Skip to main content

Leadership is about Adding Value and Top 10 Ways to Add Value

I just came back from an international convention attended by over 1,200 people.  Over a 3-days period, there were many discussions about leadership.  One person said that he was trained in leadership many years ago but now he needs refresher training.  Another said that many people are not trained in leadership and thus they were not as effective as desired.

 I was glad that nobody said that leadership is about having authority, title or expertise.  At least this organization of 54 years in existence has got the right understanding of leadership.  But I was surprised that nobody defined what exactly is leadership, which is strange because they spent so many hours discussing about leadership.  

 What's the best and most comprehensive definition of leadership?  It is Adding Value to People's Lives.  In this concept Adding Value includes Serving People.  So Servant Leadership is not one style of leadership, as what some people think, but one aspect of leadership.  Other aspects of leadership includes creating and maintaining order, changing people, making people happy, managing and administering effectively and being authoritative.

 Since Adding Value is what differentiates a leader from a non-leader, what exactly is adding value?  It is firstly not minus value, not maintaining value but simply add on, add and multiply value.  Whatever you do, do not just do something, add value in whatever you do. There are 10 ways that you can add value easily on a daily basis without costing money:
  1. Add Time.  Give people space.  Give people time.  Do not rush people unnecessarily.  Many people like to give people very short lead time and sit on it later, which is sinful.
  2. Add Life.  A leader does not add years to people's lives, but add life to people's years.  Add life means to add meaning and positive emotions to peoples' lives.  
  3. Add Happiness.  Happiness is pursued by everyone, and if you can make people happy, you are adding value.
  4. Add Peace.  Peace of mind, peace of body and peace of action.
  5. Add Money.  This is the most obvious, it's the Show-Me-The-Money thing.  Money includes non-monetary tangible benefits.
  6. Minus Waste of Time.  Help people to save money, like don't beat around the bush when raising issues.  Also, don't ask people to do things that have no purpose, which is just a sheer waste of time.
  7. Minus Suffering.  Everyone hates to suffer and a leader that can bring an end to suffering will be loved by all.
  8. Minus Unhappiness.  This is milder than suffering but is the tiny irritations and inconveniences that add up to unhappiness.
  9. Minus War.  Everyone hates war, and the biggest wars happening today are within ourselves.  It is the feeling of being torn between 2 things that are equally good. Like many people are torn between buying Samsung and Apple smartphones. 
  10. Minus Wastage.  The biggest wastage in this world is a waste of energy, which is comprised mainly of mental energy.  Why is it that we can spend hours doing charity services and don't feel tired but the moment we are engaged in fruitless arguments we feel tired straight away?  Mental energy is the reason. 
Of course there are other ways to add value but I would consider them to be sub-points of the above.  Like adding knowledge, adding ideas, adding comfort, minus confusion, minus discomfort and minus headaches.  

By Andy Ng, whose leadership courses had, since 2009, reached as far as Africa's Tanzania.  Details of courses like How to Be a Better Manager, How to be a High Performing Employee and Limitless Selling are found at here.  Related articles:
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What an Executive Coach and Business Coach Does

Post a Comment
Read more

The Secret Under the Mattress: Why would a 79-year Man Bet So Big on 4D?

It was 2007 when we discovered his secret. While moving my father’s mattress, we found them: heaps and heaps of Singapore Pools 4D tickets. They were stacked in layers, a paper trail of lost hopes. What shocked us most wasn’t just the volume, but the stakes. He wasn’t betting a few dollars for fun. He was punting hundreds of dollars per draw—nearly ten times a month. At the time, my siblings and I were furious. Our father was a 79-year-old retiree. We wondered, with a mix of anger and confusion, why a man at his stage of life would need to win such "big money." What was he going to do with the money? We saw it as a reckless habit, a sign of poor judgment in his final years.  Some of us would say, "If I were to give him money to buy 4D, why don't I use the money and buy 4D myself?  At least I have better discipline".  It has taken me two decades, and the experience of raising my own three grown-up children, to finally see the truth that was hidden under that matt...
Post a Comment
Read more

Head Bleeding when the Chair Falls

The Weight of Silence: What Were We Really Arguing About? My earliest memories are punctuated by the sound of shouting. In 1970, when I was barely 6 years old, I stood as a small witness to the fierce quarrels between my father and my late eldest brother Kah Yang (he passed away in 1971 at the age of 17). As I grew up, these contradictions became the soundtrack of our lives, usually centered around our family's shoe shop and clothing stalls in Chinatown. In the court of family opinion, the verdict was almost always the same: my father was "wrong." He was judged as a man who didn't fulfill his role, who wasn't "burdening" enough for the family’s success. But as I look back from the vantage point of 2026, I have to ask: Was that actually true? Let me finally put to rest what my father did right: the truths that were buried under decades of criticism: Unseen Labor: He worked grueling, long hours. I remember him hauling boxes of goods and equipment to set u...
Post a Comment
Read more