Leadership

Surfing the Edge of Chaos

If there is one word that we can use to describe what we have been experiencing, right from the time of the spread of Covid-19 virus, it has to be “CHAOS”. The havoc that Covid had on our lives, the supply chain disruptions, the new war zones, elections around the world and their impact on the geo-political stability of the world, the tariff wars, the Sino-US escalations, I can go on and on. When we are expected to lead our organisations in an environment that is as chaotic as the current business environment seems to be, we need some understanding […]

Leadership

Leadership Can’t be Taught, it needs to be Learnt

In this short video about learning, I reference a blog post by John Hunter from 2014, which I still find incredibly relevant today. My key point centered on the difference between managing and leading, and how we typically teach these concepts. Drawing on Dr. Edward Deming’s ideas, I emphasized that while instruction can be very direct, truly effective leadership comes from hands-on experience. Considering today’s rapidly evolving world, developing the ability to both manage and lead requires a much deeper grasp of the intricate and ever-changing systems we operate within. This understanding doesn’t just come from traditional teaching methods; it’s […]

Leadership

Leaders Worth Following Know How to Design our Behaviors

I read this post titled “The Door is Not the Problem” on GapingVoid blog and was reminded of a couple of things that are important to remember if we want to be a leader worth following. Firstly, we need to realize that our behavior is much more impacted by our environment than we think. Every element of design of a product or service or the way we design our environment (intentional or unintentional) – it has elements of affordances and signifiers (Affordances are what the design makes possible. Signifiers make you aware of these possibilities). Consequently, how we design our […]

Leadership

Leaders Worth Following Know When to Go Against Conventional Wisdom

I had seen this TikTok video a few months back and remembered about this again when I saw this LinkedIn post by Dr Paige Williams about the importance of knowing about positive deviance and how leaders worth following know when to apply this concept of positive deviance. In this TikTok video, Arielle Schmitt shares the strategy adopted by the Chinese team in the Youth Olympics. One of the athlete (the gold winner) adopted a unique strategy to win the race. The winner did something that has never been done before in such a race. The runner up (also Chinese athlete) […]