Are you a successful leader, or are you an effective leader?

There must have been a point in your life, where you liked the leadership of a person, with an underlying reason that they take your opinion into consideration, or you often find that they agree to what you say. On the contrary, there may also have been an instance where you did not like the leadership of a person, given that they often disagreed with your viewpoint. Now if you flip the perspective, and if you were a leader, and if you wanted to be respected by your subordinates, would you do what your subordinates think is right? Or would you do what you believe would be the best for them and the organization, even if it diverges from what your subordinates want?

The Interesting thing is, what the organization would want, and what the employees would wish to do not coincide often.

The employees would rightly demand work-life balance in their work, whereas the organizational benefit would lie in the maximum amount of work.

The employees would want to experience autonomy in their work, in some cases that could be a threat to the organization, and the list goes on. So how does a leader, manage both of these?

A successful leader might rise through the ranks by creating an impression that both employees and executives are happy. They balance expectations and deliverables, which might mean neither work satisfaction nor executive contentment is maximized, but everyone is reasonably satisfied.

Depending on whether you want to be a satisfied organization or an achieving organization, you would need to choose a type of leader.

An effective leader is someone, who does not necessarily keep everyone happy in a workplace, but, is capable of correctly harnessing and leveraging the skills and opportunities of both the subordinates and the executives. An effective leader would know when to strive for higher and when to ease off, rather than maintaining a balance all the time.

The point of this article is to bring to light that a person who balances everything, may not be enough to achieve ambitious goals. Nobody has achieved greatness by maintaining balance, that is only done by being effective in what you do. Therefore, try to remember that your goal as a leader, is not to manage expectations and delivaries. It is to give the best possible direction to your subordinates and the organization.