Don't know why I waited so long. There was a time when I thought "listening" to books isn't for me. I have to "read" them. But after I signed up for Audible, have been reading (listening) three books a month. As life gets busier, this is the only way I can keep up with books.
Read two excellent books recently - Art of the Start 2.0 by Guy Kawasaki and The Hard Things About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz. Though both were authored targeting young entrepreneurs starting up a new business - there are some fantastic leadership lessons from both the books. In these fast changing times, even in big companies leaders rarely can settle down in a groove. Every leader has to run their division or organization like a startup and instill energy to create new value for their customers in a hyper competitive marketplace.
Apart from the many well known "leadership rules"on which hundreds of articles are written every day, I personally made note of the following simple ones:
(1) Demonstrating optimism every single day. There would be days where you feel like being on the edge and on the verge of quitting, it is times like these that one has to master and ensure the inner feelings do not spill over to the teams.
(2) Ability to articulate a vision and also "operationalize" the vision via clear goals that are communicated and laid out in a manner that everyone can feel the progress. Great leaders are able to inspire a shared ambition among all the teams that drives collaboration. They celebrate small successes that help drive towards the broader goals to create motivation
(3) Demonstrating courage to stick to "individual" decision when others in the group don't agree. Leaders are always faced with the difficult choice of whether to conform to a decision arrived at by the "leadership group" or force their own decision. And that too when they are not sure. Experiments show that even for very simple scenarios, where an individual is 100% confident of his decision, when he is confronted with a "group arrived decision" (that is different from his own decision), he would find it very difficult to stick to his own. Doubts will creep in. It is known that most humans like to be "wrong with the whole group" than "right alone". We like to conform to the group we are part of.
All of the above can be developed through practice. Just like muscle memory, these have to tried out in every situation till they become a habit. Leader does not mean a CEO of a company, even a lead of a small team or even the head of a family is one. It's all about how do you attract a bunch of free willed individuals to follow you ...