When a honey bee returns to its hive after a long search for food, it performs a dance for other bees, the direction the bee is facing during the dance indicates the direction of the food source and the duration of the dance indicates the distance and quality of the nectar that it has just found. We all have our own imagination and ideas about a leader, whenever we have a task of writing or speaking about a leader, we head to Wikipedia in search of biodata of POPULAR leaders, in this quest we miss out on the opportunity to recognize so many other leaders, who though not popular as many of our stereotypical leaders, are carrying out their work, leading and empowering people in their own unique ways. We see such leaders everywhere and that is what I am going to discuss about today, “The Leader in You”.
In order to identify these leaders, firstly we have to know whom do we call a leader. Leadership has got nothing to do with one’s position in a company or profession they are in, it has got nothing to do with fancy titles or the place they are in. According to me a Leader is anyone who positively influences the lives of others and helps them to achieve a goal. Although this is a broad definition of a leader, a leader might in different situations exhibit different traits.
Not just humans almost all sentient beings exhibit some sort of leadership in their life. We are naturally born with some leadership qualities and some we emulate by observing others. Nature has so many examples of leaders, as quoted earlier a honey bee-scout acts as a leader to its swarm, sourcing the food for its team. We can probably call this leadership style as leading by doing. Likewise a pride of Lions are protected by the alpha male of the pride. We might call this style as leadership by dominance. In a herd of zebras we see them leaning on each other to rest, which can be compared to great leaders having strong support systems to de-stress in their life.
While we can always emulate and adapt a leadership style from other species, there are so many direct examples that we get to see in our everyday lives like our parents who selflessly dedicate their life for the family, teachers who responsibly guide their pupils, a stranger who stops his car in the middle of a busy traffic to help an old person to cross the road or a small kid who stops to share her lunch with the homeless kids. Let us see some examples of such everyday leaders.
Everyday Leaders
Anand Kumar is an Indian mathematician, who hails from an economically poor family in Patna, Bihar, India. Very early in his life he developed deep interest in Mathematics and did his undergraduate degree in Mathematics. Owing to his brilliance, he got admitted to Cambridge University for graduate studies, but due to his father’s untimely demise and his financial problems, he couldn’t pursue his further education. However his dream was just not to study mathematics but also help others learn this wonderful subject, thus he started a small institution, where he taught mathematics to students.
In early 2000, a poor student approached him seeking lessons to ace IIT-Joint Entrance Examination. IIT as an institution over past several years has produced some of the finest engineers and entrepreneurs and thus has one of the toughest entrance exams in India. Anand took this up as a challenge and started a programme called “Super 30”, where he selected 30 talented but economically poor students and trained them to crack the IIT-JEE. Since 2002 till 2013, out of the 330 students that he has trained, 281 students have been successful in getting an admission into these elite institutions. He aims to build an institution which can serve the underprivileged children to get basic education as well as guidance to do advance studies. Anand is an example of a visionary who not only does the job at hand today but also who looks at the bright tomorrows.
Narayanan Krishnan is an Indian chef who has left his job to do social service. He was an award winning chef at world famous Taj Hotels, Bangalore and had a bright future in his career as a chef at Taj Hotels. He comes from a place called Madurai in Southern India. In 2002, on one of his visits to his hometown he witnessed a saddening scene of an old man, out of hunger eating his own waste. Soon Narayanan went to a near-by hotel and fed the old man. Moved by this incident Narayanan quit his high paying job and started a trust called Akshaya in Madurai. With this trust he daily feeds about 425 homeless and mentally challenged people in Madurai. Not only does he feed them but also grooms them to provide them dignity in the society. Narayanan is an example of a leader who selflessly strives to make everyone around better.
Nearly 25% of the waste generated by the city of Bangalore, India is plastic waste, Ahmed Khan who owned a business of producing plastic bags came up with an idea to use the plastic wastes in a productive way. He found out that plastic along with bitumen can be used to make roads. Likewise Cassandra Lin, a fifteen year old girl co-founded a company called TGIF- Turn Grease Into Fuel, which collects used cooking oils from restaurants and houses and converts them into environmentally friendly bio-fuel, which in-turn is used to provide energy to the economically poor families. Thus both Cassandra and Ahmed have found a way to turn waste to wealth. They both have displayed the ability of a leader to think out of the box and find a way to solve a very pertinent problem. George Bernard Shaw once said “you see things and you say why? I dream things that never were and I say why not?” this quote exactly suits these dreamers who are building the world of tomorrow.
Lizzie Velasquez is a 25 year old young lady who has a rare condition which only two other people in the world are having, by virtue of which she cannot gain weight no matter how much ever she eats. She is blind in her right eye and has limited vision in the other eye, because of her appearance some bullies called her ugly but she took it on the chin. Excellent upbringing by her parents has made her a strong and independent person. She is using her very appearance, what others called weakness as her strength and is inspiring millions of people out there by propagating the message that external appearance doesn’t matter in the real world, it’s what within you that defines you.
There’s another little leader in Aisha Chaudhary, who is spreading the message that happiness is an attitude. Aisha suffers from a lung disease called Pulmonary Fibrosis; a disorder which doctors predicted would not let her survive past her first birthday. Today Aisha is 17, an ambitious and creative artist who is going around the world inspiring people by saying that no matter how hard the troubles that you are in there are only two ways to deal with it, either to get bogged down by it or to take in your stride and move on by choosing to be happy. How can we forget my own University's Professor Randy Pausch who spread the message of positivity and courage through his last lecture?
These people are example of leaders who show how to react to adversities and how to convert negatives into positives. Sports are a powerful medium which have maximum reach in this world and we have many examples of leaderships displayed on the pitch which have inspired millions of people across the globe. In a recently held football match between Dnipropetrovsk and Dynamo Kiev (Ukraine), Georgian midfielder Jaba Kankava possibly saved the life of the opposing team’s midfielder Oleh Husey. Husey was approaching the ball to head the ball towards the goal while the goalkeeper rushed to catch the ball in his hand, in the process the goalkeeper and the midfielder collided with each other and Husey collapsed to the ground immediately. Jaba Kankava who noticed that Husey was almost unconscious, rushed towards him and forcefully opened his mouth and made him gain his consciousness back. A leader should have common sense and a presence of mind and that is exactly what Jaba Kankava displayed on that day.
We have seen numerous examples of runners in a marathon or in a relay, picking their fallen competitor up and displaying sportsmanship of highest order. These simple instances inspire millions of kids who are watching sports.
Conclusion:
Any person who is carrying out his/her work sincerely and doing it with dedication will always inspire others with their commitment, sincerity, honesty and integrity. Whether it is the Southwest Air-hostess who gives out funny pre-flight instructions or a rickshaw driver who strives hard to make the journey of his passengers pleasurable by excellent services like Wifi and magazines, they all are leaders in their own right.
A simple youtube search for random goodness or everyday hero will result in thousands of videos which show that there are millions of leaders amongst us. Thus I would like to conclude by saying, look around or even look at a convex mirror, and you’ll find out that Real Leaders are closer than they appear.
References:
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anand_Kumar
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narayanan_Krishnan
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K._Ahmed_Khan
4. http://www.wikihow.com/Use-Animal-Leadership-Styles-to-Inform-Your-Business-Leadership-Values
5. http://mashable.com/2014/04/14/funny-flight-attendant/?utm_cid=mash-com-fb-main-link
6. http://www.upworthy.com/meet-the-girl-who-changed-a-whole-lot-of-lives-with-something-id-just-throw-away?c=ufb1
7. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lizzie_Vel%C3%A1squez
8. http://www.rappler.com/sports/by-sport/football/54447-watch-football-player-saves-life-ukraine
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