When I talk about positive leadership, it is powerful, real, and practical but depends on the way a person is groomed from early adulthood.
Those who missed the opportunity to learn how to become a good team player and a leader found that by joining Rotary they were able to be humble and learn the ways to lead a highly motivated band of volunteers who did not expect any benefits.
Rotary offers a level playing field for everyone to shape up into leaders and even visionaries. Rotary has produced leaders who handled many challenging situations in the world which included negotiating for peace, eradicating polio, helping children with education, reducing infant mortality rates, caring for aged, bringing affordable or even free health care to many communities and uniting people around the world. These were, what I call as ‘Positive Leaders.’
Positive Leaders Provide Love and Accountability and I have seen that the greatest leaders are able to lead with the right amount of both love and accountability.
You have to love your people. You have to make them know you care about them. But you also have to hold them accountable to the values, principles, culture and standards. Too much of love with no accountability will make your team love you but they won’t perform. Too much accountability and not enough love will initially strive to be great but will eventually disengage and fall short of their potential greatness. It has to have in proper proportion.
Positive Leaders are demanding without being Demeaning. Many people feel that positive leaders are people who smile all the time and don’t care about winning. The truth is that positive leaders always work to win. They are very competitive. They challenge people to pursue excellence. They are demanding. They just aren’t demeaning. Instead of calling people out, they call out the greatness within them.
Positive Leaders Create Clarity and Generate Focus – The more clarity an organization, team and individuals have the more focused they will be. Positive leaders remove clutter, eliminate confusion, simplify, and create clarity that lets everyone know what they are supposed to do so they can take focused action. Everyone knows their job so they can do their job well.
Rotary is such a fine organisation with about 1.2 Million volunteers who are also leaders in their chosen vocation. The need of the hour is to see that all these leaders become positive leaders who can bring about a change in the community they live and probably blossom into national and global leaders who can bring about peace.