Leadership competencies and authentic leadership

1. The actual implementation of the stated approaches to close the gap between their
current competency and the competency required at the next level

A. Below are the details of the Competencies desired at My Current Level in comparison
to the Competencies desired in the Next Level in my Organisation (Smollan)

Current Level Competencies Next Level Competencies

Transformative leadership Emotional maturity
Judgement & decision makin Team leadership
Change leadership Transformative leadership
Emotional maturity Judgement & decision making
Critical thinking Change leadership
Conceptual thinking Risk management
Establishing networks Impact & influence Service
Industry & business awareness Diversity empowerment
Diversity empowerment Establishing networks
Impact & influence Challenging concepts
Team leadership Creativity & innovation
Coaching & development of other Performance & results driven
Coaching & development of others
Industry & business awareness
Entrepreneurship

In sync with the above, have tried/tested and Implemented few competencies desired in the next
level in the last few weeks.
1. Emotional Maturity: have worked on self-awareness through meditation and self-Analysis
also tried to look at myself as an observer. I am working to keep a neutral stance on my
thoughts, actions, and emotions on any day to day activity or subject I am facing in my
professional or personal life

2. Involving Key Stakeholders: This was a concern and challenge area mostly. Always tried to
do everything on my own and few times took decisions without involving the key
Stakeholders needed for the task/Job to be executed.
Understanding the fact, have started involving all key stakeholders in the decision making
process as well as at the design stage to. Stakeholders might be from any vertical/functional
teams or subordinates currently working on the field. This has in fact helped a lot in reducing
the stress and work load involved in concluding the task.

3. Risk Management: One of the Key competency at the next level. In all the running projects
as well as the upcoming projects; have started to make a proof of concept of each new idea
to ensure the idea is failure proof and tested before auctioning with the client. Have
implemented Personalisation concept in Alco-Beverage brands after conducting multiple on
 field tests on the time take to convert a customer and giving him the personalised product
with in a span of less than 5 mins. Once we were hitting the timelines as per plan consistently
for one week. We implemented the same in market. The idea was to find available solutions
that can be used with our product for personalisation. Then, we negotiated a free trial where
we tried a quick integration with our Smart App

4. Challenging Concepts: This is in reference to few concepts which were implemented by

client internally and were then pushed to us as a vendor to be implemented without any proof
of concept or success check. Have started giving push back on such decisions to ensure that
such things would only by implement post POC and readiness for the same. For Eg
McDowell silk was launched in Maharashtra without understanding the pulse of the market.
The same backfired as the field team itself was not convinces to sell in this particular segment
of market. On other side, Sterling Reserve was sampled and tested in Maharashtra before
launch. Customer feedback helped in customising the overall package. Sterling Reserve is a
success story in MH
2. The understanding of authentic leadership and the actual implementation of the
approaches to develop authentic leadership.
A. Authentic leadership:
Its Self-controlled process where a person/leader requires to have strong self-
knowledge about himself and in touch with himself. It is something that can be used
and applied on a daily basis, and it is needed More now. It’s more about being true to
your statement and setting an example than getting people to follow you or telling
others what to do.

1. Understanding Your Values and Who You Are: Authentic leaders must
express more of who they already are. If the leadership potential is not expressed
it doesn’t mean lack of leadership abilities. It means one may not have fully
tapped into those parts of himself yet. I would prefer to share my view point in a
topic or discussion point so as to add value as well as sharing though process
which might be different from the others in the discussion or decision making
process

2. Balancing the act: Would prefer to be humble in all the situations

(Success/Failure). This is challenging at times, but try to connect the dots to
balance the situation. I always believed to be down-to-earth, practical, and focused
and implementing this behaviour they does not require much practice. Have tried
to ensure the same behaviour all the time whether we receive a pat on the back
from the client or criticism on any sub-standard work done. Try to understand and
balance both the ends (Client and Team)

3. Liked By Everyone is not a priority: I have started reminding myself daily of all
the things I’m grateful for in life, and that I only need the love and approval/
Affection of my kids and a couple of couple close friends to be happy. this frees
me up to be my True Self.

4. Feedback: This is not easy, as our egos are afraid of getting the honest thoughts of
others. The truth is feedback will help us to take our authentic leadership to the next level.
The key is to filter out the irrelevant feedback that doesn’t apply to, instead focusing on
the helpful feedback from trusted friends and colleagues.

Instead of blaming others or complaining about their situation, authentic leaders

treat each experience as a learning opportunity. They ask questions like, “what can
I learn from this”? And “how can I do better next time”? They don’t take to heart
every piece of constructive criticism, but they use their intuition to apply the
kernels of feedback that make sense.
5. True Self: Authentic leaders don’t hesitate to expose who they are. They reveal
their true selves to those around them. This does not mean they share with the
world every detail about their personal lives or something that’s irrelevant to
others. But it does mean they are open and vulnerable about some of the
challenges they may be facing or have faced in the past. Its better to ask, how can
I share this challenge in a way that helps and uplifts others? They think through
what they want to say ahead of time and they share purposefully, but they’re never
afraid to share.
Recently due to Project closure had to transfer/lay off a number of subordinates in
the team. I preferred to explain exactly why this harsh decision is take and had to
lake few individuals to leave the organisation. Also, openly shared the challenge
being faced from the client due to cost pressure and market dynamics changes.
Always tried to use genuine encouragement to reinforce behaviour that will solve
the challenge.