Next time you feel someone is lucky; ask yourself

What differentiates people?

This is a blog for career professionals and individuals wanting to make something out of their life. The ideas mentioned herein are applicable equally to the upper-tier, middle-tier and to a large extent to the entry-tier people. This is not a political blog. So, I am not going to discuss political reasons in the examples given.

Recently, I was engaged in a conversation where one of the participants was lamenting that his peers & juniors were ahead of him despite him having more or better skills than them. His primary arguments were that he did not get equal opportunities and/or the others were ‘lucky’.

On the question of opportunities, I firmly believe that all one of us are presented with opportunities. We need to have the eye for them and act on them. We may or may not like the type of opportunity presented but opportunities do come every person’s way, always.

With this behind, let us discuss ‘others are lucky’ syndrome.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is often accused of taking credit for schemes launched by previous governments and in particular by Congress. The PM has acknowledged as much. The most recent example of this is successful of the passage of GST. Congress party in general and Mr. Chidambaram, in particular, cried sour for not receiving credit.

What is happening here? Why do people feel so? Why do we feel out of the race?

All of us face similar situations of varying nature in our professional lives. Many times; we seem to know the answers to questions raised but someone else has answered it; we have the same idea mooted by someone else; we seem to have similar skills but someone else is ahead of us in almost similar circumstances; and so on. The common rationalizations are he/she is a lucky b**t**d, he/she is a boss-s****r, the boss is unfavorable to me, this company / the person is political, and so on.

I am not going to discount any of these rationalizations. Maybe, they are true.

My philosophy has been fairly simple – if I am unable to influence after reasonable attempts over a reasonable period of time I won’t spend too much time thinking about it. So, for example, if your organization is political and you cannot play the politics look for another job or simply play to your strengths and so on.

Coming back to the moot question: what differentiates people?

Boldness (Courage) and Conviction are the two important differentiating traits between people.

Narendra Modi is bold enough to take an idea (schemes) to the next levels and with conviction. Equally, he was bold enough to withdraw/recoup when it is not working (remember, the amendments to the land acquisition bill he took on early in his tenure as PM and his inability to move forward).

We need to be bold enough to express ourselves and have the conviction to take it to the next levels. Equally, we need to bold enough to withdraw/admit failures. Being stubbornly bold is not a great idea. It is possible that one is bold but lacks conviction. It is, however, true that when we have the conviction, we tend to become bold.

“Courage is your risk appetite. It is shaped by your ambition. It poses the question, what consequences are you willing to accept for adopting the means to achieve an end.” writes K Ramkumar, Founder and CEO of Leadership Centre

Bold people or pack leaders, if one can call them so, generally have three other traits that are in play:

  1. Contextual reading and/or knowledge – (similar to say Big Picture) – They have a good sense of the context. They understand the circumstances better including the potential impact. Remember, that the same decision/idea/ response in two different situations will yield different results.
  2. A good sense of timing – They have a great sense of timing for their responses/decisions. They also have the required patience. Contextual reading skills improve their ability to time themselves well.
  3. These people have a Powerful intuition

All of the above can be developed over time. Risk appetite, however, is intrinsic.

Next time you feel someone – with same skills – is ahead of you; ask yourself if you can ‘afford’ to give the required responses, bear the consequences of your decisions, share your thoughts and ideas without the fear of rejection and most importantly have the courage to admit failures.

Great leaders also have strong execution capabilities in addition to the above.

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