Leadership at work can sometimes become a really personal affair! In someways similar to what a family is at home. What leaders need to realize is that leadership is beyond you! No, I do not literally mean that the skill and art of leadership is beyond your abilities. That would be just rude, if not completely wrong of me to be so judgmental of you without even knowing you! Instead, I mean that if you want to be successful at leading, not bossing, then you need to start thinking beyond yourself.
My father worked for an Indian company. Being founded in a country that is rich in culture and values, it was only natural for the leadership to decide take the concept of “parivar” and make it the corporate culture. Parivar in English means family.
The culture of Parivar gave me a strong feeling of to belong. In my Utopian world that feeling just felt right. I imagined the culture to be a place where laughter was viral and still people maintained a really productive environment. I imagined a culture where everyone was looking out for one another and spreading the feeling of a safe haven; an environment where you can get creative and not worry too much about the consequence of failure. An environment where you can challenge the status quo and bring about a change with little red tape.
A corporate parivar is a tightly knit group of people who have come together to achieve a common purpose while maintaining a strong bond. In a parivar we do not rush to the conclusion of discarding our own because of a few faults that got highlighted in one or two instances. Instead, we communicate these so called faults as opportunities to our members and coach them to success. In a parivar, we help each other in our developmental journey as the success of the parivar depends on the success of every member.
A leader has to be an artist of developmental innovation within others.
What Leadership Practice Makes A Strong Parivar?
A strong family is not the place where each individual works for himself or herself, rather, for each other. The leadership style that promotes the Parivar Work Culture is not found in a company that hires the most expensive talent and hopes to get the work done, instead it is found in a company where the culture demands the leaders to take on the challenge of mentoring and coaching their team members.
Much like a family, leaders need to try and get to know their team members so well that they are able to help the team members self discover their strengths. A leadership practice that helps team members to self discover their true potential is the way to foster a culture of parivar at work.
– Anant Agnihotri