CHALLENGES FACED BY A LEADER

“A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way and shows the way!” – John C. Maxwell

With the role come the responsibilities. The major your role becomes, the more you’re accountable for. The same comes with the tag leader. No matter how good you have done, one mistake or failing to fulfill one responsibility, you’re done! We just talk about the charisma, the leverages and the popularity of a leader no wonder at how small level but we fail to recognize the never ending struggle of an individual to achieve and maintain the tag of a leader.

A leader has many challenges to be fulfilled and among them the most important and difficult one is to instill confidence in the people. One can teach you to be confident, but cannot spoon-feed you. So what is the secret behind leaders instilling confidence among people? What a leader do, the followers follow due to which it becomes essential for every leader to cover the deep down insecurities and portray the bold and kind face. Telling people that they are worth something, inspiring them, appreciating their work and motivating them from time to time help them to feel good about themselves which indirectly fills them with confidence and a better motivation to work through a difficult situation.

One might think that a leader never criticizes but it is not true. No one is perfect and if a leader is not correcting the followers, he cannot be termed as a leader. Although the way they correct is very different from a person who pertains a superiority complex. A leader will always take help of constructive criticism while dealing with mistakes of people. They will never use a bitter language and will always be open to help the people working with them.

A leader has many roles. A leader speaks for all so he or she has to make sure that none of the followers are offended or left out. Another thing is to see that the work pattern being followed is right or not. A leader is accountable for everything. If something good happens, he or she has to answer. If something bad happens, he or she has to take the responsibility. It seems easy to become leader but when the question arises about the responsibility that comes tagging along; one can feel the contribution of a leader to its team or to a company. A leader is someone that can see in you the potential that other’s can’t.

In the words of Dwight D. Eisenhower  - “Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.”  

WAYS TO IDENTIFY YOUR SKILLS

There is something different in every person; all it takes is to reveal that unique thing!

Do what you love is a common statement but how to find where a person’s interest lies. When a person give his entire life to something, a job or a business, the basic motivation to keep going is whether their interest lie in that particular domain. Without interest one can stretch for few years but what after that! The day will come when they will quit. A person can achieve to his potential and more only in the field he is interested in. as Albert Einstein said, ‘Every person is a genius but if you judge a fish with its ability to climb a tree, it will spend its entire life believing that it’s stupid.’

Now the big question here is how to identify our most valuable skills and then use them to build our carrier. First thing that could be done is to look for stuff or analyze the things you like and dislike since your childhood and unknowingly you are just doing them in order become stress free from work pressure. For example some people writes, some reads, some have a knack for painting etc. When we make our interest the base of carrier building, we will surely soar higher and higher.

Another thing to find where your interest lie is to seek advice and guidance from a consultant. These days in schools there is a great system where before a student has to opt for the subject, a personality test is conducted in order to make the students know their interests and the carrier line they must opt for rather running in a sheep herd like all. This strategy must be applied even when a person is opting for a job or business. This can make it easy for people to analyze where they actually belong to.

There is another reason that even after knowing where their interest lie is the fear of failure, fear of society. Our society is not at all supportive for the people who have the courage to build something different from the rest. The lack of support from family becomes a major issue for many people who do not opt for carrier line according to their interests.

Nothing comes easy. One has to fight for what they want. Nothing is going to be served to you on a platter. You have to cook from the raw material. The fact states, that the percentage of people who are successful today are successful because they chose a carrier line according to their interest and not because of some external pressure.

Lastly, "Most of us have two lives. The life we live and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands Resistance." -Steven Pressfield

FIVE PRACTICES TO GROW FROM ENTRY LEVEL TO PROFESSIONAL

There is a difference between an experienced and a fresher. Experience matters in every field. It teaches you many things. We spend our days talking with experts, reading the latest research, and leading discussions and training sessions worldwide, in all types of organizations. And one thing we’ve learned is that there a few basic practices any employee, even recent graduates, can do to cultivate a fantastic career.  Time and again these practices are shown to accelerate your climb to the top.

Ask more questions – Years of school have already taught you that there are no stupid questions. As you jump into your career, this mantra still rings true. Regardless of how thorough your orientation and information packet are, it’s unlikely your employer will cover all you need to know. You won’t be able to fully understand team dynamics, objectives, and office culture unless you ask for clarification when something is unclear. 

Find a mentor - We recommend that every new hire seeks out a mentor at their organization, but this is especially crucial for recent grads. Whether it’s a senior leader in your department or even your funny coworker one cubicle over, you’ll find your professional world expands vastly once you find a great mentor. But, be mindful of your choice—negative people, will hinder your growth, while positive and supportive people will boost you. Not only will your mentor be the perfect sounding board for your questions, but they will also introduce you to new contacts, expand your business understanding, and impart their knowledge and skills. Many of the greatest entrepreneurs and leaders credit their success to a fantastic mentor who shared their insights. One day, you may too.

Work smarter - Conventional workplace advice tells you to be the first to arrive and the last to leave at your new job to demonstrate to the team that you’re dedicated from day one. But we’ve written about conventional advice and why it's often wrong. So instead of working harder, aim to work smarter. 

Get in the thick of the action- The majority of award-winning work happens when people step out into the world where their work is utilized. So if you want to take your next project from good to great, follow this simple piece of advice: go see for yourself. Witness how your product, process, or solution is used—and by whom. Discover its ease of operation, benefits, and possible shortcomings.

Communicate clearly - In work as in life, most misunderstandings can be avoided by better communication. Learn to communicate clearly and concisely—whether you’re writing a department-wide email or leading a small meeting. Ask close friends or family members for feedback on how you can improve at your communication skills before you arrive in the office and take their words to heart. 

ASSERTIVE COMMUNICATION

“Assertiveness is your ability to act in harmony with your self esteem without hurting others!”

People confuse with three words, assertive, passive and aggressive. We call a person assertive when he takes stand for others and his individual rights in a manner that does not offend anyone and he is able to justify his point in a very calm and composed manner. We call a person passive when he says yes to the entire extra burden even though he does not want to take it. Passive people do not take stand for themselves and rather choose to suffer than being assertive. The third category is the worst and called aggressive. We call a person aggressive if he is only considerate about his well being and wish fulfillment and does not bother about anyone else. Assertive communication is taught at the time of training in order to polish the way of communication of an employee so he could react accordingly at the workplace without being misunderstood.

Now the question arises upon the need to be assertive or need to indulge in an assertive communication. Assertive communication is based on mutual respect. It’s a diplomatic way to keep your opinion in such a manner that it does not bother anyone else and you get your work done. Standing up for you and being aware about the rights is not bad. In fact, this portrays your bold and strong character. No one can take you just for granted. People value you and appreciate you for what you are.

This is quite clear that why aggression is not good. Keeping your personal interest above everything and making things happen that could benefit you by hook or crook is not a healthy way of making things happen. But what is the problem with being passive. Passive people hardly have any say in important matters. They hardly protest or react on anything happening to them whether justified or not. They are shy, cocooned in their own shell and easy-going. They are submissive to the opinion others and do whatever is told them to do. Being passive is not a good thing. When a person is casual with whatever is being done, he portrays an image where he will always be treated less important. People disregard passive people’s needs and desires. In simple words, they are taken for granted. Therefore being passive or submissive is also not the option.

Applying assertiveness into the way we communicate will surely bring the difference. When people will know your opinion, your ideas and your desires are important for you, they will never cross the line by treating you low or inferior. There is a very thin line between being assertive and being aggressive. Being assertive is valuing your opinion and also keeping regards with others opinion. Being aggressive is to proclaim your opinion to be superior and most important of all.

Here, at COMzen Technologies, we train our employees to be assertive while communicating which help them to grow and work things out in a better way.

DAILY HABITS THAT WILL IMPROVE YOUR LIFE

Everyone wants to live each day in a way that it adds up to an individual’s achievement but wanting and actually making that happen has a wide bridge that creates a major difference among those who have made their lives fruit-bearing and those who are still waiting for things to happen on their own. Here are some simple daily habits that must be followed to reveal our true personality.

The first habit is to diminish the focus on how to make something happen and sharpen on making that happen. Over thinking or over analyzing kills creativity and causes fear of failure and some people are ashamed to face the truth so they better choose the path of procrastinating. Low self confidence and will power leads to this stage where a person wants to do but thinks that he or she cannot do it. Therefore, instead of analyzing to an extent that you actually kill the spirit with which you first started, it’s better to make things happen and trusting your own self that you can do it.

For people who thinks that they don’t know their true self, this is a must habit. Writing about how you feel and tracking your emotions will make you more confident and strong. Not only just emotions, sharing your views, your opinion help you to open up. Writing is a great habit. As it is said, pen is the most powerful weapon of all times.

To travel ahead of time and to gain more and more knowledge, one must read. Reading takes you to an entirely different world of possibilities. The more you read, the more you know, the more you know, the wiser you become. Reading must be a daily habit. The type of books you are reading today will decide what kind of person you will be in future.

We are living in a world that is running really fast and to cope up with it we are running even faster. But at certain point we become so tired of everything, we hardly know what we are doing and why. We even don’t know where we actually belong. We need some time to relax, time that could be devoted to our own personal development and time to know our true conscious. Meditation is the word. One must meditate on a daily basis. Meditation increases concentration and the work productivity bar also. It soothes our inner soul, body and mind and helps us in keeping calm and dealing with things in a better way.

Technology is good to a particular extent but over using these gadgets do us no good. There must be a dedicated time each day when you free yourself with this vicious circle of gadgets. Go out for a walk, take rest, sing a song or talk to people. It will help you to grow better.

Remember, some people are more successful than others not because of a coincidence but because of the way they do things.

HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR SKILLS TO BOOST YOUR CARRIER

“The only person you need to be better than is the person you were yesterday!!”

Life calls for continuous growth. The one that becomes tired of learning and improving becomes old whether in twenties or eighties. A person never gets old from heart and mind. To strike better opportunities or to boost up your carrier you need to grow, learn, improve and become better than what you used to be. Remember every single second counts! You get better with time and there is a contribution of every move no matter how small or how big it was in making you the person you are now. There are many things that could be easily practiced in order to experience a carrier hike.

The most important among all is improving your skill set. Every domain requires certain polished skill-set. Analyzing our growth on that particular skill set will make us aware of where we stand and will also decide our requirement to improve to have better carrier match. One can enhance the skill set by scoring some extra certification in the respective domain or may be applying for some courses that could build up the skill-set required.

Every person has their own strengths and weaknesses. Focusing on our strengths and trying to use the strengths for becoming better, that is working on the strengths or the best talents one possess in generating better outputs can also help in boosting up the carrier. Some people also have a quality to use their weaknesses in such a way that it actually starts becoming their strength.

There is another thing that might be a barrier in your carrier hike and that is choosing wrong carrier options. There are thousands of people who do not know where their true interests lie. They become a participant of the herd of sheep’s. Getting to know yourself and analyzing what you really want to do will be helpful. Once you are on the right path designed for you, you can never miss a carrier hike. As said by Albert Einstein, ‘Everybody is a genius! But if you judge a wish with it is ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid!!’

Another thing that can help is researching. Doing your own research will help you gaining knowledge about the respective domain you want to work in or already working in. People often ignore this part but research helps you in keeping updated with the trending news related to the respective carrier domain.

Lastly, calculating every move before implementing. Analyzing the present scenario and the future scope of your carrier domain will help you take wise decisions. Knowing what you might need in future and getting prepared for it will obviously benefit you in the long run. Carrier hikes are not that difficult as they seem. If the people chose their right carrier path and keep updating themselves according to the trends there is nothing that can stop them from achieving carrier growth.

WAYS TO INCREASE BOTTOM LINE OF THE BUSINESS

“The important thing about outsourcing or global sourcing is that it becomes a very powerful tool to leverage talent, improve productivity and reduce work cycles.” - Azim Premji

The concept of outsourcing has gained popularity in India from the last decade. India is considered to be the hub of outsourcing because the caliber and skilled youth present here contributes to the major part of highly skilled employable population and the cost per person is also low. Improving the bottom line of the business or in simple words overall profit is the major goal of all companies and the basic path to follow to achieve this goal is getting the things done by right people.

We can understand the above mentioned point through this example. Hiring a professional for some particular domain (at high cost location like US) might be more expensive than hiring three professionals (at low cost locations like India) for the same work. If we talk in terms of overall productivity, productivity of three persons will naturally be higher than one. Outsourcing works on the same approach. Instead of hiring a professional at high cost locations for the company, companies outsource their work to countries like India that possess pool of skilled professionals with less overall cost.

The bottom line of the business depends on many factors such as Return on Investment, Cost per Acquisition etc. If we do not analyze or manage our money investment schemes, we will drag ourselves in a pit of great loss. Return on Investment means to analyze before investing in something that whether it will generate a minimum desired profit or not. Sometimes we invest without analyzing and later we realize that our investment is bearing no return or less return that overall adds up to the loss for the company.

Cost per Acquisition means what minimum cost will be required for a certain resource and will that be useful to us or not for example acquiring traffic for the social sites of the company. The common approach is to spend more on acquiring traffic rather using the already acquired traffic for the purpose we need. In this way, you will reduce the cost per acquisition and using the already acquired traffic to the full potential will increase the bottom line of the business.

Another thing that must be kept in mind while focusing on increasing company’s bottom line is the market strategy. There is always a different market for different types of services a company has to offer. To target the correct audience will always help increasing the bottom line of a business.

Lastly in order to increase the overall profit of the company people who are dedicated and generate quick and good results must be hired. Overall profit of a company is directly proportional to the productivity of the people working in a company and to get sustainable profit companies can outsourcing their work to low cost locations which also offers quality services.