Introduction

  • Are you a manager trying to become a leader?

  • Do you want to develop personal power or positional power?

  • Do you know how to develop personal effectiveness?

Every manager in an organization someday wants to become a leader of an organization.

But do you know, what matters the most in becoming a leader? It is ‘people skills’.

“The higher you go in an organization, 90% is people skills and only 10% is technical skills.”

If you want growth, develop your technical skills.

If you want to grow more, then develop your managerial skills.

For unlimited growth, develop your people skills.

So, you have to develop people skills for growing from managerial positions to leadership positions.

But before dwelling into how to develop ‘people skills’, let’s understand the difference between ‘personal power’ and ‘positional power’.

Personal Power vs. Positional Power

Let us take an example to understand the difference between personal power and positional power, and how to develop personal effectiveness from them.

For Example

Mahatma Gandhi had personal power while Rahul Gandhi has positional power. Similarly, Amitabh Bachchan has personal power while Abhishek Bachchan has positional power.

So ‘personal power’ means ‘ability to influence masses by virtue of their own charisma. On the other hand, ‘positional power’ means ‘deriving power from the position, and it may or may not influence the masses’.

Which kind of power would you like to develop?

According to Verse 3.21 of Bhagavad Gita:

yad yad acharati srestha tad tad evetaro janah

It means ‘जैसा जैसा, वैसा वैसा’, that is, ‘Leading by Example.’

To put it simply, the way a leader does anything, the followers will also do the same.

However, it is not necessary that followers will obey everything instructed by the leader.

Leadership is not by positional power, it is by personal power.

Leadership is not by instruction; it is by inspiration.

So, before developing interpersonal effectiveness, you need to work on increasing personal effectiveness to be a successful leader.

Below given are some of the tips on how to develop your personal effectiveness:

Tip #1: Don’t See Things Worse Than They Are

In an organization, various things happen around you, don’t see things worse than they actually are.

You don’t behave based on what has happened to you, you behave based on what you feel has happened to you.

When you feel bad about something, you behave badly. When you do so, it creates a Negative Cyclic Reciprocation.

When you feel negative, you deal negative.

Tip #2: Try to See Things as They Are

When you try to see things as they are, you give benefit of doubt to a given situation. This, in turn, enables you to see things with a newer perspective. So,

When you change the way you look at the things

The things you look at they change

For Example

If you clicked pictures of a mountain, ocean, or a building and the picture taken is not looking good, then what you will do?

Do you shift the position of mountain, ocean, or building? No, you cannot.

You have to shift your vision to take a better picture. So, change your vision to look at things that are where the need arises to increase personal effectiveness.

Tip #3: Try to See Things Better Than They Are

When you see things better than they are, then you will behave better and develop people skills. It will also help you to develop great relationships.

Beyond a particular point, it is not your technical skills that help you grow; it is your people skills that help you grow. Hence you need to focus on increasing personal effectiveness, not positional effectiveness.

You have to feel better if you want to deal better.