OCS Journey - My Leadership Takeaways

I have just completed Officer Cadet School and graduated as a 2LT on 18 January 2014. Throughout this 9 months course, I found out more about myself and some of the things which make a leader successful.

Mission Focused

Go out unprepared, be prepared to fail. Go out prepared, be prepared for the unexpected. Whatever do, we need to have an objective in mind, which in army terms is mission. Who, What, Where, When, Why, How? When you begin with an end in mind, you will hit where you want to go, or somewhere near it. There is a purpose in doing it and when doing it, do it nothing less than the best.

People Oriented

What drives us to achieve mission success are normally the people behind the scenes, executing those plans. As a leader, never neglect your people. This comes in two forms. Giving tough and realistic training enables the people to spread their wings fully and allow them to achieve independence on their own. This form of education serves to give them the fullest preparation. The other form is giving support and emotional welfare. This may includes simple appreciations to informal talk to your people to truly show appreciation as well as care and concern to the people. Your people must know their leader in order for them to trust. They must believe that you care.

Values Driven

Through any tough times or decisions to make, only true leaders with the right values will shine. As long as the values are morally correct, that decisions based on it will last through time. Whatever we can compromise, values should not be part of that equation. Stand firm to it and it will not fail you. It may be an unpopular decision, but it will certainly earn the respect of your people.

Creed Directed

I am particular inspired by the Officers' Creed which encompasses many aspects of how a leader should lead.

"I am an Officer of the Singapore Armed Forces,

My duty is to lead to excel and to overcome.

I lead my men by example, I answer for their training, morale and discipline.

I excel in everything I do, I serve with pride, honour and integrity.

I will overcome adversity with courage, fortitude, and determination

I dedicate my life to Singapore"

~SAF Officers' Creed

Taking the first and last line out which says the identity of the leader, the remaining of the creed is applicable to anyone out there. If all leader can do this, there is nothing we cannot do, and there is noone that we cannot lead.

Normally I do not speak in my personal experience, but I shall dedicate this post to this training school which has shaped me to who I am now. To lead, To excel, To Overcome.

Appreciate the Power of Silence

Our society has become increasingly noisy and we are flooded we information where ever we go. This happens to many of our leaders which works under these "noise".

These noises can come in many forms. It can be literal noise made from too many conversations as well as distractions around us. These noises decrease our efficiency as we are unable to focus on the task at hand. It also increases stress to our leaders to sieve our the main points from the irrelevant ones.

Silence is the way to create the discipline and form in a chaotic environment. When there are over flowing environment, create this power of silence. It sets things in place as well as a peaceful mind for the leader. Leader must appreciate and and use the power of silence to get things done.

However, this must first be practiced by the leader himself. Leader must have the self discipline to keep their actions and thoughts in this "silent" mode. He can refrain from talking as well as discipline his thoughts.

When taking over the noise, leader will have to enforce the silence. The delivery of such power may come across as rude or crude, but it is greatly dependent on the leader's influence to get it. When it is achieved, information can be pass down efficiently and accurately. Less noise will be created for further clarification due to the noise without efficient silence.

As leaders, make full use of how silence can help you in getting things done. Talk less, Do more. Remember, effective delivery of instructions will lead to effective doing to get things done.

Challenges ~ The Stimulus for Improvements

Leadership is a on going process which requires constant improvements. Leaders do not stop and believe that they have nothing to improve on. When they do so, they stagnate and stoop to lead. Leaders also do not wait for things to happen, which means waiting for opportunities to come to them. They either create or go out and find such opportunities. The level of difficulty of each tasks also grows, to stretch and dvelop themselves.

Why is Challenges so Important?
Leaders can lead effectively because of the fact that they have the ability and skills to lead their followers. If their followers and themselves have the same level of competance, there will be no room for leadership to take place. That is why challenges are important to create the avenue and experience for leaders to stretch themselves which gathers followers. Such experiences are important to form the basis of leadership which is to lead by example. That is doing at least at the minimal level, but more often way beyond what your followers will be doing.

How to find such challenges?
Firstly is to actively search for them. Opportunities are for those who are prepared. Those who wait for things to happen will find themselves either not finding them, or missing the skills needed for the job. Be proactive and prepare yourself sufficiently for it.
Secondly, if all fails, one can always initiate projects and ideas and get people to buy into your ideas. thats when challenges you deem possible actually spins off and take flight.

How to overcome the challenges?
Challenges by nature will be tough and hard. It is mean to push you off your comfort zone and let you improve yourself. Stay positive in the journey and go in with an open mind. This is when your brain will be in the best state to absorb and learn. This expands your attitude towards the challenge and more often will you succeed in overcoming them. When the going gets tough, the tough gets going.

Leading is about making yourself better in order to allow better learning and leading of your followers. It is important to keep learning by finding these stimulus for improvements. When you lose the passion to be challenged, you lose the ability to lead in the end.

Leadership Style - Develop your own style

There is a spectrum of leadership style out there. It can be categorized into two main category, one is purpose, the other one is level of aggression.

For purpose, this includes servant leadership, which touches on why you actually want to lead. The other type is based on aggression level, from the minimal, laissez faire leadership (means not doing anything), to total control, dictatorship and the spectrum in between it. All of these leadership styles have their pros and cons and I believe as leaders, it is important to have a mixture of it to make us truly effective.

Mixture of Leadership Styles
One sole leadership style will have weaknesses and it may not be able to be applied in every situation out there. When new at leadership, it is good to develop a leadership style that is close to your personality style. For introverts, they may choose servant leadership or leadership of less assertiveness. It will help to strengthen who you are as a leader.

However, as you proceed on with leading, you will find that there are flaws in just having one. For above example, they will find themselves hard to get things done when they need to be straightforward with their followers.

Therefore, once comfortable with dominant leadership style, explore the other side which complements your weaknesses. It will be uncomfortable and may clash with our personality, but just push on as habits take time to develop. Remember, leadership is developed.

Balancing between Leadership Style
After gaining comfortable with leadership style, be flexible with the approach to things. Try balancing between giving assertion and not, and you might find yourself becoming a more effective leader, who knows how to get things done, with the human factor still taken care of. Sometimes an alternative leadership style may just bring about an unique result.

End State
After learning more styles and able to balancing it, you will then create a leadership style that is unique to you. Mixture of everything and getting the best out of the generic leadership style. This will help to maximise your charactor and shape how people look at you in a different light.

This journey of finding your leadership style is never ending. Take in mind that leadership styles is dependent on the situation. Some are just better than others in a situation, but not quite so in the other. Look for opportunities to explore other side of you to make your leadership style more comprehensive.

A Belief - What a Leader Truely Needs

Ever heard of "tough time don't last, tough men do"? Ever wondered, behind every of this tough men, what actually pulls them to complete those tough time. Leaders are figures that spearheads movements. They have a vision to begin with and have a strong belief to bring them through the darkness.

Its all in the mind. Nothing physical.

Leading is a simple tough. If you believe in something, you will do it. If you don't, you lack the conviction and will not follow through. At the toughest times, with the strongest belief, your body may fail before your mind allow them to. People have pushed through darkest time, with just their minds. The tiniest and smallest man in the group may actually lead a group of big strong guys with a stronger determination.

Train your mind.

Have a purpose
Before begin  anything, make sure you have a strong rationale and purpose in doing that particular activity This give you a sense of motivation .

Have the end in mind
In the toughest time, set your mind at the end goal and continually reminding yourself why you are doing all this.

The in built mechanism to push on through fatigue and stress requires years of progressive practice and challenges to stimulate those changes. Be easy on your progress. The journey to this skill takes time and normally painful most of the time. Stay positive while believing more in yourself.

The darkest night always ends when the sun rises. Believe it and it will happen.

Respect ~ Earn it!

There are many a times which we can spot a leader from afar. Some unique leaders just have the magical powers to influence and command respect from his followers. Respect is not an entitlement to leaders, it has to be earned with hard work and genuine intention. What separate those leaders from the rest are as follows.

Strong Belief
Influential leaders always have a set of beliefs that they held close to them. They will always have the commitment and dedication to their believes. They do not compromise other things. This consistency that they held demands a certain social expectations or standards on their followers. These beliefs are alRways backed with strong rationale and purpose. Their followers buy in to their ideas and follow as what their leader always does. Weak leaders display to be easy with their values and thoughts and be "pushed around". Followers may not be comfortable in following them. Bad leaders are those who do not walk the talk and have swaying attitude. Followers lose faith in them.

Genuine Interactions
Respectable leaders also show their leadership at all times. A simple litmus test is are you the same when in position and when not in position. If you are, then you are genuine who you are. If you are not, then you should think about what is causing the change. Followers can feel and sense if you are genuine or purely going through the motion of interacting. Never doubt their ability to feel.

These two things are what commonly seen in leaders who earn their respect through their genuine commitments in their beliefs.

Fundamentals of Leadership - Self and Communal Leadership

Leadership takes place in many forms and are applicable in vastly different scenarios. But what culminates the role of a leader is to lead himself (self leadership) and to lead others (communal leadership).

Self Leadership
Before leading others, a leader have to manage himself well enough. This is when self leadership is essential. Leader has to make sure he is able to control his T-E-A. Thoughts, Emotions and Actions. Thoughts form emotions. And emotions will translate into actions.

One of the important skills that leader has to master is reflecting. Reflecting allows people to process their thoughts. By analysing all different possibilities, leaders are able to turn negative thoughts into positive ones. This change in mindset and attitude sparks a special chain of reaction. Leader feels better (emotion) and behave in a manner that benefits all (actions). At any point of time, when a leader is able to control TEA, he has mastered the art of self-leadership. This is when he is able to lead others as TEA has very much a big impact on his people.

Communal Leadership
When able to lead oneself, a leader must then learn the role of leadership in leading others. At this point of time, leadership branches itself into many different forms- dictatorship, welfare, servant leadership etc. There is no right or wrong leadership as all has its usefulness at different times. But what is more important is the leader must know is how to develop his people.

Leader has to inspire his people to do their best. Leader has to help his people to take on a bigger role. A misconception is for a leader to take on all roles and lead a team. That will only serve to tire the leader, while the people fails to develop themselves. A leader is considered successful using  a simple litmus test. When a leader is brought out of the entire team, is the team able to function with similar efficiency?

Some might say that there is two conclusion to the litmus test, one is the leader does not even play any role in the team (which is possible), or two the leader has successfully develop and trusted his team to do the job. This two conclusion are valid and it is up to the people to judge.

Managing oneself and impacting others are the key fundamentals of leading. Being easily affected within oneself will prove to be damaging to the team in future. Failure to lead a team and develop them will undermine the true purpose of leadership which is to inspire the next batch to pass it forward.