You admire him, want to be like him but still there is something about him that makes you say "Ohh he is rude and arrogant !" Well that is the feeling I had about one of my leads.
Well let me describe him to you...
When I was in the interview process for the firm where I work.. there was this guy who took my interview. He was extremely meticulously dressed, extremely confident looking and he had this wierd kind of thing in him which makes you feel nervous. Anways, then he started grilling me about my previous experience etc etc. He was really intelligent and quick in making out whatever I knew and whatever I didn't. His speaking style was peculiar, giving each word excess of stress, as if thinking twice before speaking each word he uttered. Also there were lot of phone calls that were interviening our discussion, which told me that he was really sought after by lot of people in his team. All in all he seemed like a really important person in this team, and his overall personality commanded a lot of respect.
Well then I was selected for his team, and now I was a part of the same team. He was a really important person of the team. Whatever he said was listened to without any questions... You tend to immediately get impressed by such personalities.. Accounting to my general knowledge about sunsigns, he seemed to be one of Taurus,Leo or Virgo... These are dominating and influencing personalities, they would have as many admirers as detesters... Usually I don't get along too well with these.... anyways... then as time passed I started feeling that even though this guy has got a lot of talent, but due to his rude looking attitude, people don't get along with him too well...
This was a general feeling that was growing in our team about this lead... Later on after his promotion we felt that now he didn't even care if anybody is hurt due to his behaviour.. So we kind of lived with it, that he is going to be like that only and we can't do anything about it... This was the time of high pressure when people were working really hard for the project, putting in 16-18 hours daily, working day in and day out... This lead of ours was always one step ahead and working harder and faster than anybody could ever.. sleeping just for 2 hrs in night, coming to office sharp at 9 o clock before any of us.. We started feeling that he is doing this on purpose, so that we should also follow the trend.. anyways this was all getting too irritating for the team... he was taking up all the work upon him and we were just feeling like his personal assistants working on small , petty issues which crop up here and there... We guys even started spending more and more time on Tea breaks and evening snacks... This continued for a good 2 months... After the development of the project was complete.. we all had some time under our hands..
Our lead, sent everyone an individual mail for feedback... I thought lo ! Now we are gonna listen a lot of crap from him... Everybody was trying to avoid this feedback session... not knowing what would be the contents... Everytime he came to us, we excused giving work as one of the reasons... Then one day he offered one of us for a small Bear session... It was reluctantly accepted by our team member..
Once Daaru went in, frustration came out.. We had totally misunderstood the feedback session, it wasn't a feedback for us, instead the lead was expecting some feedback about how he was behaving, conducting himself and leading the team. We were all shocked ! The guy who gave the first feedback, said that the lead was in a really nice listening mood, he listened to all his complaints and suggestions, noted them down on a notepad and promised to work upon them. This was a reallly nice jesture that we all appreciated.. It was my turn then, and everybody was then looking forward to their sessions... Mine was a long two and a half hour session where I explained him where he seemed rude and went against the teams' cause... He was admirably noting down even the smallest points... he was citing for incidences which made us feel the way we felt for him... and then was also giving his side of the story...
One such incidence, where he scolded on of our most senior members for not delivering work on the predecided date. This really made us wonder, that if such a senior member is being scolded then we would all be humiliated in similar way in future... this had really made us all uncomfortable...
Many a times the leads tend to put extra pressure on people to deliver the work on time.. they even expect to get it done without any mistakes... This expectation is justified to some extent if the people are vastly experienced... But still I feel that experience helps you to some extent, after that it is the natural ability of a person to cope up with situations like this and not everyone could come up with flying colours in such situations... To take a very simple example... I dn't have to tell you people about Sachin Tendulkar... he is vastly experienced and has conquered almost everything in cricket... Still people say that he hasn't played many match winning innings while chasing... whereas Yuvraj Singh, is although a kid in experience has been a tailor of many such innings.. it is just the mindset of an individual... some perform exceedingly well under pressure, others tend to crumble under it....
Anyways so I was talking about this lead who scolded one of our senior most members... I felt bad for him, infact everyone felt bad for him... I took this thing up with my lead... He clarified the matter, telling that even though it sounded like scolding to us, it wasn't one... He was in constant touch to this senior-most member and was helping him out in solving the issues that he was facing... he souned rude coz he wanted to timebox the meeting and thus kept on asking him what is the final date when they would deliver the module...
There were many such incidences... but this whole excercise of taking a feedback cleared lot of misunderstandings that we had in between... he realised that his tone of speaking was sounding rude... he did many more amendments in the way he conducted himself... and many some small things... All in all our respect for him suddenly grew many folds.
He is one guy who is brilliant in whatever he does, has an attitude which indicates that he has self-realization of his potential and at the same time he shows gratitude and is down to earth. He somehow maintains a perfect balance in these three seemingly different personality traits... He shows his attitude if need be, is down to earth to his colleagues, very supportive every time...
Hats off to this lead of ours.... He really tought me a thing or two apart from the technical knowledge that he has.... and yes he is a Virgo :)
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