Why successful people are not always successful leaders?
A wrong perception resides among people that if someone is successful it is because they are excellent leaders. Some people assume that if a business is doing good then it is because of good leadership. Leadership is not easy that it can be passed on to others. It has to be imbibed or one should have the great qualities to lead a team/business. Sometimes a company is successful because a past leader was very skilled as a leader and the current leader simply has kept things running the same as before without making any changes in the business or taking any risk.
Great leadership nowadays are rare skill. For most of the people it will never come naturally. It is equally shocking that many organizations are successful even though they have only handful competent people leading them. Most of the times it is because the structure of the organization helps make up for a leader’s short comings and the leaders take utmost benefit as they know that the company is fully relied on them for the success of their business.
Sometimes it is because a particularly talented staff is making up for the leaders’ deficiencies. This is a problem that many businesses have. Net level leaders need to be groomed so that the next level leaders are ready to take up the mantle as when required.
There are lot of glaring examples wherein we see that great leaders never went ahead and became good leaders or coaches. Everyone
knows Sachin Tendulkar was great player during his playing days but as a captain his success rate was pathetic and he willing left captaincy as it was affecting his batting…a pure case of successful players failing as leaders.
Similarly, Kapil dev was a great captain and greatest allrounder who helped India win its 1st world cup in 1983 was a big disappointment as coach of the Indian cricket team for a year (1999-2000). Sachin in his book “Playing it my way” wrote that Kapil Dev was a disappointment when it came to coaching. Even Brain Lara as a captain of West Indies was not a successful captain but as a player…. he was a champ.
Thus, it can be assumed that great leaders need not be amazing in their educational days but they turn out to be great leaders like Abraham Lincoln, Karunanidhi and Winston Churchill to name a few…. Bill Gates was a college dropout but today everyone knows…wherein he founded Microsoft Corporation. He is an America businessman, investor and philanthropist.
While amazing leadership skills can make someone successful, the reverse is not true. Not all successful people make effective leaders. If you are looking for leaders to learn from, make sure you are looking for people who actually have good leadership skills and not just someone who is successful in life. You can’t assume that somebody may be a good leader simply because they need had success. Many times, people try to match people who have had success and try to follow their leadership styles. While this could be an honest thing people often find yourself mimicking the bad habits of people.
The leadership development training given the companies should always take into account some of the basic facts, which ought to be made available to the individual concerned for developing his leadership skill and techniques. The weakness of the leaders should be highlighted and that particular area should be groomed and rectified else these leaders tend to boss around with their respective teams.
The program should also put a stress on the attitude of people towards the respective individual qualities of the leader. It is imperative that leadership development training should be ideally structured in reference to the advancement of the individuals concerned, rather than trying to find strengths in personal qualities. Trainings are meant to rectify or groom the drawbacks of the leaders and bring them up in their abilities to be improved leaders.
The leadership development training should also try to put the stress that the collective requirements are of greater importance than individual leaders’ necessities. Leadership development training tries to develop the standard of a private to ascertain a vision and appearance into the longer term, and develop his ambitions and aspirations.
Overall, there is a common belief that leadership is a vital ingredient for effective organizational and societal functioning and success of leadership. Hence success and successful leaders do not ideally go hand in hand always but leadership is key to success if you work for any organization and you have the responsibility of driving your teams to reach a goal.
