A message for aspiring & ambitious MBAs……….
The season is on for fresh graduates or working professionals to initiate their preparation for upcoming MBA entrances; which are usually held in the last few months of the year. Those who have successfully earned admissions into the B-Schools of their choice, it is time for them to step into newer environments of probably life changing learning. For some it is time to celebrate as they have earned their convocations and will kick start their dream jobs. I would like to share some of my thoughts and advices for the aspiring ones, those aspiring for MBA programs, those with newer jobs and those ready to usher their journey into B-Schools.
I would present the ideas as pointers, which would be easy to contemplate and remember. The list is not exhaustive, neither is approved by researches; it is just the gut feeling and the edge towards learning curve and the little varied experience I have that makes me write the article.
- Board the team with high spirits: You are already on a high by getting that best job or by joining that famous B-School. Keep the confidence levels sustained. No one wants soberness and solitude reflections while you work in teams/with peers. Have that inspirational sense in you and keep motivating yourself.
- Take that attitude off your shoulders, be humble: Even if you are from the best of the best background, B-School, etc, keep your profile low and do not carry the brand umbrella even when there are no rains, in short, it is not required to always show off your profile background. Because, you would get unnecessary attention and will allow peers to form opinions about you too early.
- Unlearn all that you have learned: During induction period, you cannot sit to challenge the training and development programs or publish your own philosophies. Real world is much different from what is taught at School, even if the school is pre-fixed with ‘B’. Actual scenarios at field, workplace, management skills, handling attitude, all of it matters when someone is inducting you to a newer environment. Learn with your hearts and mind kept open.
- Do not show groupism: Even though you may have likism towards the ones with similar profiles, who are either smart, or sober, but the golden rule is to interact with everyone. The administrative person or that maintenance guy might be of great help, or even might be a dynamic person, with great networks. Not everyone is flamboyant enough at expressing their possessions and strengths.
- Respect the seniors: Do not start to find faults with seniors too early, if the earlier staffers or students have bore them, there is definitely a reason or strings in the hands of the senior person, that makes him tolerated by others. Besides, you cannot change the place or the organization in a matter of little time.
- Take efforts to understand the system first: Understand the system, how things works, why the processes are like that, do not be in hurly-burly, instead take your time. Even when you presume you know it, there might exist a gap which you would realize as you know more of the system, its people, and its leaders.
- Do not fear: There might be tyrants in the form of Deans/Boss/Team Leader/Manager, etc. Do not tie yourself up in modes of suppression out of concerns or fear. Be an open person. It is okay to make mistakes, besides, no one is perfect right? It is good to learn from others mistakes, but you learn more from one’s own.
- It is good to be stupid at times: The rule is not to act like an over smart person at all the times. Be naïve; learn from others, even a peon or staffer might know things useful to you.
- Do not get lost in the hype: The great job, the excellent culture, amazing infrastructure, or the skyrocketing pay package might blind you from the sheer hard work or realities that would come up in your journey of a new job or a B-School. Stays focused and keep recalling your earlier experiences. That might help you develop a better insight into your own abilities, weaknesses, strengths and accordingly bank upon the opportunities.
- Do not become complacent: Do not be satisfied, you have just reached uphill but it does not mean there are no higher mountains beside. Your previous successes might take you to cloud No.9, and that mind filled with mist of ‘already achieved’, will not help you drive better! Instead urge for betterment and more challenges in life. Better is yet to come, push yourself, so that others do not take away your opportunities. Discipline, Sincerity, and competitive edge are like ever-green requirements.
- Be ready to accept failures and rectify: Feedback is one of the best ways to learn about you and correct yourself. Take feedbacks constructively, yet be careful of people who pick upon cunningly to put you down and demotivate you. Remember pointer 1!
- Motivate others: Help others learn and add value to the team, instead of spoon feeding or doing it all on your won. A candle loses nothing of its own by lighting another candle.
- Sometimes being straightforward hurts, learn those strategies: As you learn about the system you would also need to get that edge of getting work done and be appreciative at the same time. Keeping the above pointer in mind, do not develop enemies in the system; also do not let all your secrets out to the close peers. Remember it’s a competitive world out there.
- Excelling in a few parameters does not guarantee long-term stability: Applauded by awards and certificates, ranks, scores, past success stories, have definitely helped you become a better person, but these are not resistance certificates to Deterioration. There have been cases, where even employees from the best of the schools have been thrown out or asked to leave. Performance is the key my friend.
- Key is to continue learning like a naïve: learn, analyze, unlearn and repeat the process!! There are a myriad of things besides what the B-School taught you
- Show some self-respect: keep yourself dignified for right reasons, a. As the saying goes, MBA’s are supposed to know everything.
- Do not crib: Do not play the blame game and learn to take responsibilities for your actions. Lead a humble and worthy life.
thnks …………….
Leadership – the way to life
Leaders are born not made, but I support otherwise.
It is the experiences, lessons taught throughout that makes a leader and polishes him. Once a leader, which is not the end of the road or the zenith point, the way is too hard uphill rather. As a good old quote says, a new generation leader takes people along with him to the zenith.
When IQ, EQ, SQ, is being surpassed by so many other quotients, its not easy to excel in this competing world, where everyone seems to better than the other, yet, some people emerge, they rise amidst the crowd and create their own excellence.
There are various schools of leadership, but those are updated as often as research findings conclude. What are the habits of leaders, or their traits, attitude, etc. becomes a source to study for several other followers and prospective leaders. But a true leader is unique in his manner, he discovers himself more than an average person would. So the hint lies in loving and knowing oneself. With the importance of personal branding on a rise, people find solace in reading some of the myriad of books available, for that matter, net is full of such advises, stories, case studies, etc. But will reading alone help? You can make that analysis while you read this article; living life in the most efficient manner makes you what you want. Right direction is obviously important, but at the end of the day, a good leader has his own intuitions, observation skills, and decision making abilities.
Many academic programs, including MBA, promise to build the leader in you. But underlying those lucrative promises is hidden the clause that you might still land up being bad, or unsuccessful. Again, management and leadership become associated as if they always co-existed happily and efffectively, but that is not the case. May be the nature of our system- education to profession, is not equipped enough to as many good leaders as the world needs today. But a leader is not God, it is not necessary for a leader to know and do everything. Living invigorated lives, to motivate others, and take command of things to be done at the right moment defines a leader. This statement is of course, not exhaustive, but the definitions of leadership change so much, that everything seems to be coming under the umbrella of leadership. This makes the usability of leader and his requirements case to case basis. A nation leader is different from an Army leader, so is he from a spiritual leader. Self-reinvention is ever needed with the changing facets of lives, if a leader wants to be known forever, or at least his lifetime.
But I feel it is okay if we cannot make a leader out of our lives, not everyone can climb mountains, or swim across oceans. But an inspiring life and to set a benchmark for others to learn from would really be a thing everyone wishes from his life. Get on board, live your life.. and discover it yourself at times, besides reading those self-help books, attending seminars, workshops, climbing up the professional ladder and going to the one of the desired B-Schools, of course (how could I miss that).!!!!!!
Malik Deenar Institute of Management Studies
Leadership Quote: “The ultimate measure of a man…”
In a famous leadership quote Martin Luther King once said: “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”
In confronting one of his own personal challenges, U2 singer Bono referred to a story about one of the world’s most famous civil rights leaders. Bono was asked to explain why a radical rock star, renowned for humanitarian activism, appeared to be supporting the conservative U.S. president, George W Bush. To answer that question Bono recounted a story told to him by another famous singer, Harry Belafonte. Martin Luther King Leadership QuoteBelafonte told Bono about a meeting with Martin Luther King Jnr, the great, civil rights leader.
At that time, the early sixties, the U.S. civil rights movement seemed to have hit a stone wall. Robert Kennedy had just been appointed U.S. attorney general. Famously disinterested in the civil rights movement, Kennedy’s appointment seemed catastrophic to King’s supporters. At the meeting, King’s dejected team voiced their despair at the turn of events. When he’d heard enough, King slammed his hand down and ordered them all to stop. “Is there nobody here who’s got something good to say about Bobby Kennedy?” The reply was that there was nothing good. To this King replied: “Well, then, let’s call this meeting closed. We will re-adjourn when somebody has found one thing redeeming to say about Bobby Kennedy, because that, my friends, is the door through which our movement will pass.” Martin Luther King had demonstrated why he was to become one of history’s most charismatic leaders. He wouldn’t hear any more negativity about Bobby Kennedy. Instead he wanted his team to find the positives in what seemed a lost situation.
These positives would be used to turn that situation around. As it turned out, Robert Kennedy was very close to his bishop, and King’s supporters used this to their advantage. They befriended the bishop, possibly the one man who could get through to the attorney general. This was the positive action King had been looking for and Kennedy’s change of heart was momentous. Belafonte’s story ended with these words: “When Bobby Kennedy lay dead on a Los Angeles pavement, there was no greater friend to the civil rights movement. There was no one we owed more of our progress to than that man.”
Bono Leadership QuoteBono concluded: “Whether he (Belafonte) was exaggerating or not, that was a great lesson for me, because what Dr King was saying was: don’t respond to caricature — the left, the right, the progressives, the reactionary. Don’t take people on rumour. Find the light in them, because that will further your cause.“
Power of Dream and Belief…………
Former President of India A.P.J. Abdul Kalam repeatedly urges us all to dream big and have a right direction to work with conviction and achieve big. What we need is a dream or vision and conviction or belief. We all have dreams. We all want to believe deep down in our souls that we have a special gift, that we can make a difference, that we can influence others in a special way, and that we can make the world a better place to live in.
At one phase of our life or the other, we all had a vision for the quality of life that we desire and deserve. But for many us, those dreams have remained unfulfilled, overshadowed by frustrations and routines of daily life that we no longer even make an effort to accomplish them. For far too many, the dream has dissipated – and with it, so has the will to shape our destinies. Slowly, but inevitably, we lose the sense of certainly which can create the winner’s edge. Yet some are forever in quest of restoring the dream and make it real. Such lives remind us the unlimited power that lies sleeping within us all. They rise from their fall like a sphinx with more vigour.
Why do they make the difference? It is because they have been continually driven by a singular, compelling focus. The quality of their life, therefore, makes the difference. We often see people from humble beginnings and devastating backgrounds manage inspite of it all and create lives that inspire us. Need to quote any examples? I feel not necessary. We also observe that some people’s lives set a good example to emulate whereas some, leaves us a warning some, leaves is a warning how not to be in our lives. I feel the latter’s number increases in multiples.
A realization of out inherent capacity to focus all our resources on mastering a single area of our lives shapes our destiny, and a strong conviction or belief that controlled focus is like a laser bean that can cut through anything that seems to be stopping you. So don’t swerve from the path of your dream and as Benjamin Disraeli said, “a consistent man believes in destiny, a capricious man in chance”.
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