Leader leading by example

A good leader is someone who can lead you by example.  Here is a story about one leader who influenced me.

In the starting days of my career, I have all the confusion and doubts about my career as any new hire would have.  Fresh out of college and being new to corporate world,  iam not habituated to work for long hours with patience to complete an assignment. I was honest, hardworking but fickle-minded and easily distracted. I didn’t have any long term goals at that time. I just wanted to earn, make my family happy, spend and enjoy.

This was the time I met a team lead for my first assignment. He seemed to be strict, explained all the terms and introduced me to other team members. He introduced me to different people or I can say experts in different fields whom I can contact for help in office. I felt welcomed to the team, started understanding the work and enjoying my time without any interest of improving my technical skills. I was improving on my work though.  

One day my lead suggested that I should improve my technical skills, network with other experts in the same field, read technical blogs, participate in technical debates, contribute in quality initiatives, explore new technologies, implement new ideas  and last , but not the least enjoy the work iam doing.  I have seen him doing all the above and he became my role model or a leader leading by an example. He participates in all kind of technical discussions in forums, guides other people to solve problems with his experience. He talks to all the team members, connect with them personally to improve their comfort levels and motivate them to work with collaboration. He recognizes flaws in the current process of software development and proactively suggests quality initiatives and best practices to improve the quality of software. He is open- minded and listens to every individual in the team for constructive feedback.

I feel fortunate to learn all the good qualities from him and use them in shaping my career. This made me grow as a real consultant and also a pragmatic lead in my career. Now, I will become another leader in action.

Until next time,

Image: jscreationzs / FreeDigitalPhotos.net