Leadership

Leadership is not a written rule of thumb, neither it comes by inheritance nor it can be studied anywhere. However, a person who has all the potential of being a great leader can be educated. Leader is a person who has a desire to see things which are usually ignored by others. An ordinary man manager normally deals with deception and questions others for their mismanagement. However, a true leader deals with deception as well as self deception. He questions himself time and again till the time he is comfortable with the result. Even then the process of questioning facts and figures goes on.

Sir Albert Einstein once said that most of the people see things and ask why, I see them and say why not. He never attended any leadership training program and never worked in any corporate culture. Still, he is regarded as the pioneer of science.

Former American president Abraham Lincoln life can’t be termed as a jolly good affair. After growing up in not so handsome environment, he went through so much in life. His girl friend died, he had a nervous breakdown, lost two consecutive state elections. Theoretically, these are the facts of a great failure but they belong to one of the most admired and recognized leaders of the world.




Walt Disney was expelled from his job at a newspaper citing he was not good and he lacked creativity. The same Walt Disney took the world by a storm and everybody who has ever watched a cartoon show can tell who Disney is.

Another classic example is of the former CEO and the current mentor of India’s leading IT services giants Infosys. The person is Narayan Murthy. He is considered as the pioneer of Indian IT industry. He doesn’t follow any particular leadership model. He gives all the employees of his company an independent space for thinking. All the employees are literally the stake holders of the company as everybody has got the shares of the company. Murthy doesn’t drive a plush wheeler, travels economy class, proactively takes a pay cut when it seems that the company may get into a financial turmoil. This way he is developing himself as well as setting examples for the others so that they too can develop themselves. He was working very effectively at the helm but when he felt that he has achieved and contributed a lot, he stepped aside and took the role of a mentor.

These were a few of the many examples of great leadership which signifies that leadership cannot be owned by following one particular approach. These also say that leaders are not build by reading tons of theories. Reading may give an idea about leadership but the path has to be taken by the leader itself. Certain mishappenings may prove handy to someone and sometimes potential leaders take a cue or two from the scenarios and convert them into a formidable success story.