Mehrzad Ferdows’s speech on leadership
Mehrzad Ferdows, a leading entrepreneur, advisor, investor and industrial Engineering graduate from University of Southern California has given speech at a conference held in Dubai about leadership style. Mehrzad Ferdows stated that the primary motivation for leadership is the desire to serve. Mehrzad Ferdows continued that leadership by paying attention to others and high ability to serve them, emphasizes service to others and sacrifice conflict of interests for the benefit of others so that people have more wisdom, authority and health, and the people themselves they become serving leaders. Mehrzad Ferdows put it further that servant leadership process begins with a natural feeling in which the person wants to serve first and then, with a smart choice, becomes eager to lead people. As it turns out, this person is different from someone who is just a leader, and the difference is clear from the fact that the serving leader first addresses the basic needs of the people.
Valuing people and paying attention to people:
Mehrzad Ferdows contributed that servant leadership respects the equality of human beings and seeks individual development in the organization. Thus, servant leadership is the understanding and action of the leader in such a way that he puts the interests of others before his own personal desire and interest. Therefore, in servant leadership, the leader must have a set of mindsets that are based on valuing people and paying attention to people. The leader’s focus in this style of leadership is on individuals and followers, and the leader must pursue his personal interests. Servant leadership has great power and potential to improve organizational leadership. A serving leader is highly motivated to focus on the needs of his followers and puts serving them at the heart of his work. Servant leadership is understanding and acting in such a way that the leader prioritizes the interests of others over his personal desire and interest. Servant leaders believe that serving others is the most glorious and best reward for leadership. The application of servant leadership is related to its fundamental role in “trust building education”. Mehrzad Ferdows stated further that trustees who act like service leaders can create organizations that have high efficiency and quality. Another application of servant leadership is its deep role in “communication leadership organizations”.
Mehrzad Ferdows elaborated that leadership style or behavior is the techniques used to influence and direct the activities of others. He defined leadership as the behavior of the individual, when he directs the activities of the group towards the achievement of the goal. On the other hand, a person’s leadership style is a pattern of behavior that a person shows when he tries to influence the activities of others as he sees it in the eyes of others. Leadership and its specific style are important for all organizations in order to achieve their goals. Because leadership is a key factor in improving organizational performance, the success or failure of the organization depends on the effectiveness of leadership and leadership style at all levels. Mehrzad Ferdows continued that optimal leadership should pave the way for directing employees’ efforts to achieve the organization’s goals. Without leadership, the link between individual goals and organizational goals may be weakened and broken. This can lead to an unfavorable situation in which individual work is done only to achieve micro-goals and at the same time, organizational performance declines and the organization loses its efficiency and adequacy. Appropriate leadership practices vary depending on how long each employee has been in office and what type of environment the organization is in terms of stability and instability. In fact, by playing a role model that reflects the values of the organization, and using different styles, leaders can have a greater impact on creating a sense of empowerment in staff and improve the quality of their performance. Because by empowering staff, they feel that the organization values and values their work. Employee performance is a set of employees’ general satisfaction with the activity environment, type of responsibility, human relations, organizational relationships and the amount of job and organizational contexts. Attention to human resources along with the use of new methods, reconstruction of past structures and optimal use of potential and actual facilities, are among the success factors of the organization’s goals and its success depends on the establishment of an efficient system based on goals and the existence of desirable and appropriate human resources. Undoubtedly, every organization is successful in performing its tasks and achieving its goals, which in addition to establishing an efficient and purposeful management system, has the best people. Mehrzad Ferdows concluded that organizations need service leadership in order to increase their employees ‘commitment in pursuit of high performance and strategies, so the service leader can increase employees’ organizational commitment and increase organizational trust.
