to mentor them to the high standards where they can make their own decisions. As human beings we all are susceptible to do mistakes. I believe that as long an honest attempt is made, the person should be pardoned. Based on the past judgment and work we can earn mutual trust and follow this approach.

With this approach, instead of getting bogged down by the bureaucracy, our team can bulldoze road blocks, break mediocracy, take calculated risks and perform beyond expectations. But we should all be very careful and not take this too far. There may be situations where we need to stop and ask for permission or discuss for better alternatives. With sound judgement and solid trust this motto really helps team to perform efficiently.

Soft skill Blogging

So far I concentrated on technical articles in my blog at SPA Programmer. Most of these technical blogs are my learning while doing my work. In addition to the development I am also a technical manager/head. As a manager or head I need to perform certain tasks which does not include technical skills. As you all know these skills are known as soft skills.

Many of us already or eventually perform this dual role called technocrat. As a technocrat these soft skills is equally, if not more important than the technical skills. I spent good amount of time learning these soft skills and is currently in the continuous learning cycle along with technical skills.

Out of these soft skills my primary interest is leadership. I have read several books and articles on leadership. I frequently listen to the podcasts on leadership. Based on several leadership tests and my team's feedback I consider myself as a good leader.

In addition, I am also a PMP certified project manager. In order to keep my certification up to date and also with my interest, I regularly spend time learning and sharpening my project management skills.

There was lot of learning for me in these additional skills, I will blog my learnings so far and also blog my continuous learning in these areas. I will blog these along with some time management techniques.