Company Dilemma For Finding Great Leaders!

Each and every company globally has some criteria in choosing its leaders and very often I find the decision of selecting their leaders is based on wrong criteria, its not just with few people but even scholarly fellows make mistakes in selecting the right leaders, a true accepted leader is picked up from the crowd, no one actually needs to search for them, they are seen right there with their personalities on. Although different individuals have different take on this topic, and its quite controversial since there is lots of politics involved too. The leaders more often than not have charismatic personalities, a leader need not command to be a leader, he is the one who is supportive and treats him as one of the crowd, and he is the mentor for his fellowmen.

A company may be a single entity, but there are different individuals at different managerial levels having different choices and each of them may vote for a leader having a specific attribute like his physical attribute, his achievements, commanding voice, etc. but in actual terms of sense these are not the best criteria to select a leader. Company directors and managers often have tiffs on these matters when it comes to selecting their leaders, and as there are many individuals taking the decision, more often it is seen it gets difficult for them to come to a conclusion and as time increases, they strike upon any individual having clean attributes, but this is not the way it should be. A true leader has to be selected by their integrity level, their focus on performance, their ability to solve problems, being a mentor, passion for work, and helping his colleagues to perform the tasks. There have been lots of books on this matter, but even the most literate and intelligent directors have made wrong decisions in selecting their ideals for the company. In the year 1999, Hewlett Packard’s board of directors found a sudden need to have a leader with the growth of internet companies and the need to have someone to lead the company in future, the stalling growth of HP and stock pricing nearly made their decision firm on having a different type of leader with versatility in his work. So the CEO of the company, Lewis Platt retired early so as to make room for its future leader who can guide the company in the right direction, later Carly Fiorina was named as the CEO of HP, in the month of July that year.

Lewis was of the opinion, that a leader has a fresh perspective of the situation in the markets and in the company, so after studying and analyzing the prospects, a smart decision can be made and given the technological developments, leader would be a perfect person to handle the new developments. The same year, Fiorina was named as the most powerful woman in business by Forbes magazine, she had an interesting background and given the skills she had handled AT&T as the Executive VP. So leader is a person who has experience along with technological developments of the economy, this was one of the best decisions Lewis might have made for the company and today we know HP as the best in computer and printers and other accessories.

Looking at the above example we can surely say how a leader plays an important role in developing a company to higher ranks. The entire company’s future lies in the hands of a leader, the rise and the fall doesn’t take much time for a leader to speak just one word and everything follows suit and it comes as a surprise to me that there are some companies who doesn’t have a system called as a leadership, the chairperson is the one who looks after all, these are often the companies which has an organized way of working and they are often the victims of competition. There are some leaders, who are born leaders and you can see the leadership attributes in their behavior, like for example take the case of Sam Walton, the founder of Walmart, he didn’t possess any professional certificate but still had the charm to be a leader, someone who can lead the team. Although the question what lies here is selecting the right leader but many a times we find that only the right person may be a leader, the one who has the capability to select otherx leaders. Not all scholarly people or a layman can select a leader, a particular wave length is all it takes to recognize a leader.

I strongly feel, there should a specific, organized system to track our leaders, whether it is done scientifically or matching the DNAs, I don’t know, but I wish there is at least some system to select the right leaders, as this is the topic of controversy, it will take more a decade or so as to who should be given power to lead the company. If it’s the sole decision of president of a company to select someone particularly, it’s a different story altogether, but the global companies surely needs a system, what say! You are free to right your comments and suggestions, if any!