Say the word ‘leadership,’ and most of us would feel like enough is enough. It is hard to say anything new about leadership except the fact that it is a determinant for the success or failure of any institution. Despite the abundance of knowledge on how to become a good leader, we routinely see leadership blunders around us. For entrepreneurs, this is a subject you should take to heart.
In an interview with FS, we asked Kazi Food Industries CEO Tanvir Haider Chaudhury his thoughts on leadership and what can people do to become effective leaders in organizational settings and here is the result of our conversation. One of the most important jobs of a leader is dealing with people. Inspiring them. Showing them path and direction. The most effective way to lead humans is through telling believable stories. That makes that most important job of a leader: storytellers.
“The word “leader” automatically constitutes the leader of men or a leader of people. And men meaning the human race. So it means that you can motivate people.
Taking a page out of Yuval Noah Harari’s “Sapiens,” he says that the way in which we are different from the other species is that we can gossip and create myths. The myths might include the religions, the nationalisms, and nationalities, the great companies, etc.
People argue about who’s superior, and they refer to themselves as “We are the best” and so on. People who support a football club say we are the best. Why this “we”? They have nothing in common, so to say. That is because they have created a story and a myth which connects them.
A leader has to be a compelling storyteller, who can create those myths. If you create the myth that Kazi Food Industries is the best place in Bangladesh to work in and if you’re a compelling storyteller, at some point people will start believing you.
People will buy into your stories, and people will recognize the fact that you believe in your stories. Hence, they will trust you.”
You can read our interview with Mr. Tanvir Haider here.
