What and who comes to your mind when you think of a leader? A Corporate, Political or People leader or someone you admire at your work? You see, leadership comes in assorted colours, shapes, and sizes, it may mean different things to different people, and that makes it difficult to define.
With a series of blog posts, articles, and video shorts, I will be taking you on an immersive journey.
These range of topics will include:
- leaders, their leadership styles, and traits
- who is a leader, and how do leaders acquire power and authority?
- and like managers, are there good or bad leaders?
- leading and managing people,
- bringing the best out of them,
- creating high-performing teams,
- and a range of other topics from agile, traditional project management,
- self-awareness, and emotional and social intelligence.
May I ask you to close your eye and think of these people:
Mahatma Gandhi, Narendra Modi, Abraham Lincoln, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin or Julius Caesar
Do you consider all these people leaders? and why do you think of them as leaders?
- What is the purpose of leadership?
- Who gave them power and authority?
- Do they exhibit the same kind of leadership?
- Does leadership involve ethics?
- Does leadership require greater good in general?
In a way, they all achieved dramatic change. We will probe suchlike topics and these in my upcoming articles & videos.
One of the great quality of great leaders is that they create & grow more leaders around them. We are all like seeds with lots of potential – to germinate, sprout, grow, mature and then spread & propagate seeds and create more leaders around us. But despite great potential, not every seed fulfils its destiny, and not everyone becomes a leader So why is that, why is it so hard to practice leadership, what is about this leadership that fascinates us all?
It fascinates us because leaders influence us, inspire us, motivate us, provide us direction and lead us to achieve common objectives.
“Tamso Ma Jyotigamaya” – Achieve your leadership potential
“Tamso Ma Jyotigamaya” is an ancient verse from Hindu Upanishad, meaning “from darkness, lead me to light”. Leaders do precisely that; they pull us out from chasms of adversities and lead us to light. The path to becoming a great leader starts with you.
Buddha once said, “App deepo bhavh”, this loosely translates to “Be a light unto yourself” because only in that inner light can one examine the life of self and others. So, Ignite your potential, just like an oak seed that has the potential to become a great oat tree and create more like itself.
And a candle has the potential to create light, igniting thousands of more candles, thus producing brilliance and dispelling the darkness. Using the skills our ancestors learnt thousands of years ago to keep themselves and the tribe safe, you too can create fire by rubbing the two dry blocks of wood.
Dry wood always had this potential, just like you, you just have to create the right conditions, you just have to awaken it. So ignite and kindle the spark inside you, build a fire to burn and melt like a candle to give light, warmth and safety to yourself and those around you – that’s leadership.
It is true – it’s difficult to be the Sun, but we all can be a little “candle” because “It’s better to light a candle than curse the darkness.”
In the end, I leave with this thought:
“Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened.”
Buddha