I just finished reading an article on leadership that talked about six different leadership styles and in what situations to apply each. The article didn't resonate with me at all. While trying to deconstruct something into its elements and trying to analyze those pieces to understand a style can be a useful problem solving technique it doesn't always work well; especially when dealing with more abstract concepts like emotions or motivation. Such technique can be very limiting at its best and way off the mark at the worst. Also a lot of journals and management articles make leadership to be some some abstract, out there concept that frankly sounds boring and burdensome.
I think leadership is fun. I think you need to have been around a leader , and reflect on your times around him to truly understand leadership. A leader does more than getting work done - he affects you profoundly and leaves you wanting to be like him. A good way to think about it is to take a walk down memory lane - go back to those school days - and think of someone who inspired you, someone whose qualities you aspired to.
I'm reminded of an incident way back when I was in Sherwood. I was in the 6th grade then - the first year we moved from junior school to senior school. Everything was different in the Senior school. You need to have gone to a boarding school to get a feel of what it was like - but the one thing to note is that while teachers handled most matters related to you in junior school in Senior school everything Prefects - selected students in class 12 - would be responsible for all activities.
We had an yearly elocution event and in the junior school - classes 2,3,4,5 - I'd come first twice and second once in the event and I was keen to make my mark in my first year in Senior School. So I prepared hard for the event. The teacher who organizing the event had heard me a few times and was very pleased with my progress. A number of students from each house went for the tryouts and the house captain or a person designated by him made the selections.
Time to introduce a few characters:
1. Hitendra Bisht - our awesome house captain :) who was exceptionally good at elocution himself.
2. Deepak Punetha - a class 11 student who was again very good at elocution. He went on to be the house captain the next year.
There were 4 students from LJ who would be trying out. In the practices I was considered by the teachers and other students as the best amongst those (no not bragging :) just trying to give a context to the incident) - Hitendra had heard us once and had been very happy with my performance.
On the day we had out tryouts we learnt that Punetha would be taking the auditions. I elocuted as I usually did and so did the others. Punetha heard us and after hearing us selected two people. I was not one of them. I was very disappointed and very hurt. I had not even considered not being selected, to me the challenge to be in the top three. But there was nothing I could do except feel hurt and wronged. This was about one and a half week before the finals.
Two nights before the finals Siddharth Gupta, one of the selected students woke me up and told me Bisht was calling me downstairs with something to do about elocution. I later learnt that he heard the two students but remembered me from the last time he had heard me and asked for me. I came down, half groggy from being woken up, and shivering slightly because of the cold and a little because Bisht had called me and I wasn't sure why.
I entered the room and the first thing Bisht asked me was "Do you still remember your piece." I nodded, and he asked me to say it. I went to the edge of the classroom, took a deep breath hoping I don't forget and started. I was halfway through the piece when he asked me to stop. He then asked another student to call Punetha. Punetha came and then he asked me to speak again. When I ended Bisht stood up and looked pretty irritated. He asked the others to go out. Only Punetha and I were inside the room. He then told me I was going to speak for the finals and told Punetha that he couldn't understand why I wasn't selected. He said he expected him to have done the selections more seriously.
Then he asked Punetha to leave and he told me that he wanted me to get the first position. He said if I spoke with the same sincerity that I just did I would be first and he was counting on me especially now that he'd changed the selection decision at the last moment. He said he knew I could do it and there was no way I should let it go.
It's hard for me to explain what I felt at that moment. He had not only give the hope of participating back to me but I was amazed at the realization that he still remembered how I spoke my piece having heard me more than a month back. And he changed the selection decision after the names had been sent, and overturned the decision of a person he appointed who was a good speaker himself. There was only one way for me to say thank you to him - get the first position.
I remembered I was up late into the night - practising, thinking over my piece......trying to analyze where I could get better. I was repeating the piece over and over to myself, making sure I remembered the voice inflections, the changes in tone, changes in tempo, pauses. I was matching those with points highlighted on the paper where I wrote the piece. There aren't many events where I've been under so much pressure to perform - certainly never another elocution.
I took a deep breath before my turn and then spoke the best I could. I'd not forgotten anything, everything was said the way I'd practised it before. I felt relived but still nervous about the results. When the principal came to announce the results he said two people had stood out from the other competitors and it was a close finish. I came second. I felt I'd let Bisht down and felt disappointed while everyone around me was congratulating me. I walked up for dinner in the cold, disappointed with myself and wondering what Bisht was thinking. We walked in the dining hall and as soon as we sat down for dinner, I saw Bisht striding in - a big smile on his face.
He walked up to me and hugged me. "You were by far the best speaker there, I'm proud of you!"
I've certificates from various elocution contests where I've stood first after that. But those words mean more to me than any of those certificates.
That is what a leadership is.
