Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Leadership is all about.....

I am a fairly contented person and usually go around with a satisfied grin on my face. I am generally happy with my station and feel that life has been quite kind to me. But, there are moments when I do feel a tinge of sadness on being an under-achiever. One of those moments is when I listen to the ‘inspiring sermons’ delivered by highly successful men and women.

The other day, I heard Dr Narayana Murthy of Infosys, on a TV channel, waxing eloquent on what leadership is. “To me” he said, “leadership is all about creating dreams, building hopes…. To be a leader you don’t need to have money or fame or power. When you walk into a room and are able to bring a smile on everyone’s face, including your own, then you are a true leader.”

Meanwhile, the indefatigable Dr Abdul Kalam, at an event organised by Times of India, narrated the story of his life; how he used to wake up at 3 am everyday, how he used to sell newspapers, etc. “Dream big, work hard” he exhorted.

In London, on a holiday, Sachin Tendulkar talked to newsmen and explained for the umpteenth time that records and money don’t matter to him; what matters is the joy of playing for the country. Every time he goes out to bat, he can still hear the national anthem in the background that gives him a tingling sensation in his spine, a patriotic flutter in his heart, and a gushing blood flow in his arteries.

I am quoting all this from memory, so don’t sue me if I haven’t got the entire text right.

But, back to my point on the tinge of sadness I experience when I listen to these worthies spinning their gyan. Note that I am not being critical. I am just plain jealous.

It must feel awesome to be able to walk into a room full of people and then mouth such nonsense in an unrestrained manner, without the slightest worry that someone would stop you midway. As a successful person, you have earned this privilege. And it is the bounden duty of the less successful people to give you their undivided and rapt attention and absorb whatever you hold forth on.

This facility– the right to lecture and pontificate at will- is a perquisite that I would die for. “Leadership”, I would tell the hapless interviewer, “is all about knowing the difference between the snakes and the ladders which life throws at you at a random sequence”. Or, “To me, leadership is all about having followers to lead. When you look behind you, do you find someone tailing you? That’s leadership”. Or better still, “Money, fame, power. That’s not what success is all about. When you enter a room, are people out there able to switch off all the lights in the room, and get illumination only by the glow from your radiant face. To me, that’s success”.

What I would give to talk such crap and still get people to ‘put their hands together” for a round of applause!

4 comments:

Rachna said...

Everyone desires to be a celebrity sans the controversies and the media-created stories :). There is no harm in dreaming, you may still become one, you never know !

Balajisblog said...

Raj - From a leader in software industry - boss of TCS when asked for his views on economy - " We are seeing a recovery, but, at a slow pace. The overall decline is slowly getting arrested. The recovery is showing, but I can't predict the slope of this recovery"...this is in today's ET. Even a "keeraikari" down the road could have said something more meaningful...but, like you have rightly observed...she has not succeeded, whereas the boss of TCS has, and so can find ET publishing such gibberish.

dipali said...

I'm virtually clapping for your crap:)

Viyoma said...

Beautiful..even if your quoted words may not be exactly the same, but they were enough to infuse "feel good energies" into the reader!

And coming to being jealous, dont me..you already have a dream,an aspiration..just need to work towards it! All the best :)