Greetings.
Mind Spa by SanKom tries to decode the best practices while doing a goal setting! We try to provide an unbiased opinion on how to go about this critical activity in a professional environment and a professional manner!
In this video we focus on the Team Leader’s point of view!
Goal Setting : Best Practices for a Team Leader
Regards,
SanKom
SanKom Mind Spa looks to answer one of the topics raised from the Breaking Leadership Myths series: Are bad leaders born or made?
We try to answer the topic as best we can!
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Are bad leaders born or made?
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Leadership comes associated and loaded with multiple thought processes, and along with come free of charge, a lot of myths. We try to focus on the seven most relevant, and perhaps predominantly seen/experienced. You can also alternatively, watch these seven myths through the playlist available on our YouTube Channel.
The first and most important myth perhaps of them all – The necessity to hold hands and always show the entire way!
Probably we all grew up thinking as a leader (in former times manager), had to guide our young team members through every situation fully. Yes, probably in the past it was also not the case. However with the ever changing world scenario, the emphasis to break this myth becomes even more important today. Yes, it is important to guide a young team member. But, it can be done also by pushing them in the swimming pool with a float and ask them to swim. This way, they learn a lot more perhaps and in their own unique way. What must you do as a leader then? Sit down and assure them that you are always available as a lifeguard (just as you see on the beaches and the big swimming pools), ready to jump in when the situation gets out of hand. With this assurance, you can lead more effectively, and also instill leadership qualities in your team members.
Many of us think that leadership always requires a title, a position close to the CEO of an organisation. How wrong we all are, regarding this thought. Leadership does not require a title. On the contrary, the great leaders are those who do not demand for a title. To be leader, you need to exhibit consistently a few characteristics without any inhibition or a second thought. You need to inspire while innovating with wisdom, have a vision which encapsulates passion, and commitment, while exhibiting compassion, and staying vigilant. You can only inspire when you have the endurance and stamina to run the marathon. Leadership is not a short 100m sprint, or even a 42km marathon, it is much longer and goes much deeper. So, if a title is what is stopping you from displaying leadership at the work place, stop what you are doing right now, and go lead.
Another myth associated with leadership that can damage morale of the team more than any other myth associated with leadership. A popular myth is that a leader must always stay back and provide exposure to the team. Unfortunately, many weak leaders interpret this in the wrong way. Yes, leaders must stay back, and allow for the team to be noticed. However, when facing dire situations where a stressful project or situation is faced, the main role of a leader is to stand in front of the team, and to protect them. A leader is the first line of defence and the last line of attack. When you fail to protect the team in such situations and allow them to take the blame, you damage their morale completely. The willingness to take a risk the next time completely diminishes, and their output is never going to be 110% when situation demands. Next time, you suspect that they will face heat from the management, stand in front of them and take the fire. This does no harm, and as a leader, this is part of your responsibility, and you set a great example for your team members on how to lead a team.
A leader is the first line of defence and the last line of attack.
Sanjeev Bhushan
An area that is very important to your team: Growth of employees. One popular myth is that as a leader, you are not responsible for the growth of your employee, and that the employee must take responsibility to chart their own careers. Wrong! As a leader, one your primary missions is to identify the capabilities of your employees, their strengths, and their areas of interest, and then discuss with them on their career path. As a leader, you must remain in constant dialogue with your employee to understand their wishes, their goals, and be an enabler to their growth. As with breaking Myth#1, you do not have to stand next to them every single time through their development, but it does not mean you are not responsible. Also provide time for discussions not only for technical topics, but also for personal development topics. And be an enabler.
One of the myths surrounding recognition is also associated with leadership. Many of us think that leadership always requires a title, a position close to the CEO of an organisation. How wrong we all are, regarding this thought. Leadership does not require a title. On the contrary, the great leaders are those who do not demand for a title. To be leader, you need to exhibit consistently a few characteristics without any inhibition or a second thought. You need to inspire while innovating with wisdom, have a vision which encapsulates passion, and commitment, while exhibiting compassion, and staying vigilant. You can only inspire when you have the endurance and stamina to run the marathon. Leadership is not a short 100m sprint, or even a 42km marathon, it is much longer and goes much deeper. So, if a title is what is stopping you from displaying leadership at the work place, stop what you are doing right now, and go lead.
One of the most dangerous risks and egoistic myths: Many weak leaders believe that when their team members grow, and start getting recognised, this will jeopardise their position. The myth might sound very funny at first for most, however, believe me, such leaders exist. Unfortunate as it might sound, such a leader is the most dangerous component in a team, and the organisation.
While depriving his team members of actual growth, they might even start demotivating by stating how hard their job is. In reality, being a leader is a privilege. A privilege where one can influence the entire careers of other professionals, young and old alike.
This myth destroys the root of what leadership is about: enabling others to grow and exhibit leadership traits. An employee growing faster than their leader is to be appreciated and motivated to strive for more. Next time, you come across such leaders who believe in this myth, remind them of their primary responsibility of fostering growth and a positive environment for all.
As we grow older, we tend to see a lot more young professionals coming into the team. A myth associated with this hiring process is that leading such a young and inexperienced team is difficult. In fact, leading a young team is a blessing, and gives one a lot more freedom to operate. The young minds provide a new dimension to the thought process, your brainstorming sessions will throw out ideas you would have otherwise not had. A young mind, a fresh mind is uncorrupted by corporate practices and unsaid rules. When you give these minds space to express themselves, they can produce the most radical ideas and probably innovative solutions to problems.
Executing such dynamic ideas will inject much needed enthusiasm and dynamic thinking process into the team. Existing team members who have experience will also be motivated to think innovatively.
Every team needs a fresh injection of thoughts every now and then, don’t we. In the end, just as in The Three Musketeers, remember, All for one, One for all. Stand behind the team, support diversity, inclusivity, and fairness.
On our journey to being better leaders, and hungry leaders who lead change, we must strive to break stereotypes, break myths, and create an environment for everyone to thrive. As a leader or an aspiring leader, our only goal and purpose is to foster a environment conducive to learning, leading change, and constantly evolving. And, as we evolve, we become better, together.
And on that note,
Stay healthy, stay safe, stay motivated, and let us keep the world moving.
In case you were able to relate to the post & it helped you improve, it is a token of happiness for us. Do go through our other articles which might help you further:
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Breaking Leadership Myths in 2 mins
Myth#7 / 7: Leading a young, inexperienced team is difficult
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As we head out to finish the first day of the new year 2024. As 2023 wound down, the final hours of what have been probably the first complete year since 2019 to be devoid of any restrictions for people movement, or interaction, it is time to step into a new year with time to pause, reflect and realise. Pause is a powerful tool and contains keys to secret chambers which you never knew existed, but always wished they had. SanKom Mind Spa wishes you and your families a very happy, and healthy start to 2024.
As per Oxford Dictionary, it is defined as “a belief that something will happen because it is likely” or “a hope that something good will happen”. Whenever we place a hope or belief that something will happen (irrespective of whether it is good or bad) without any influence of the probability of it happening. More often than not, as Oxford Dictionary captures it, we tend towards the likelihood of it happening than not. The human mind has the power to think with a higher level of positively when the outcome benefits self. However, some of us prefer to keep our hopes low- in scenarios with the belief that we do not deserve the best outcome. This is also in a way, an expectation. When someone is performing a task that has one or more outcomes that influences the activities we will take up, the human mind also interprets the situation, and predicts outcomes to prepare for. This is also a form of expectation.
Continue reading “Satisfied vs Hungry – Great Expectations”
“Repetition is the mother of learning, the father of action, which makes it the architect of accomplishment.”
Zig Ziglar
Right from the time we started to go to the kindergarten, emphasis has always been on giving the answers to questions during our examinations. In the process to gather more positive feedback (read as marks) from the teacher as well as our parents, we resort to a method of repeating what was taught to us. Unfortunately, while repeating, the human mind got trained to do it verbatim and not as it is understood. The second kind of students could rightly summarise in my their words, what was meant to be communicated. I belonged to the latter category always.
In the process of memorising things, we forget to imbibe the main intention of a Law or a Theorem or a rule, and instead embed them as mere combination of words. Up until today, for me Newton’s third law is about the reaction being equal to the action but always opposite in direction. However, some might like to put it down as follows: “Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.”. Both the explanations/citations are perfectly right, and acceptable. The same goes for Pythogoras’ Theorem about Right angled triangles. For me, you must square length of all three sides, and sum the length of the two sides forming the right-angle to get the square of the length of the hypotenuse. However, verbatim: “The square of the length of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of squares of the lengths of other two sides of the right-angled triangle.” Again, neither is wrong.
Learning has several rules, some of them are Golden rules to enable effective learning:
Now, some of you might come back asking what do you do in the case of a formula 😄😎. ‘Good One.’ In case of a formula or equation, there are always underlying rules or laws that form the basis of a formula. When you start by understanding the basis for these, you can remember any formula at any time without actually memorising them. For example, Unit for Force is Newton; the other way of expressing Newton is kg.m.s-2;deconstructing it, kg is the mass, and m.s-2 is unit of acceleration; further, acceleration is the rate of change of velocity, and velocity is rate of change of distance per unit time; => velocity is distance covered / time to cover distance; unit for distance is meter and unit for time is second. So Force = Mass x Acceleration. Similar logic can be applied to other complex formulae and units to deconstruct the term. It might look complicated at first, but it works every single time, including when you get stuck not knowing how to proceed further.
Memorising without trying to understand the concept could also get you into trouble. Not by making you do something wrong, but when you are probably in a spot, you could not be sure how to get yourself out of the hole. For sure, such situations arise every day in school and university during examinations, and could be arising at work. Nobody can remember 100% of things they memorise or study in school. But, one can definitely recollect small concepts that are the building blocks of the bigger building we are trying to identify.
Over time, the human mind comes across millions of concepts, and billions of incidents. As with project management, every big outcome is a agglomeration of small incidents that seem to have independently no relation with another, but have definitely an infinitesimally small connection to an outcome. Memorising will get you somewhere, whereas Understanding can get you anywhere.
And on that note,
Stay Healthy, Stay Motivated, Stay Festive, Stay Safe, and Let us keep the world moving.
In case you were able to relate to the post & it helped you improve, it is a token of happiness for us. Do go through our other articles which might help you further:
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One has come a long way since walking into a school environment for the first time by the moment one realizes we are quite a way into the University/College phase. The mental fluctuations one has gone through in making choices until now seem to have paid off, stability starts to appear, new avenues start to open up, confidence starts to grow with every passing moment, anger and angst seem to be unnecessary most of the time, appreciation of our actions seem to reach us effortlessly, and yet the human satiation for more drives us towards greed. Certain relationships formed for no reason during our early school life seem to hold more value now, and certain relationships that have been resurfacing seem to be more necessary than ever before to tread on. Building up of a support system is the most important aspect of this phase. “Why?”, one might ask. Simple answer: The most pressure free time after Primary school is available, and resources are lying around to be discovered and explored.
After we are through the thrills of entering university in the Transition phase, a comparatively sedate time lay ahead of one. That said, obstacles will come without warning and leave little time for a preparation, and sometimes could demand immediate actions. Redundancy planning is necessary to ensure fallbacks exist. Focus must be more towards the floor below us rather than the open skies above us.
Continue reading “The College Kid – Reckless or Wreckless”
After a long hiatus, and a while since we heard anything on the radio or television about CoVid, the world finally does seem to be returning to normal, bar the war in Ukraine, and the riots in France.
SanKom Mind Spa hopes that all our readers are healthy, safe, and back to leading fully normal lives, socialising in a pre-2020 manner. Thank You for supporting us through CoVid and the post-CoVid recovery phase.
Today, we look at a topic that relates closely to an article we had posted a few months ago: Looking Up, Looking Foward
In many people’s minds, arises a question when the phrase, “….please, think forward.” Is uttered. The phrase is very common in all walks of life, especially when there are struggles in succeeding in a particular endeavour, and also in successful attempts. However, the difference between the situations lies in the source of the words. One might be in a position to hear the phrase or utter the phrase.
Questions, a quintessential part of every living organism’s everyday survival routine. Over time, especially when one’s actions become repetetive and redundant, one tends towards searching for a new adventure. Carnivores start exploring new methods for capturing prey, prey try to outrun in new ways to avoid being captured, herbivores explore new territory across all seasons to stay in the optimal environment, and we human beings start to question to trigger the learning part of our brains.
When we are small kids, questions form an integral part of our everyday lives, as we come across a new phenomena, a new character, a new action, a new object, a new procedure, a new new almost with every interaction. As we grow older, due to societal obligations, and due to our own interpretation of the societal obligations, we tend towards questioning less and accepting things as they are. When we start closing our inquisitive character, we narrow the opening to learning new things, and are content with content that is already inside our brains. Over time, the world evolves around us, rendering us to become antiques that have huge value, but of little use in the current day and age.
An antique, however unique and valuable the antique might be, the usability quotient is still from the age of the antique. Some might argue that the chalices from the age of Napoleon Bonaparte or Akbar would still function the same way. Yes, sure, they would be helpful to serve a portion of wine or a herbal concoction to guests in a royal way. However, in today’s world, whilst looking for sophistication, we have done away with most of the older ways of keeping the vessels fresh. We now depend on a variety of dishwashing methods to rejuvenate our everyday vessels. A chalice from the Napoleon or Akbar era would not stand a chance going through the modern dishwashing methods that are automated. When we try to wash them manually, we still must take enough care and extreme caution so as to not damage the chalice, as there is not much chance that we can land a replacement in case of damage. Also, when we hold such a unique chalice, higher chances are that we hold the chalice because of the high monetary and high historic value of the chalice than due to its use in our world.
To stay relevant, adapting our methods to the modern day routines definitely helps us stay relevant. However, to stay relevant also in our own individual worlds that we built up over time (the close circle bubble that we have concocted carefully by adding ingredients [relatives, friends, associates, colleagues, supporters, followers]) we also need to adapt and ask questions. Questions about how to adapt the particular change in a way that it causes minimal disruption to our immediate environment. When we get inspired by someone’s success or by some particular idealogy, it does not necessarily fit directly into our highly indigineous, individualised sub-worlds. Inspirations no matter how good they seem to be need adaptations. Questions and answers gathered over time for these essential questions will determine how well WE adapt into the new version of the world we have envisioned based on inspirations.
As Charles Darwin wrote, “One general law, leading to the advancement of all organic beings, namely, multiply, vary, let the strongest live and the weakest die.“
Human belief is that, when sharing that they have been inspired, the magitude of their achievements deteriorate. Due to this ignorance, we often fail to be grateful to those that have inspired. Also, while being in a position of inspiring others, we tend towards looking for appreciation. The law of Karma, and law of recirpricity states clearly, “What you give, You will receive.”
Every human being upon deeper cognizance can recognise that everyone can be present in all three phases of history, current affairs and the future by doing the following:
Be Impartially gratefully inspired.
Inspire respectfully.
Be indefinitely unconditionally inspiring.
Inspire.
Sanjeev Bhushan
And on that note,
Stay Safe, Stay Healthy, Stay Motivated, Keep Inspiring, and Let us keep the world moving.
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In case you were able to relate to the post & it helped you improve, it is a token of happiness for us. Do go through our other articles which might help you further:
Trust that you and your loved ones are doing well, healthy.
Often, the phrase, “New is always better”, is used when we look for a change.
Trust that you are doing well, and staying healthy along with your families/friends. As the governments across the world eased restrictions that were brought in over the last two years for containing the spread of CoVid, some areas continue to record new cases. The world is not yet free of the infection. As we move ahead, do continue to follow safety protocols whenever possible, and maintain own discretion for masks/social distancing/hand hygiene.
India, being a land of festivals has its own fair share of festivals to fill the entire calendar year and beyond. However, few days on the festival calendar provide more meaning to the purpose than the celebration/rituals themselves.
During our childhood, at school, there was always a favourite teacher and a most feared teacher. Most feared due to being strict, adhering to rules, and being a taskmaster. Favourite for speaking sweetly, not admonishing us in particular, getting more marks in the exams and several positives for ourselves. Our favourite need not be everyone’s favourite, and our most-feared definitely not the same for everyone.
Trust that you and your loved ones are staying healthy. There has been a long gap since the last topic on Mind Spa by SanKom. Kindly accept our apologies for the long break. Several aspects of our lives are undergoing a drastic change. Recently, SanKom moved over to a new country for work reasons, and following up with local processes, new culture, setting up things has occupied most of our time.
Imagine a colleagueC1 with whom you share a cordial relationship where respect, exchanges, support, feedback, and retrospective actions happen mutually on a regular basis. Imagine also a colleagueC2 who likes the way you are, but you do not share a cordial relationship with them. You also have several such relationships within the same organisation/mutual personal circles. During interactions with several members, you get to hear that some aspects of you need to change and could lead to an overall improvement in your character traits. Being a good listener, and a person who adheres by Smart Trust, you evaluate the feedback received, and prepare a change plan – A plan to change 🙂
Continue reading “Fear of Change”
Trust that you and your loved ones are staying healthy and doing well.
Nobody knows what exactly was the first result. However, ever since lifeforms started to evolve on Planet Earth, there have been always two major categories for any effort or action:
Mind Spa by SanKom - Life lessons for a lifetime 
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