【《ChaseDream Career》十月刊选文摘录】之职场江湖“The Will to Lead ”

Career

【《ChaseDream Career》十月刊选文摘录】之职场江湖“The  Will to  Lead ”

    What motivates you to lead? I remember when was in high schooland college, I was never interested in taking leadership positions. I
was more focused on taking care of my own things- getting goodgrades, applying for internships, preparing for my GRE etc. I was under the mindset that in order to lead others, I have to be this"perfect" person who is smarter than everyone else, knows the answer to everyone's question and knows exactly what to do in everysituation. Looking back, it wasn't really because I didn't want to lead,I was afraid to lead. I didn't have any confidence that I would begood at it. So that was me when I was in college- only willing to takeon task where I knew 100% for sure I could excel at it.

  Well, my early analyst y ears at McKinsey completelychanged me. At McKinsey, I had no choice but tostep up and lead. Because I read and wrote both English and Chinese, I was working not only with international clients, I was also staffed to work with local Chinese/Taiwanese clients. Some analysts tried to stay as far from local clients as possible because they found it easier to work with international clients, whose expectations of consultants tended to be more in tune with where we could add values and where we could not, whereas local clients expected the consultants to do everything for them. In one three-month pilot project at a leading local bank,I was in charge of leading a team of eight clients.

    From interacting with the client leader, I quickly found myself been squeezed between her unrealistic high expectation of a “perfect” consultant who should know the answer to ever y questions and my own personal limitations. In addition, we were faced with the typical organization transformation challenges, such as frontline people reluctant to change and mid-level managers skeptical that new
systems could bring in mor e revenue.

    Having limited knowledge of the business, I had to rely on my team members to explain the technical terms and the complex credit approval process to me.I was afraid that I could not lead my team effectively. However, I soon discovered that although they had more than enough knowledge to get the things done, they lacked the analytical skills and mindset to synthesize all the information in one piece. Thus, I spent most of my time building my team’s problemsolving capabilities while encouraging them to maintain positive attitudes in difficult situations. I taught them how to build simple models to track daily pilot performance, how to solve and analyze problems in a more structured way, and how to motivate and coach frontline sales more effectively. At the same time, I noticed that criticism and skepticism
from other people at the bank was damaging team morale. I encouraged my team by reminding them of their values and importance. In addition, I set myself up as a role model, showing up every day with great passion and enthusiasm regardless how tired I was.

     Ultimately we met and surpassed our target by more than 50%; my commitment earned me respect fromthe client. From this experience I learned that I need not be the “perfect” leader to earn respect, what it really take is having the courage to admit that I do not know ever ything but still seek ways to be valuable; is being fully aware of my own limitations;is to really trust and suppor t others to achieve their personal goals and above everything, is being comfortable to let others take charge.
    So what does leadership mean to me? As my one of favorite professors at Haas once told me -leadership is about who you are to inspire others to act. It must begin with a deep understanding of oneself but end with others in mind. It's not an act of authority, rather,it's an act of love. After many years of leadership experience, I realized that love is what motivates meto lead.

领导的意愿

　   是什么促使你想要担任领导者的角色？还记得在高中和大学的时候，我对领导者的角色从来没有太大兴趣，而将大多数的时间花在自己的事情上——
努力念书保证成绩优异，申请实习，准备GRE 考试等等。我一直抱着这样一种想法，就是要想领导别人，你必须是一个“完美”的人，要比其他人都聪明，能回答所有人的提问，在任何情况下都应该知道怎么做。回想曾经，其实并不是我不愿意领导别人，而是我害怕去做个领导者。我对自己能胜任这一角
色毫无信心，这就是学生时代的我：总是只愿意去尝试我百分百确信自己可以搞定的事情。
　   但是，在麦肯锡最初做顾问的几年让我彻底改变了。在那里，我没有选择，只能大步向前去领导别人。由于中英文读写流利，我既需要与国际客户合作
开展工作，也会被安排同本地的大陆或台湾客户合作。有些顾问总是想尽办法避免与当地客户合作，他们觉得和国际客户一起工作要容易得多，因为国际客户对顾问这个角色的认知较为客观合理，而本地的客户则总是对顾问有过多的期待，希望我们对所有的业务细节都非常了解。在麦肯锡工作的第二年，刚25 岁的我在给一家本土的银行做的为期三个月的试点项目当中，就负责带领一组由八个客户组成的团队。在与客户方领导的交谈中，我很快发现自己被夹在她那不切实际的高期望与我自己有限的能力之间——她觉得我应该是一个“完美”的顾问，上知天文下晓地理。另外，我们面临着较为典型的机构转型的挑战，例如前线的人不愿意做出改变和调整，中层领导干部也怀疑新的体系能否带来更多的收入等等。
　　由于自身的商业知识有限，我必须依靠团队成员给我解释技术术语和复杂的信贷审批程序，所以很担心不能有效地领导团队。但是，稍后我就发现
他们虽然懂的多，完全可以把事情做好，却缺乏分析技巧，也没有意愿主动把散乱的信息有效地整合在一起。所以，我花了大量时间鼓励我的队员在困
境中保持积极的心态，培养他们解决问题的能力。我教他们如何建立简单的模型来追踪员工日常考勤，怎样通过更系统有效的方法分析解决问题，以及
怎样有效激励和训练一线销售。但同时，我也发现来自银行其他人员的批评和质疑很大程度上削弱了我们的团队士气。我鼓励员工认识到自身的价值和
重要性，并且以身作则，在每天都很疲惫的情况下依然保持着高昂的热情。

      最后我们达到并超过了当初所设定的目标的50%，我的恪守承诺赢得了客户的尊重。从这次的经验中我认识到，作为领导者，不是要通过展现自己
的“完美”来赢得尊重，而是要有勇气承认自己不是万事通，要全面认识到自己的短板，但仍然一直努力寻找其他有效的办法；同时要充分信任和支持
他人去实现他们的目标，然而最重要的，是要懂得在某些情况下适时退一步，让底下的队员发挥自己的优势。
　　那么，对我来说领导力究竟意味着什么呢？我在哈斯商学院最喜欢的一位教授曾经告诉我：“领导力就是以你自己的性格和特质去激励他人行动。”
要真正具备这一能力，首先应该对自己有深入的认识，但最后的落点应该是关注他人。这样做并不是出于树立威信，而是出于真正的关爱。经过多年的
领导经验，我发现爱是促使我领导的动力，那你呢？

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