Many a time, in work interviews and beauty contests you are asked to describe yourself in one word! Now, that isn’t something that all people can do. You know why? To describe yourself in one word, you should know yourself thoroughly and judge yourself correctly. Clarity of self concept is what makes you find a single fitting label for yourself that encapsulates your entire personality.

Summing up your life and personality in a few words is a challenge, but many illustrious people were able to give entire descriptions of themselves and their works in a miniature capsule of a few words. For example, Ernst Hemingway took the challenge of writing a story in six words “For Sale. Baby Shoes. Never Worn “! Noted columnist Peggy Noonan sized up the entire life of President Lincoln in one single sentence “ He preserved the Union and freed the slaves”

Clarity of thought is an essential ingredient of successful leadership and you should practice ways in which you can achieve this. If you are an experienced worker, you’ll surely agree that you should be hundred percent clear of what you are doing now and what you should be doing next. Leadership involves understanding your work goals clearly and utilizing other people to achieve these goals. So the key phrase here is “precision and conciseness” and that you can achieve by summing up your leadership in six words. Many ace leaders have used only six words to describe their leadership.

When you try to describe your leadership in just six words, you’ll have to identify the words that best describe it. It will involve a process of elimination of all vague terminology that an unclear mind can generate. If you are clear with your goals, you can always think singularly and find the most fitting labels for them. You can use the six word memoir concept introduced by Smith Magazine in helping you out in this.

To start off with, identify your singular goal, which is above all other goals for you. For this you’ll have to do a bit of self searching to know what you want to actually achieve. For example, cost effective completion of your project, delivery of results in record time, and successful introduction of new concepts may be your immediate goal. But what is your ultimate goal? Obviously, its your need for being recognized as one of the most efficient leaders of your company. When you describe yourself in six words you should identify this single goal of yours and work towards it. Here are some questions that you can ask yourself to help you in achieving this:

1. What makes you take up a job – Is it because you like it and you want to help others benefit from your work; or is it because your boss is pressurizing you to take up that assignment? If it’s the former, its good news!  If it’s the latter, you should try to figure out the problem and act accordingly. It might mean that its time for you to pause your work for a while or switch over to a new one. Just jot down what you are doing and why you are doing it. Here, your first two magical words are ready. They are “work passion” that convey that you have taken up this work, out of a passion for it.
2. How can you achieve the first step – In this part, you should find out how you can achieve your stated goals. Is it by motivating your co-workers and subordinates? Does it involve your active involvement in explaining things to them clearly and understanding their problems? Now you can frame your next pair of magical words : “ Employee motivation” which convey that you need to motivate your workers.
3. How much control do I have over my project participants – You will have some people under your control by virtue of your official status, but if you need more, you should devise ways to get them. Maybe this will require you to coax them a bit and that you should skillfully. Your last set of magical words are : “ More control” that convey that you have a satisfactory number of people under your control and you need to persuade more people to follow your leadership.

So, your entire six word memoir reads likes this: “Work passion. Employee motivation. More control”.

This six word magical exercise might not actually open up the key to perfect leadership immediately, but its surely going to help you improve your efficiency.

Do you aspire to be an efficient leader at your workplace?  If so, then here’s something that’s worth giving a read!

Before understanding the ways to become an efficient leader, you should be convinced of why efficient leadership is a vital management aspect in today’s corporate world. If you are a middle level or senior manager of a company, you might have realized that getting things done from your subordinates is not a joke. Gone are the days when subordinates would take your orders like mute lambs. The first thing that you’ve got to do is win their trust. For this, you should be hundred percent sure of what you say or do in front of them. If you waver they’ll sum you up as unauthentic and find another leader who is more reliable.

You might have noticed that though there are many people who become leaders by virtue of their power, position or qualifications; only a few are successful in maintaining their positions and winning the respect, trust and loyalty of their followers. Efficient leaders are those who have impressive personas, an important element of which is self confidence.

Self-confidence is your ability to trust yourself cent per cent, and be sure of what you do or say. Many of us are highly self confident by nature, while some of us lose it when we encounter problems and are not able to sort them out successfully. Unfazed self-confidence is what most successful leaders possess and you must endeavor to develop this in yourself if you are lacking in it.

Self confidence is not a very tough quality to acquire. You just need to do a bit of introspection to set your self-confidence meter soaring. For this, the first thing that you’ve got to do is to think positive about yourself, no matter, whatever hardships you faced and how unsuccessful you were in solving them. There are three primary thought processes that you should initiate in yourself:

1. Acknowledge the position you are in, it might be your official post. For example, if you are a top level manager of your company, just be aware of the gravity of your post and what is expected of you in that post.
2. Try to think of all those positive attributes and strengths of your personality and your skills that have helped in you rising up to this post. Make a note of your special skills and talents. Just try to make out- was it your ability to see things from an offbeat angle at the time of crisis that helped your company overcome the crisis, for which you were given a promotion? Try to assess the advantage that you have over others. Identify your strengths that are going to set you apart from others and prove beneficial for you.
3. Have a clear idea of how you would utilize these personal strengths further to become a good leader. You can also add on some qualities that you find in exemplary leaders of your organization and try to incorporate them in yourself. If someone can speak in a more commanding manner than you, just learn that quality from him/her and try to incorporate it in your future communication with your subordinates.
4. As winning the trust of people is important to make them your followers, try to see what you’ve done to win their trust. If you haven’t dome anything till now in that direction, do not delay in taking the initiative. Command over the work on hand, taking responsibility of setting things right when they go awry , and being sensitive to needs of the employees are three essential qualities of a good leader.
5. Apart from improving upon your personal traits, self-confidence is acquired when you have good command over the work at hand. Clarify your concepts if you need to before taking up a project, so that when other people work with you and look upon you for clarifying their doubts, you’ll be able to face them with full confidence.

Hey, some of you might think that acknowledging your strengths and building up on them, implies ignoring your shortcomings. Don’t ever do this blunder because you’ll land up being overconfident of yourself, which is sure to spell failure for you. Self awareness involves acknowledging your shortcomings too and working positively towards rectifying them. Always remember that self-confidence is an inner quality that can be honed up with outer perseverance.

The bottom line is, when you have confidence in yourself, others will have confidence in you and it is only then that you can lead them!

If you are under loads of work stress and feel that your mind is revolting and refusing to think, better know that you need a break. The monotony of work and pressure can really bore you to death. That happens when your mind gets clogged and refuses to think. But heavy workload is no excuse for lower work quality as you are expected to be as creative as you were when you had lesser work pressure. So what do you do to keep your creativity intact while you handle more work pressure? Here are certain things that top executives of a company should know while fixing the goals of their subordinates.

1. All Work and No Play Makes Jack A Dull Boy: Most of us have heard this old proverb that has stood the test of time and holds true even to this day. Today, corporate executives seem to be working 24 X 7 to meet deadlines and to stay in a competitive position in the market. The hiring firms cleverly announce some incentives and attractive perks that work as a bait to keep executives working day in and day out without sufficient relaxation. If you sum up the lifestyles of these executives you’ll find that they spend around 18-20 hours a day in the office and do not take any leave during the weekends also. Many top managers are of the wrong opinion that hard work enhances creativity but in reality, the opposite is true. Hard work might make you perfect at one job, but not enhance your creativity. On the contrary the mind is fatigued and can’t think. The remedy for this is to take planned short breaks so that your mind gets the time to relax and rejuvenate itself to meet new challenges.
2. Don’t Create False Urgency: Keeping your workers under pressure, even when there is really no urgency is a bad idea. You might think that you are working for the welfare of your company by keeping your workers on their toes always. But this is blundered thinking. When there is a genuine emergency, your workers might come forward to spend extra hours in the office, but they will not be willing to do so everyday. Even if they do under pressure they are going to get mentally fatigued which is not a very good sign for the prosperity of your company. When there is an opportunity, give people time to relax. They will be grateful to you and come back with tons of creative juices to make your work a success.
3. Tell Your Workers Beforehand What You Want Of Them: As a leader, you should devise and communicate strategies for handling crisis beforehand to your workers so that they are prepared for what is expected of them. For example you can say “for the next couple of weeks we need to spend four hours overtime in office to meet our deadlines.” Along with your workers you should also stay back and take up a bigger chunk of work than you usually do. Hold meetings only if they are necessary. Do not make a meeting mandatory for everyone unless absolutely necessary.
4. Find a Partner to Work With At the Time of Crisis: A friend in need is a friend indeed! This is the time you’ve got to work out a symbiotic relationship with a co-worker to ensure that none of you get stressed out with work. You can work out alternate cycles of work and relaxation so that when you are recreating yourself, you co-worker is working and vice versa. You can apply this strategy when you are on a holiday, or even when you are in office but need to just move out for sometime. If the co-worker is a junior, he’ll simply love the idea of developing his experience. You can also team up with your boss if he likes the idea.
5. Equip Your Office with Recreational Facilities: Do you know what some companies are doing to help their employees combat stress? Office campuses are built with plush greenery so that employees can take a walk, take a breath of fresh air and relax around the campus during lunch hours and other short breaks. Offices also have fitness spas, game rooms, music theatres and other recreational venues that workers who stay for long hours can use.

As a leader you should balance between work and recreation and set an example of how well both can be worked out. You should understand that your workers are your valuable assets. Don’t mistake them for commodities that can be used to extract the maximum because you pay them a price. Even machines need rest and human beings are human after all!

A team is like a recipe, the taste of which depends on the usage of the right ingredients in the right combinations. For a great tasting recipe it is necessary to have a perfect combination of the exact ingredients. Using substitutes might serve your purpose, but alter the taste. Remember, for a great team you should put that extra bit of effort to search for those people who are tailor-made for the job.

Jim Collins, the author of ‘Good to Great’ explains the subtle difference between a good team and a great team by saying that to be a successful team you should have the right people on your bus.  I have seen many Human Resources teams hiring people based on their qualifications or work experience even though they were not perfectly suited for their jobs. As a result though the team was good and work could be managed, they were not superbly successful. Recruitment officials of top ranking companies attribute the success of their company to setting stringent standards and benchmarks for selection.  For example, they would tell the candidates that they needed very hardworking people who had the energy and zeal to show outstanding results. With this statement they could get only those people who could commit to give what they wanted. Though their team was small, they tasted huge success! Remember, quality matters more than quantity.

Many job portals are doing a good job by defining the attributes of their ideal candidates. You might have read statements like “You should be a go-getter”, “You should be able to meet targets well under pressure”, “You should have ability to convince people” being mentioned in the job profiles posted in job portals. Set standards and match the interviewees against them and pick the one who scores the highest.

Identifying the correct person for a job is not as easy as fitting the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Just follow some of these tested methods and you are surely going to land up with the person you’ve been on the lookout for:

1. First, jot down the needs of your organization and the team that wants a new member. These needs are unique for every organization and will give you the fine-tuned criterion on which you’ve got to take your recruitment decision.
2. Along with jotting down the needs, identify desirable attributes in efficient employees who are already working with the organization and have proved themselves perfect for their seats. Are those the attributes that you would like mirrored in your new recruit?
3. Your new employee should be compatible with the culture of your organization. If your organization believes in a traditional vertical hierarchy of authority, then don’t hire one from a liberal culture. He will be simply suffocated! Take a person from the same hierarchical background.
4. Don’t be in a hurry to select candidates. It doesn’t matter if you have to spend on a couple of more classified advertisements and interview sessions. Its better to invest more in getting the best suited candidate than invest for years on an unsuitable candidate.
5. Bear in mind that an unstable boat runs the risk of drowning. For keeping it afloat, carry the correct passengers, not those who’ll help in drowning it by paddling the wrong way.

If you have more ideas you are welcome to share them with me here.