How can a leader be more proactive than reactive?

People are core to the success of any organisation and a dynamic and proactive leader can play an important role in creating and nurturing a motivated, confident and efficient team.

People are core to the success of any organisation and a dynamic and proactive leader can play an important role in creating and nurturing a motivated, confident and efficient team. A proactive leader's reflexes are like a chess player, wherein he plans his moves three steps ahead, as against reacting to the situations after they take place or simply finding solutions for present day issues.

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A proactive leader takes a positive outlook and encourages the team to learn from their mistakes, while making them understand the impact of the same - this raises team's confidence levels and results in a motivated team. In the long term, this will lead to higher retention of employees and result in better productivity and a healthy work atmosphere where both organisational growth and individual development go hand in hand.

(Aman Kumar Syal, CEO, Laurent & Benon Group)

In order to be proactive, a leader needs to have a keen eye of the work environment, its changing landscape and anticipate the changes. The leader needs to pause and strategise, which means he needs to regularly step back from his hectic life and organise moments for himself to focus on innovation and anticipation. Ideally, same discipline should be followed by organising meetings fully dedicated to anticipation and innovation.

(Joachim Murat, director, Morpho-Safran Group)