Humility and assertiveness.... are they mutually exclusive?

Two of the very important traits of leadership are humility and assertiveness. How does one remain humble, polite, respectful in the normal circumstances, showing compassion to everybody, is something that puts people into league of admirable leaders. A question will always loom over whether being polite and humble is taken as a sign of weakness and whether people tend to ignore such individuals. I think that's where the power of being assertive comes into a great play and it boils down to how you handle both of them in equal measure without being taken for granted. Such leaders do not carry any ego and often call spade a spade.

One of the examples that I quote to my team many a times and am sure many of you would be remembering it as well. You may recall that chapter in Indian cricket when Greg Chappell, the then coach of Indian cricket team tinkered with Sachin Tendulkar and forced him to bat at # 4 and all the drama that ensued. I very clearly remember watching this on TV in India, Dhoni was in a press conference and one of the journalist asked him the question that where would he make Sachin bat? Dhoni, in his now famous captain cool style... said that it was not a matter at all and Sachin would bat at the position where Sachin would like to. What a great statement... with that he separated the ego of being the captain to the leader and putting the pressure on Sachin to decide what is in the best interest of the team... Such examples are great opportunity for us to separate ego and do what is in the best interest of the team!

Many times you as a leader will think or may be expected by your team, to know answers to all the problems that they may have... basically expecting you to be a super human, having all the panacea to the issues.... Is it practically possible? And that's where, the biggest challenge for each one of you as a leader is to know what is the composition of your team? Do you have people who are bright or smart, who become your consul with whom you can bounce ideas off at, who are not afraid to share a differing view to you with obvious pros & cons, who are willing to persist with the thought to convince you or get convinced otherwise, that you can go along with it.

I very vividly recall, my first few days as BGL in 2002, I walked into the room for the Monday morning meeting and had all the stalwarts of TCS GE in the room. The presence can be very intimidating and you need to think many times before you open your mouth to ask a question or suggest a different view. You are always worried that by doing it, you may offend them or be insulting. That's where the politeness to present your thought with a clear pro and con to them with assertiveness helped me. One thing that was very important is not to take an ego position of my way or no other way and the best outcome is to, either you get convinced why it is not a good idea or convince others on the same.

In my career, I had the opportunity to have some very bright people in my team but sometimes, they lacked that openness or flexibility of mind, to give a long thought on other's ideas... mull over them... improvise on them and have the interest of the team and organization above their individual pride or idea. I am sure, in your life, you may have had many experiences that I am looking forward to hear and learn...