Do it, and you'll be able to lead your team

Chapter 1 Preface
A leader is just a role

What is a leader?
When it comes to leaders, many people now throw out the "talent theory", thinking that to be a leader requires considerable talent and ability.

However, I think this thinking is wrong.

I would like to remind my friends not to misunderstand the concept of leadership. In the final analysis, a leader is a "role" in the work of a team or organization. There is nothing extraordinary about a leader, and he does not have a higher value than others.

If you think that "as a leader, I must have authority to convince people", then this thought will inevitably be reflected in action.

Speak to your subordinates in an orderly tone, treat them like children, and at the same time think that you must be better than your subordinates in every aspect. As a result, you put a lot of pressure on yourself and cause unnecessary troubles... When When I reviewed my career experience, I also found that when I became a leader for the first time, I also thought that "I should be better than my subordinates in all aspects", but this kind of thinking overwhelmed me.

In actual work, sometimes all the members assigned to my team are members with more work experience than me; sometimes the team members assigned to me span multiple fields, and all of them are "experts in the field".As a team leader, I have led various teams. From my leadership practice, I found that as a leader, human maturity and professional advantages are not necessary.

In the team I led, there were members who were 15 years older than me.In my spare time, I even treated him as my father, and discussed the "way of being a father" with him.There used to be a top technician in the company in the team. Although I was his leader at work, I absolutely respected his opinions in the professional field and often asked for his opinions.

A leader, after all, is a "role".

In other words, it is necessary for a leader to hone his skills as a leader, but it is absolutely not necessary to be better than his team members in all areas.

If you want to be a good leader, the first thing you should do is to relax.

The difference between a team leader and a manager

It is said that recently, more and more people "don't want to be a team leader".

Most of the reasons why they don’t want to be a leader are “there are more and more management affairs, and the work is not interesting”, “the free time has decreased, and the physical and mental burdens have increased”, “I am not the type to be superior to others”… …an authority on leadership—John P. Kotter of Harvard University—has pointed out that leadership and management are not the same thing.Team leaders and managers are very different in terms of responsibilities and training methods.Incidentally, John Cotter defines leaders and managers as follows.

Leader: see through the changing trend, point out the direction the organization should move forward, and describe a good vision, stimulate the enthusiasm of relevant personnel, and lead the organization towards the described good vision.

Manager: A person who manages an organization according to established goals and leads the organization to achieve its goals.

I sorted out Kurt's definition and added my own understanding, so I have my definition: "Leaders should use the theory of sexual goodness as the basis to stimulate people's motivation", "Managers should use the theory of sexual evil as the basis. basis, to manage people".

In this way, we can see that most of the reasons why many people "don't want to be a team leader" at the beginning of this section are things that managers should do.

In real business work, in many cases, a person is required to be both a leader and a manager. Therefore, they tend to mistake the reason for not wanting to be a manager as the reason for not wanting to be a leader.

Among the two plausible roles of leader and manager, and the two seemingly identical abilities, this book focuses on leaders (leadership), and introduces readers to play the role of a good leader and give full play to leadership. Skills that should be mastered.

anyone can be a leader

What kind of capabilities should a leader have?
According to the theory of leadership expert John Cotter introduced earlier, leaders should have the ability to "depict a vision", "grasp people's hearts" and "motivate team members".However, if you say it this way...it seems difficult...Don't feel afraid of difficulties, you might as well think like this:
You decide to "Din out as a family tonight and eat premium sushi" (picture the vision).Next, first arrange a suitable time, and discuss with the children one by one to see what time is convenient for them (to master people's hearts).Then, go to discuss with your wife, this may be the most difficult level.At this time, you can use reasons such as "We are going to give out bonuses soon", "The children are clamoring for sushi", "Now is the season for tuna, and the tuna sashimi must be very fat" and other reasons to convince the wife (to motivate the team members) positivity).

If you've managed to convince and organize a family dinner, you've shown great leadership this time around.

However, many friends may have doubts. If leadership is nothing more than that, then "we are exercising leadership every day!" (The implication is that leadership is not difficult, anyone can exert it anytime, anywhere!) That's right!
The leadership that all leaders should have is not actually a special, great ability.

What are the "skills" of being a successful leader? !

Although "leadership is nothing special, great", but how to master this ability?

Of course, leadership, like other kinds of knowledge and skills, needs to be mastered through learning and practice.

Moreover, when exerting leadership, there are still some "little tricks".

In the practice phase, these "tricks" are very effective.

Many people regard leadership as mysterious and unattainable. If we break it down, you will find that many of them are just "little skills" with a low threshold.Conversely, as long as you master these "little skills", you can become a successful leader.

This book will be divided into 8 chapters to introduce these "tricks" to readers and friends.

In fact, after reading these tips, you will find that many of them are "natural" things.However, those with practical experience in business must also notice that although it is a "natural" thing, very few people are able to put it all into practice.

No matter what kind of skill, it is only meaningful if it is put into practice.

And what I mean by practice does not require hard training or special talent.All you need are two things:

"Careless attitude" and "persevering perseverance".

The leadership skills introduced in this book are like "basic skills" in sports and "style" in martial arts.If the "basic technical essentials" or "type" are not well practiced, it is absolutely impossible to become a first-class athlete or martial artist.

When I say this, some friends may think of hard basic skills training, but mastering leadership skills does not require special basic training.By practicing these techniques over and over again without distraction, I believe that the "techniques" and "styles" of leadership can be fully mastered.

Leadership does not need to be regarded as a "high-end and high-end" special ability. As long as you consciously practice the skills introduced in this book in your daily work, one day you will also have extraordinary leadership force.In my opinion, this is the shortcut to being a great leader.

And, when the time comes, you can develop and adapt these techniques to suit your style.

Eitaro Kono

April 2013

(End of this chapter)