He proudly highlighted to me, which is justifiable, that his flag-ship product, a medical device, is the No 1 product in at least 3 comparative studies against global leading brands, conducted in Germany and 2 other countries. Naturally, I enquired whether, he has capitalised on this claim in Malaysia. The answer is "Yes'. My next question followed ... "so is it the No 1 in market leadership in Malaysia?" The answer is sadly "No".
His colleague, who happened to share in our conversation, then chipped in "... the market is tough, and my boss had also made joint visits with us to the customers and he understands the challenges. He sympathises with us ..."
Without hesitation and with empathy as well, I turned to my friend and said " ... as a boss, it is good to have empathy and sympathise with your sales force, but only within your heart. As a boss, your role is to challenge them to be creative and find solutions to perform better in order to gain market share. The boss has to play the right role of "asking for more" and to support wherever needed with relevant resources. Your people has to be hungry in order to gain more territory".
What is the wisdom here? There is a real need to understand and have written defined roles and functions within an organisation for each individual and work groups in order that the chain of commands, roles and functions are clearly defined, explained and owned. There must be mutual respect and clear line drawn between friendship, empathy and sympathy in achieving the Company Vision, Mission and Goals measured against agreed KPIs.
A boss wears many hats ... he must be a visionary, leader, manager, motivator, counsellor, coach, hard task master ... He continues to acquire and upgrade his skills, knowledge and technology ... he is bold and ready to venture out of comfort zone, he manages risks ... he leads his people with a strong hand whilst understanding their fear, weakness and needs ...
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