Always Choose your ‘A’ Game
As part of my desire to improve myself, I had enrolled for ePaD course run by Unnati in 2012. ePaD or Exploring Potential Achieving Dreams is a Self-Exploration Program as I call it that helped me realize what I must do and should do to achieve my goals.
Shri Shyam Sir who I also consider my Mentor was instrumental in making me realize what needs to be changed in my Attitudes, Behaviors and Habits.
There were many topics that were discussed in ePaD and I will, from time to time, touch on topics that I believe made a deep impact on my life. Topics included Habits, Attitudes, Affirmation, Visualization, Goal Setting & Tracking.
As you must have noticed, I have touched many topics mentioned above in my many blogs posts till now. Today I will touch upon on the topic of ABC of Leadership and what does it really mean?
What is A… B… C… ?
When I say ABC of Leadership, A is Accountability, B is Blame and C is Casual. So ABC is the different type of attitude that Leaders take up when confronted with a situation.
C is a Casual Attitude that I take up when I have a false notion that my interference will not change the outcome of a situation.
B is a Blame Attitude that will force me to find out a scape goat of a terrible situation that I could have done something about.
A is for Accountable Attitude that really makes me take ownership of situations and puts the responsibility on my shoulders as far as the outcome is concerned.
I have seen in my own life how depending on the situation whether in business or personal life, I take up usually B or C attitudes.
Importance of ABC…
I realized how important this concept is when I saw how unconsciously I was choosing mostly B or C Attitudes. These Attitudes became visible in both family and professional life.
When my son Tarush, who is just 5 years old got specs, I blamed everybody from Tarush to my Family for not paying attention to him and giving him access to mobile. This also put a lot of pressure on my family life and created an atmosphere of mistrust.
Putting across an example of how I chose Casual attitude, there was an audit for my factory premises and I was totally confident of my performance. However, I was not paying too much attention to our housekeeping department.
I knew our housekeeping was not our strength but since it fell in the purview of another person, I chose to remain casual about it. The Audit began and I was specifically asked by the visiting auditor to do better housekeeping. Although not shocked, it really made me think why I chose to not take responsibility of the housekeeping.
In both the cases, I chose an attitude which was detrimental to my life, both professional as well personal.
Choosing Your ‘A’ Game
I have a firm belief that I must always always always choose my ‘A’ Game. By ‘A’ Game means Accountable mentality, ‘A’ mindset.
If I had chosen an ‘A’ mindset, I would have acted aprior to my son getting attached to mobile. If I had taken his responsibility, I would be attentive to his actions and would have acted in advance in by instilling positive habits and activities in his routine.
By taking responsibility of my organization, I would not have left the housekeeping of my organization to chance or destiny. By becoming accountable, I could have been proactive in introducing systems and processes that might have made my organization excel at housekeeping.
Choosing my ‘A’ Game is important since it will have a trickle down effect in family as well as organization. If I will be more accountable, I will display an integrity in my thoughts, words and actions. This might lead my team to also become more accountable instead of passing blame to other person or environment.
By becoming Accountable, I will choose to be proactive and not try to leave anything to chance. I will also predict the likely outcomes of my decisions and wont be blindsided by unpleasant results.
Choices
I realized that we all are the way we are because of the choices that we made in the past. Good choices of picking up an Accountable attitude will go a long way in leading a satisfying life.
However, bad choices of picking up a Blame or Casual attitude will lead to constant bickering in personal and professional life, hampering growth, creating a negative atmosphere and overall unfulfilled life.
Just like I can choose to be Happy or Sad is personal choice, similarly choosing to live a life full of accountability will also help me realize my true potential.
It is definitely not easy and has put me in a lot of tough situations, I can safely say that learning from those situations is much better than enjoying in peaceful situations arising out of choosing a Blame or Casual attitude.
End Note
Choosing an Attitude of Responsibility helps me take control of my goals. By becoming Accountable, I do not leave anything to chance. By becoming accountable, I proactively take steps to remove situations that I might fail in.
I will not say that I have always chosen ‘A’ but I can safely say that I consciously try to improve my chances of taking an ‘A’ attitude. Now since I am more disposed to making an ‘A’ decision, it has come in my communication with my team.
I have realized that slowly I have come to understand when a person is taking an ‘A’ stand or whether he is staying safe by going with a ‘B’ or a ‘C’.
I have been greatly benefited by choosing ‘A’ attitude. I do not consider it wise for anybody to stick to ‘B’ or ‘C’ when the best available Game is ‘A’.
I do hope you would have loved reading this article as much as I have loved writing it and sharing my experiences. Do write in your thoughts to me.
‘Always choose your ‘A’ Game’
~RG~