Self-motivation and Leadership

The following article by Kapil Edke explains what it means being self-motivated and why many people are not self-motivated.

What is self-motivation? It simply means inspiring self to do things which are otherwise not must. If someone else is inspiring and energising you to do those things, it is not self-motivation. However, if urge to perform comes from within then surely it can be called as self-motivation.

In today's organizational context, this term holds the key and differentiates above average from average. We have reached a stage today where people above certain hierarchical level need not be told what they should do, need not be given work, but they should decide themselves what work should be done by them and where should they focus their time and energy so as to best optimize the output. In this process, those who are ordinary concentrate upon routine tasks which are both necessary and sufficient for their survival in the organization but those who are above average, self-motivated, plan new initiatives, set higher goals for themselves which are otherwise not formally asked for. While doing this, they leave their competitors behind and grow ahead in the corporate ladder.

Why many people are not self-motivated? There are many reasons behind this, some obvious, some not so simple:

1) Complacency: This is the most crucial reason. The statistics show that people become complacent after they achieve the results formally expected from them and take pride in their achievements, without thinking about improvement and enhancement.

2) Improper time management: This is the second most major reason. It is frequently observed that people mismanage their time, and spend too much time in achieving what they are expected to achieve. This process itself exhausts all their available time and they are left with hardly any time for anything else.

3) Work life balance: Some people fear that taking new initiatives and doing more work would mean that they are workoholic and would leave little time for other activities. However, the statistics show that self-motivated people do not necessarily have poorer work life balance as compared to their peers. That means, there ios no correlation between being self-motivated and being workaholic.

4) Negative attitude: People fear that they would not be able to achieve results in areas which are not clearly defined for them, as they may be more abstract. Hence, they feel spending energy in these areas may be waste of time. However, it is observed that even small results in these areas can be greatly appreciated by superiors, as they are something extra, like a delight.

The data shows that most of the great leaders in the world were/ are self-motivated and don't get satisfied or complacent easily. Perhaps that is the single most important reason behind their success! I think this is something to ponder upon for everybody ...

Leadership, Churchill and Hitler

In the following article Kapil Edke has discussed the leadership styles in the context of two world-famous leaders in 1940's, whose actions changed the future of the world for decades.

A few days ago, I attended a conference related to leadership skills. The conference was attended mostly by human resource professionals like me and had some really good discussion on topics like leadership style, motivation etc.

One of the modules in this conference discussed leadership in the context of two leaders from World War II era, Winston Churchill of UK and Adolf Hitler of Germany. There are numerous similarities as well as differences between their leadership styles. However, one is considered as brilliant strategist whose actions saved the democracy and freedom, while the other is looked at with disdain because of his atrocities and is blamed squarely for waging the world war.

Similarities:

1) Both Hitler and Churchill were "non-serious" students. They used to hate mathematics and like arts and history (so a leader need not be brilliant in academic sense).

2) Both these men faced initial failures in politics. During World War I in 1915, Churchill was blamed for failure in Battle of Gallipoli and resigned from the government, while Hitler failed in Munich Putsch (coup in Bavaria) and suffered hard time in politics for the years to come.

3) Both these men had certain ideologies which they didn't change or modify for political gain. For example, Hitler was against the Treaty of Versailles which he used to consider to be against German welfare, while Churchill was against appeasement of Nazis/ Fascists and opposed developments like Munich Pact.

4) Both of them gained popularity when times and situations changed and their view of the world started appearing correct to the general public, after slowdown in Germany in 1930's (Hitler) and after Germany's attack on Poland in 1939 (Churchill).

5) Both of them hated communism. However, because of political and military compulsions each of them had to make friendship pact with Soviet Russia, albeit at different times. However, during the pact, each of them looked at Soviets with suspicion while Soviet leader Stalin tried to extract maximum benefit through the pact.


Differences:

1) In general, Hitler is considered Charismatic leader (charisma: divinely conferred gift or power), while Churchill is considered Inspirational leader (inspire: influence, animate or motivate). While the charismatic leader makes people believe in him entirely, inspirational leader highly motivates them and gets things done easily.

2) Hitler was more of a micro-manager who insisted on his involvement in military decisions, which not just slowed down Germany's progress in the war, but also lead to several wrong decisions as they were taken by Hitler based on gut feeling or instinct rather than understanding ground realities. Churchill confined himself to broad strategy, and left its implementation on his generals.

3)  Churchill had served in military in different countries like Cuba, India, South Africa etc. and hence understood the military aspects of the war and world geographies better than Hitler, who had never served in the military.

4) Hitler believed that he can't go wrong and hence had low tolerance if his generals protested or opposed his decisions. Compared to him, Churchill being a democratically elected leader and not a dictator knew his limitations and boundaries and hence was more tolerant wrt difference of opinion.


Interesting, isn't it? Leadership style of every leader in the world is unique, and it is difficult to declare one as right and the other as wrong. However, in general, Churchill's qualities helped him motivate the Britishers when the going was tough, win solid allies like US and Soviets, and plan the right strategy which lead to the success of allies.