Ownership – as an example of Leadership

“I am clueless, I need help” – Efficient boss

In this post I am probably diverging from the main topic of my blog; ‘How to be your own boss’. From last couple of days I was thinking, is there difference between a boss and a leader, and here I am putting all the thoughts which went through my mind while thinking on this.

My brother and Some of my friends work for world’s best technology companies and then I have friends in my college doing graduation with me. Now there is one common difference between my friends doing graduation and my friends working in technology companies that lead me to write this particular article. Most of my friends; including me want to be a boss but surprisingly most of my friends working for technology companies want to become leaders; no one stated this but I did fell this.

I was very confused how to explain the differences and what types of examples I should give, so simply lets proceed and see where this discussion ends.

Everything in this world is make up of building blocks, you can have many building blocks but in final you have one structure. Structure defines the final behavior but building blocks define everything else; say success and failure of the structure which also means that each building block have responsibility towards every aspect of the structure.

So where in all this fits Leaders and Bosses?

What I learnt from my friends in technology domain is that they ask for help, then they learn and they teach; all while being leaders. There definition of Leader is someone who takes responsibilities; not necessary make decisions like a Boss. For them a Boss needs leaders to make correct decision, if a boss only have people working under him/her that’s not going to see success. This really took me off guard, I never thought about this, yes I know boss needs people to make decision but should they be leaders; now I think yes.

So who are leaders, I suppose people who take responsibilities and actually deliver are leaders; please share your though on this. One of my friend talk about Leaders as being Low maintenance people, I am not able to understand fully what he want to say but I will defiantly work on this Low maintenance and High maintenance way of doing work.

Below are some examples of leader which I learnt:

-          I am clueless, I need help - They are open to their inability and ready to learn from anyone.

-          I don’t know what’s going on – They never think what would other’s think about them.

And below are some examples of people who do not qualify as leaders:

-          Its not my fault – busier in playing blame game.

-          Withholding bad news – they fears a lot from failure.

So guys above really made me think a lot, I want to be leader or I want to be boss. I talked with my friends about how they work and that is why I am able to find a difference in a Leader and a Boss. I am not closing this article with just above writing, above is more of an introduction to a wider range of discussion. Well what I learnt is that we must be first successful leaders before becoming successful bosses?