What makes leaders

Recently a three day workshop was organized in the state office on "what makes a leader." The basic proposition on which the entire discussion hinged was "are leaders born or made." "What distinguishes great leaders from merely good ones." In conducting this three day hands on workshop which involved a number of evaluative exercises, focusing on increasing one's level of self-awareness and understanding one's emotions, I focused on the "Covey time management matrix," "the 360 degree evaluation based on the seven emotional intelligence indicators" and the "Jungian personality types." 

It was a very interesting experience for me in trying out the 360 degree evaluation on the EI indicators (emotional intelligence)  and I do sincerely feel that I tried my best to make my team members peel apart the hardened layers of social conditioning in trying to understand their own emotional make-up and thereby how they act and react to different events and circumstances in their day to day life - understanding one's emotions, strengths and weakness, needs and drives and their effect on others. It was a lot easier for the team members than under normal circumstances as they have worked together for a sufficiently long period of time. The workshop also focused on the physiology of the brain - especially mirror neurons, spindle cells and oscillators and how they determine one's actions and reactions. Great leaders are those whose behavior powerfully leverages the system of brain inter-connectedness. The main point I wanted to drive in was that "emotional leadership isn't just putting on a game face every day. It means understanding your impact on others - then adjusting your style accordingly."

The "Jungian dichotomy" was used in evaluating one's personality type while the "Covey Matrix" revealed how effectively we spend our time in the course of a day - especially by realizing in which quadrant we are - true emergencies, personal pro-activity and power, fire fighting and waste.