The Quest for Leadership Recipe

With the advent of technology and the evolution Computers and Internet have undergone, it is so easy to share your thoughts and your opinions you have with many others thru blogs. Well, I thought the same and started thinking a month back why not to share my opinions and views on “Anything”. But it was not easy for me to decide that “Anything” until last night. I gave a deeeeeep thought to many burning issues affecting our daily lives..from Raja to Radia and from Recession to Inflation. But these subjects were so much dissected and operated by our so called “Enlightened Media” (includes print and electronic) that it left very little for me to analyze. Actually, I realized that I was (and so were many) bombarded with so much of analyses, interpretation, goof ups and “Breaking News” on the same subject  by these 24X7 baboons, that actually my mind stopped thinking  consciously and having a true opinion of its own. And I am sure, many of us would have gone under deep agony and feel pity for the person sitting in that idiot box behind the table thinking, “Yeh mai kya kar raha hooon. Yeh kya ho raha hai”.  Well, I diverted from the main theme…

So coming on to my main theme, I found and decided my “Anything”. In today’s management world, the term “Leadership” is used widely. When I typed the word “Leader” in Google, I was astounded to see 388,000,000 results in just 0.12 seconds….!!!! Every aspiring Youth of our age wants to become a successful leader. Well that’s pretty good sign for us because that denotes that our generation is born with full optimism and enthusiasm to carry on the manufacturing of the “Leaders”.

However the irony lies here. Before anybody could guess the next best business strategy (to revive out of the recession), many out of the box thinkers saw a great market. Yes, the market of the best “Leadership Recipe”. I got sensitized to this feeling when once I was in a book stall. I observed that half of the books there were on “How to become a Leader” and other spared half was “What the great leaders did”. Well I consider myself to be part of the same generation who aspires to be a leader. So I took a few books with the intention that after reading the book and the implementing the few tips which are usually at the end of the chapter, I would emerge as a Leader. Well, I was wrong!!

Next thing which came to my notice was the definition of a “Leader”. The most common and widespread definition is: “A leader is a person who influences a group of people towards the achievement of a goal”. This defines leadership in very simplified terms. So, I thought whats the big deal in becoming a leader as you only have to influence a bunch of ppl and get your work done from them. Again, I was wrong.

Again, I went to Google and typed “Characters of a Leader”. This time I got 56,900,000 results in just 0.19 seconds. (Now I realize why Google’s offices are so lavish..!!!)So, let’s take an analogy that we want to make a tasty dish called “Leader”. Now the ingredients are: Risk taker, Enthusiastic, Confident, Committed, Perseverance and the list goes on and on……

Aaahaa!!! So I realized, this is what it takes to be a leader?!!

Risk Taking Ability..So what everybody in India takes risks..If you still doubt just have a look at any local railway station in Mumbai in peak hours.!!

Enthusiasm: Again nobody is less enthusiastic in India. Heard the clamoring and screaming in the stadium when India is playing cricket???  

Confidence: Observe by your own eyes on any of the major cross roads. Young bikers with tripps would be as confident in front of any traffic police as anybody would be..!!!

And so on…!!! What I felt, that if we study the recipe deeply, it talks of nothing great. But “Leadership” is not so degraded that every Tom, Dick and Harry claims to be one. I found nothing alluring about those clichéd titles which says “Become a Leader in 100 Days” or something like that. I am not denying that those aforementioned qualities are irrelevant for a leader. But, there is Something more...Something concrete…Something deep required to become a leader.

With the knowledge of the characteristics or rather the ingredients required for that delicious dish, I studied life of few a great leaders. Now this gave to me a deep meaning to the term “Leader”. I came out of that notion that I can study lessons of Leadership or that anybody can teach me to become a “Leader”.

Leadership is more of an experience. To my surprise, I found Leadership to be much deeper than I felt. Yes, I belive that you need to be an Initiator and courageous to take risks, and sustain the enthusiasm with full commitment to what you do. But this is not enough.

What I realized is that, in quest of absorbing big and hefty things, we usually tend to oversee minute and very small but significant things required. That’s what happened with me. I did not realize the power of those small things..viz Just Being Humane, Sensitive towards others, being humble and the list goes on..

Any great Leader, according to me, is successful because he/she had the ability to integrate the charismatic external qualities required with those of deep internal traits. This can also be inferred as connecting your logical/rational self with your spiritual self and maintain the balance between the two. A true leader is not only goal oriented, but he is equally people oriented.

Till date, my quest remains standstill and it will remain so until its Eureka…

As the quote says, “The only real training for leadership is leadership. (Antony Jay)”

Keval Savla