Tag: university

Watch out, I’m the pilot

If you weren’t afraid of failure, what would you do differently?

Love this question, such a simple answer for me. If I wasn’t afraid of failure I’d train to be an airline pilot. I know I’d fail miserably in real life at it, and it probably wouldn’t be such a good thing for you as paying passengers, but wow, it would be one hell of a flight for me. I’m a bit scared of flying you see…

It would probably be your last flight, but I guess that’s why we always have a fear of failure, as in truth you only want a super confident individual in such a position of trust.

As an aside, we should never be afraid of failure, it’s always disappointing to fail, however it’s one of the ways that we learn to avoid future potential failures. It’s hard when you fail a task, but you are never a failure, you won the biggest lottery of your life when you were born. The odds of you getting to this point in life and reading this post are apparently an eye watering 1 in 400 Trillion.

Refer to this post I won the lottery…that day to see what I am going on about.

You’re most definitely never a failure. You’re always an achiever, a pupil of the university of life.

Happy days all…

Not a University degree

What makes a good leader?

Sorry if that title upsets a few but that’s exactly how it is in my view. I’m in a business where we actively take on graduates who have come from universities who instantly come into these roles where many years experience is normally the requirement, prior to proceeding in that role.

I’m not knocking the student, but just because you’ve been in study for a number of years and now have a degree in political history, this does not help you in an engineering rich environment. It’s wrong. A leader needs life experience, and I think it is unfair to place an individual with no such experience in a role that needs this expertise along with long gained trust. They need to wait a while, get comfortable and get a few years experience under their belts.

I guess this is my companies fault for pretty much setting these individuals up to fail, but to be honest my company is pretty good at doing this with anyone it employs.

Apparently, and depending on where you search there are a number of traits that make a good leader, here are just five that I believe to be the basic qualities required.

  • Calmness
  • Clarity
  • Objectivity
  • Empathy
  • Decisiveness

I’d also add to that, “Common sense” you can be the brightest button on the earth but have not a single ounce of common sense. I have this in my own family circle it’s not a thing that can be taught, it’s a life learning event, some people have quite a bit of it still to do. It will come with age and experience.

That said we will always assist individuals parachuted in to these roles, however it can be hard on the individual and sometimes tough for them personally. So let’s expand the above list now to seven by adding these two further traits and calling it a day.

  • Common sense
  • Experience

I’ve experienced this now in excess of thirty years within my role. In that time I have had many Managers but I can count the good leaders on two fingers of one hand.

Anyone can be a manager, absolutely anyone it’s just an excuse to throw extra work and responsibility at someone with little remuneration, but only a rare few can be a good leader.

Have a peaceful and pleasant day.