*Am I Turning Into Him?*

Am I turning into him? I hope not because I despised his style of management in all honesty but the question is, am I turning out to be just like him?

Staff: He requires the laptop so that he can work from home and also over the weekend to catch up on the new tool and also the workload.

Me: That’s not a strong enough justification for it. If he needs to work over the weekend he can come into office and if he can’t finish his work on time, than he should stay back till he is.

“…he should stay back till he is”.

That is the very statement that I despised whenever he uttered it. Does it mean that if he can’t finish the job during office hours means that my resource and schedule planning was poor?

Have I turned into someone so obsessed with deadlines that I hardly care about my staff anymore, just like him? Have I lost regard for the fact that people do have lives outside of work too?

Then again I said to myself, “Wait a minute, I’ve been in this position before. I’ve had my boss tell me the same thing and it turned out for the better”.

The fact of the matter is I’m not like everyone and not everyone is like me. No one is the same with the other. The challenge of leading people is that each one is an individual, no one way of handling one person can be used for the next.

Leading people is a niche, not everyone has what it takes to lead people. I’m not blowing my own trumpet but I think I can do it. I’m still learning though and every time I get a new staff it’s a whole new experience to me.

I was told by the very person that shaped my career once, his words still echoes in me till this very day. “Stop looking at how I manage people, problems and issues. This is my style born out of my personality. You have to figure out what is your way of doing things”.

How true were your words indeed Khai. It took me awhile but I'm beginning to understand what you were trying to drill into my brain all those years ago. Thanks for being patient with what I'm sure the most stubborn of your protege's.

I sure do hope I can be a better leader than him, I really do. He had his strengths I’m sure but maybe I didn’t see it. I hope I could be a leader just like my late dad, he was feared but at the same time respected and loved by his staff.

Am I turning into him? I hope not.

Cheers!!! :D