Day 13 - Leadership, Interpersonal Skills and Recap for the week..

Well - the third week of the course began today - Monday - 21st June 2010 - I must say that the days have progressed so fast. The day started with Professor Duggal sharing his insights on Leadership - I must first comment on the way the learned Professor has structured his slides - they are not your normal slides with the main topic with points listed on dot points below - NO - these slides come in the form of fill in the blanks type of structures, attached media files and diagrams - well he sure knew how to capture our attention.

Leaders as we learnt are those that have the ability to influence people to undertake certain obejctives and goals. In fact - almost any positive adjective in the dictionary can be associated with the qualities that Leaders are to have - they ae visionaries, they listen, they are selfless just to name a few. There are stark differences between what a Leader and a Manager is - a qoutation used was the ...'ability to get others to do things....as opposed to getting others to want to do things..' Good skills to have as a Leader include Empathy, Listening and good Communication.

Of great interest is the the wheel type diagram that depicts that Universal Qualities of a Good Leader, with selflessness in the middle - the surrounding qualities include:

i. WIllpower to persist - you need to persevere and be firm

ii. Knowledge of job - You need to know your stuff so that others do not take you for a ride.

iii. Ability to deal with people - Interpersonal skills is very important

iv. Initiative to be a self-starter- Do not wait for other people

v. Knowledge of self - Know your strengths and weaknesses

vi. Courage to decide - know that your decisions have consequences - have the ability to make those decisions with the consequences in mind.

Great insights learnt today - we also undertook an exercise that measured our ability to undertake certain exercises within given constraints - the teams had to choose a leader and the also select a person to place small builidng blocks on top of each other - in fact we had to pre-determine how many we can do beforehand and then practice it...little did we realise that the person selected had to do it with one hand and blindfolded - this tested the ability to choose the correct person for the job - so as a leader, you had to know your people and it also tested the communication employed during this process - whether it is clear or otherwise and whether due encouragement was given to the person undertaking the task. It was very insightful.

The afternoon saw us measuring our inerpersonal needs using the FIRO B Instrument. It was quite interesting as we did our own measurements - depending on how we perceive our needs in terms of how we want to be treated and how we treat others in certain situations.

We then reviewed our learning for the past week and we ended with a quiz - this one sure did stretched the old memory...even then it was still hard to get the answers right!!!!

Better luck next time guys.....but congrats to Pace Setters for getting the most points.....

Blessed Day ALL

MKN