Insight
Feel v/s Express
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In college, I've worked with dozens of talented student leaders and hundreds of highly-capable folks who went on to inspire the thousands of students on campus to do what they love.
Luckily, in addition to this, I got to work with external entities and other stakeholders.
Through this journey of working with my peers and observing corporations —local, national and international— I learnt quite a bit about leadership and team dynamics.
Here is one of the two most profound insights I discovered.
Let's get into it!
Feel v/s Express
This one clicked when I was working on a team project, and another person was leading that team. There were a lot of unresolved conflicts between the team members, and the leader was no different. Everyone was criticising each other, and I ended up trying to find ways they could work together while not interfering in each other's work enough to spare the time or energy for sarcasm. While I was a member of this team, I also led a Team of my own where we had folks who knew each other's weaknesses. They commented on those weaknesses constructively, and the sarcasm was actually funny.
Now, both are student teams, both have unanimously acknowledged leaders, and both have criticism and sarcasm but the culture in one is toxic, and the other is jolly—which I'm mighty proud of.
It is a leader's responsibility to set the culture of their teams.
The contrast in leadership I observed between myself and my team leader was that my lead joined the team members in criticising each other, which backfired with criticism on them, and they didn't take it well. Fortunately, in my team, the first thing is that the members know how to take criticism. Second, I don't join them in criticism exchanges. If and when I occasionally point out something, they join me, gang up on that member, and we all laugh it out together.
If there is any negative feeling inside me, I feel it, and my body language changes accordingly. My team understands that, works on it, and restores the original peaceful atmosphere. If an angry or distressed leader says something to their team, the morale will plunge, the focus shifts to avoiding that anger, and they become too careful and stagnant. Worst case scenario, they start criticising me for my shortcomings like in the other team, and we fall apart like a house of cards.
In turn, every time I acknowledge the work of team members, they feel encouraged to continue learning and better fulfilling their roles. Also, the other members become more active and productive in the spirit of healthy competition.
If you express positive emotions, acknowledge their work and encourage them, they will stick with you longer than most blood relatives.
If you just feel the positive emotions and never them, people start thinking you expect too much or any number of things that might not be true.
If we only express our negative emotions, no one will stick around.
If you feel the negative emotions, so will the people around you. They will try to find out what caused it and fix things. This depends on what kind of people you surround yourself with and how much they genuinely care about you.
A master leader is a pro at hiring. They build an unbeatable team and the fundamentally right environment for them so that they build the most killer products and services.
Surround yourself with the right people and do justice to your feelings.
Ignore none, address all and do it right.
I'll write about the second insight in the next blog.
Thanks for reading, and I'll see you next week! 🙌🏻