Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Leadership Excellence


To achieve leadership excellence one needs to Listen, Learn, Lead, Influence, Ignite, and Inspire.

Listen - Great leaders listen to their people first. Robert Galvin, fromer CEO of Motorola listened to his key customers. Donald Leonard, former Vice President of AT&T Bell Laboratories Switching Systems Business Unit attended skip-level meetings with employees known as "Doughnuts with Don".

Learn - Robert Galvin through his meetings with key customers learned critical issues and steered Motorola in their quest for excellence journey. Donald Leonard learned important issues about work environment through his meetings with employees and required his direct reports to improve their respective work environment.

Lead - Abraham Lincoln was great at listening, learning, and leading. He steered the United States during the difficult years of Civil War.

Influence - John F. Kennedy with his grand vision of putting a man on the moon, greatly influenced NASA's  mission.

Ignite -  Swami Vivekananda from India, a Hindu monk who made great impression with his speeches at the World Parliament of Religions in 1893 in Chicago, ignited the youths in India against the British Rule with his proclamation of "Arise, awake, and stop not till the goal is reached".

Inspire - Mahatma Gandhi, the father of the nation of India, inspired 33 million Indians to take up passive resistance movement to overthrow the British Rule in 1947.

Leadership Excellence is a journey which requires one to listen, learn, lead, influence, ignite, and inspire ordinary people to do extraordinary things.




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