iCert Global Blog

Usually, Boss is used as a moniker about the one who lords around or tries to throw the weight by trying to herd. 

The Boss, in the titular role, doesn’t have to be bossy as mostly misunderstood. Our perception of ‘Boss’ is more about command and control. The Boss is synonymous with Leader. The line that does the round is that Boss ‘tells you what to do’, while the Leader ‘teaches you why and how to di it.’ This is still in theory.  Somehow that title of Boss is very unsettling. 

But just like different times calls for different actions, and sometimes different actors, a leader turns more as a boss in cracking the whip should the situation mandate. It is often confused being a Boss is bad, and the leader truly benevolent. It’s a very fine line between being a boss and leader. In fact the line blurs. How does one define autocratic leadership then?

There are many leadership styles: Autocratic, Democratic, Strategic, Transformational, Laissez-faire. The boss can follow any such leadership style or may be all but applicable to the audience 9read as employees).

Are all employees the same? 

The 80/20 is very much present as inferred from the performance – meaning, 80% of the workload is usually assigned to 20% of staff. Why? Because they are ‘the’ performers. Notice carefully and you will find it hard to dispute that the one who is hardworking and consistent on deliver is always assigned more work. Why? Because of the delivery. Company needs employees who are able, reliable and consistent in performance. Employees are always a mix and match . while some perform, some outperform and some don’t perform at all. Accordingly, the Boss has to adopt different leadership styles.

It will be very unfair to portray the boss in a poor light just because he/she is unfairly and unreasonably demanding. Some Boss scream “I want it and want it now” without realizing the magnitude of work or plainly pushing their luck. But it can go as far as possible. If shouting and screaming works, then work place will be a street fight so chaotic that your differentiating factor as a Leader will be your decibel level.

Command and Control

This IS required to the ones who need jumpstart. They can’t do it by themselves and some push to move forward. In the worst case, push becomes a shove. That’s where the ‘Command and Control’ is exercised. “if you don’t do it, then..” might sound as a threat but with some staff this works. Whipping works. These are poor in self-esteem, lack confidence and hang in there for survival. And they know well, that getting another job or alternatives is hard to come by and hence respond to the command. It is the fear of getting fired that somehow extracts the work. Hence, it is useful to such work force – usually new  joinee, entry-level ,  fresher or experienced hires who are yet to adapt to the new surroundings.

Democratic 

Leadership through consensus by winning confidence and gaining ‘buy-in’ of the team. This team is mature and self-starters. They don’t need someone to be behind their back to get the job done. Once delegated, they are on their own and ensure it is done with minimal intervention and supervision. Accountability is usually high, and the team takes pride in its performance. 

Laissez-faire

This is not commonly practices and usually associated with researches and their ilk. Such resources are very independent from the start and don’t need any intervention or monitoring, mostly, the engagement will be time-bound and hence the Boss will have very less scope with regard to delegation or follow-up.

So what kind of a Boss are you?

Brutal, demanding, ruthless, callous, difficult, tough, harsh and aggressive? Just look around and how many faces can your eyes meet and count. The Boss is responsible for the cycle of business with the feet on the pedal. At one stroke the boss has to face so many faces. Possible? That’s why that person is the Boss. And yes, it takes some aggression and ruthlessness to get the job done weighing in the 80/20 rule. ‘The one who shows mercy on others denies oneself’ – doesn’t mean callous in attitude. Though caring, they appear callous else the workforce becomes complacent. 

Agreed, some Bosses are obnoxious, petty-minded, self-centered and can’t think beyond business. But then, it’s unfair to stereotype the Boss in such fashion. Some bosses are gentle, willing with en ear to hear, and simply wonderful.  The Boss, too, is a human with family to tend and friends to catch up. It is just that they burn more hours and sacrifice so much so that can draw a salary.

Don’t bother. A boss is as much a leader with a different kind of flavor.

Do you agree? Please share your thoughts by leaving a comment.

 "The India Education Awards is a celebration of excellence "

Awards are telling reminders – to let us know what we are and who we are. 

iCertGlobal Pvt Ltd was presented the India Education Awards -2018 in a star studded ceremony on      April 8, 2018 organized by Blindwink Solutions Private Limited. The India Education Awards 2018, conceived and initiated by Blindwink  is aimed at felicitating excellence, reputation and exemplary work in the Education Sector.

CEO Speak

“Awards are true inspirations that acknowledges to the world that we are worthy of recognition through our consistent results and outstanding contribution for all-round excellence in academic pursuits.  We accept it as an appreciation of our continual commitment and dedicated service in the realm of education.

“We take this moment to thank our people and patrons; our colleagues and clients; staff and stakeholders.  They are the ones to push the edge of the envelope, move the needle to beat projections and forecasts and continue to inspire us to strive to do better.  Their dedication and support has contributed to our success. Our heartfelt congratulations to the team, and sincere thanks to all those who made this possible” said Irfan Sharief, the CEO of the company.

Company Profile

iCertGlobal, is one of the leading professional certification training providers, offering several programs to corporate and consumers. Based out of Houston, Texas, US, and operations in UK, Australia, APAC and India, iCertGlobal has a global imprint across the globe.

iCertGlobal conducts professional trainings on varied and diverse list from Project Management, Service Management, Quality Management, Agile & Scrum and Niche technologies. They are active in both B2B (Business to Business) and B2C (Business to Consumers) models, and successfully trained more than 75,000 professionals with more than 3,000,000 quality hours of active training, spread across strategic locations like Malaysia, Singapore, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia, India, Australia, UK and US.

Some of the recent headlines were so shocking that made stunned people all over the world. The links are presented for anyone who cares to read further and know for themselves. 

Industrial espionage goes a long way back to the mid-90s [remember the incident in Intel when one of the employees tried to sell sensitive documents to competitor].

How did Volkswagen dupe millions of car owners, flout stringent US norms? 

Apple hack exposes flaws in building apps behind 'Great Firewall'

Apple Removes 300 Infected Apps from App Store | WIRED 

Apple Targeted as Malware Infects China Mobile Apps - WSJ

In the digital era, the cybercrime is quite steep given the climbing numbers and catastrophic consequences. The links listed aren't of distant past but relatively new - some or still unveiling and some under investigation. What shocks the learned and layperson is when technology is no longer nascent why the threat should not be nipped in the bud? Nipped?! These bloopers don’t blossom from a bud – be it insider job or outsider, but come to light after shaking our faith and foundation.

The worst threat for now is the cyber threat and measures are mounted to step up cyber security despite which the crime rate scaling is both puzzling and perplexing. If there are breaches in security, the damage could be colossal, making it mandate in tying the loose ends. The best anti-virus is unable to prevent a malware from harming the programs; the best social engineering is not able to mitigate but only makes lives miserable. Ashley Madison hack’s ramification ruined personal life and which is an intrusion into privacy and revelation is damning both to the customers and commerce. When powerhouses like apple’s app store with a reputation of rigid and robust ‘firewall’ is no longer impregnable, anything can be infiltrated, and as endorsers or end-users we lost our insulation and immunity. 

Software is susceptible 

Every software is susceptible and hardware vulnerable? So where is the power of protection? Unfortunately there is no anti-dote ready that can anticipate attack and annihilate the assailant. Surely some minds are busy at ‘work-is-in-progress’ in chalking out a solution. A more complex encryption or safe vault or something very innovative and effective. When the shadow of the danger grows in size threat looms large. 

Disturbing as it gets for the very hand trusted was the one that gave it away. One can defend from outside but how to discern that ‘insider’. Even after closing all gaps, plugging holes, locking doors, securing and sanitizing, how does that slip happen and that too under our very nose? TECHNOLOGY.

Technology is always a double-edged sword. The insiders also use ‘Cloud’ facilities to make away with their goodies. Cloud services are proving to be almost indispensable. Line up the companies offering cloud capabilities and it will feature the heavyweights in the industry: Amazon, Microsoft, apple. So as a safety chute should we just shut down access to the services so that any possible ‘breach’ prevented? Or restrict access? The sanction of cloud services are strictly on need and merit and of course trust.

The vast majority of cloud services don’t encrypt data (as opposed to in transmission), only 15% support multi-factor authentication, and even fewer (6%) are ISO certified, says Sky high CEO Rajiv Gupta. (ISO 27001 was created in 2013 to ensure that security risks and threats to the business are assessed and managed, that physical security processes such as restricted access are enforced consistently, and that audits are conducted regularly.) [source : https://hbr.org/2015/09/what-do-you-do-when-employees-start-using-a-free-cloud-service]

Because it’s so difficult to monitor and regulate employees’ use of file-sharing sites and other cloud services, many CIOs grapple with the whole issue.

So what are the defence mechanisms with regard to data security in cloud?

Data hashing is a technology that creates a hash, or specific code, to identify a given dataset. This allows the integrity of the data to be checked every time the data is used or accessed by a credential individual at the firm. Hashing would prevent data from being changed by an unauthorized third party.

Digital watermarks allow data to be tracked. While this approach does not protect the data, it does allow it to be linked back to the individual who placed it on a cloud or at an unsanctioned location, making that person potentially responsible for any consequences to the data’s misappropriation.

Researchers are attempting to create simple yet effective means of facilitating cross-cloud single-sign-on authentication, where a “foreign” cloud provider is required to gain trusted third-party status from the “home” cloud before being able to communicate with the user and the user’s applications.

Still the advice holds well that sensitive and critical data is guarded and under heavy security and scrutiny.

SalesForce recently introduced Salesforce Shield to protect its cloud apps assuring users that the encryption is by far the best and chances of breach is very slim. But can it be slammed down from slim to simply impossible?

We scratched the surface with regard to Data Defence with Cloud based survives. In the next post, let us look at ways to safeguard out data against any attack.

We welcome your thoughts about Data Security…..

image courtesy: https://destekhizmeti.com/bilgi-guvenligi-hizmetleri

It’s an interesting pointer that can be deliberated but never decided with a Boolean yes/no response. Waterfall is the conventional methodology and given Agile’s merits it’s too attractive to make an immediate shift but one should reason with the ramification by balancing the pros and cons as agile may not be an ideal fitment for every project. Accepted Agile has made great strides but has it replaced waterfall altogether is subjective if we are mindful of the consequences. We learn by experience and the takeaway in the form of teaching is to beware and be cautious of concerns.  Usually technical heads mull over the decision by studying requirements again and again to arrive at a conclusion. 

They are both project management methodologies and the applicability rest on many factors.  Just because waterfall has been around for long doesn’t make it indispensable and agile emerging much later is the most happening either. That’s why approach adopted should be strictly on merits. It’s a no-brainer the discussion about this subject would entail into PMP or PRINCE2 certification. 

Waterfall methodology is most easily identified with PMP certification program, while PRINCE2 follows Agile. Both these approaches are very different and hence the deliberation before deciding on picking the best suiting the needs. 

Waterfall is a typical plan – build – test –deliver stages, where the final version is envisioned in the planning phase rendering the requirement study and scope as very critical and any change addressed through change requirement and the customer gets to have a feel at the UAT stage only, when all is done and set to go. 

Agile is very modular, impleneted through scrum, wherein the client acts as one of the stakeholders and can know firsthand the output of a phase technically referred as ‘sprint’ and every requirement is detailed as a story card with scrummaster manning the post. The individual accountability is very high. The sprint demo can be shown to client for feedback and changes incorporated and hence its the process is iterative. This flexibility is not possible in waterfall methodology. 

Lets study the popular or most searched words using Google Trends, and though it’s a ballpark and not a scientific proposition, it does offer a perspective as to where the world is heading towards on a bird’s view.

The PMP certification seems to have picked up and peaked and gradually slides down with the forecast trending upwards, while Agile at one stage seems to have spiked over PMP and continued to ascent, and the forecast too is favorable. 

The certification aspect witnessed PMP on the rise and peaking only to slip down and forecast is forward, while Agile is steady with not much of growth nor stunted and the forecast is trending upwards.

The charts are based on ‘keyword’ search and need not necessarily endorse any claim not be evident of any outcome. Like stressed earlier they present a picture of the trends and such PMP is still quite popular, and Agile is holding on and growing.

So what do you think is the trend? Do let us know…

image courtesy: http://outmatch.com/top-trends-hr-get-agile-innovative-2017/