"Progress occurs when courageous, skillful leaders seize the oppurtunity to change things for better"
Harry S. Truman - 33rd President of United States of America
Talking about leadership and how its obtain could create a conversation which would last for days, months and years, yet i believe there is no clear definition about what leadership is, its a complicated process which is equilant to enlightment, or perhaps self actualization.
The spark which motivated to write about leadership and build on discussion is something which lead from a conversation which i had with a couple of friends while sipping some drinks on a hot summer day in Downtown, Portland,
One of my good friend, ravi who is from Nepal asked me
"what is leadership ? ", and i replied him saying that
"it is being a servent and serving the followers", and then he asked me
how can a person be a leader ?, is it something which is born with you or does it grow with you ? "
So i told him,
" as per my understanding, leadership is not born with you, or it is born within, but leadership grows with you, you have to identify that within your self and grow it, untill you harvest it to become a leader, and the skills, abilities, experience, exposure and your goal would impact on how successful leader you are, whether you are a good leader or a bad leader "
He paused for few minutes and them asked me,
" Do you think everyone can learn to be a leader, or everyone can become a leader ? ",
For one moment i was thinking within me, and then my optimistic charecter lead me to tell
" Yes, its possible, every can learn how to be a leader, and everyone can be a leader, but only the people who has that drive within them self, and who can push their selve's to step out of their comfort zones, do thinks that they have to do even if they dont like doing it, and who will never quit because of failures of hurdles they come accross in the journey, will succeed"
So this confused my friend and made him smile for a bit, and the he added
" So you agree that everyone cannot be a leader ?"
I just smiled back at him and told,
" Well No, i never said that everyone cannot be a leader, just to wrap up what i told earlier into few words be, those who wants to be a leader, and who works hard for it, can be a leader "
You cannot just stay in one place, be what you are and expect to be leader, you have to work for it, learn from the history, and practice your self to be as a leader by serving others, then yes you will definitely be a leader"
after a couple of drinks influencing your mind and thoughts, both of us was still determined to keep talking about leadership in order to come to a clear view about it, then ravi asks me back
" Do you think everyone can be like Mahatma Gandhi ? and if so will people follow them ?"
and i told,
"Mahatma Gandhi is an individual, human being, he developed his skills and set an example to be a successful leader of Non-Violence, No one can be like Mahatma Gandhi, but yes anyone could learn his leadership skills, abilities from his life and be good leader like him,, but not him, u can follow his leadership abilities, but u cannot be him. People to follow you, yes if you have a valuable cause, shared goal, and if you prove people your abilities where you could work with them to lead them to achieve there goal, without a doubt yes they will follow you "
Then he asks me again,
" If you and nana ( this another friend of mine, who was getting irritated with our non-stop talk about leadership, while drinking ), are two leaders, and people follow nana, without following you, why do they do that?, does that mean that you are not a leader ?"
Then for the first time Nana open his mouth in this topic and gives his comment
" well its personal preference of the people, they can follow me or they can follow him, so that doesnt constitute anything about being a leader or not "
and then adding on to it i said,
" If people dont follow me and they follow nana, yes at that moment Nana will be the leader, in the mean time it doesnt mean that i am not a leader of, i am not capable of leader, if i could learn the skills which nana posses than me, and if i could prove people that i am able to lead them successfull, they will follow me, so that doesnt mean that Nana is no longer a leader,
Its all about pushing your self further and further and being able to serve people and their needs, so its the drive which helps you to be a leader, its not a destiny or fate, its another milestone in life which sometimes people dont realise that they could acheive it, "
at this point we just decided to hop into another bar, and nana was skillfull enough to stop us from this topic and change into a different conversation,
But the question of Can everyone be leader ? still remains under the open topic, with me saying yes, and ravi saying No,
and i am sure very soon we will start talking about this again, and build our skills to become good leaders,
Just to wrap up this blog, i would like to share this words which is very close to my heart where i push my self to stick on to it
“A good leader inspires people to have confidence in the leader, a great leader inspires people to have confidence in themselves”
- Annonymous
Now i would like to invite you to start sharing your views and ideas about leadership, feel free to comment what ever you want, and the comments will not undergo any moderation, it would posted as it is, so that we could make this blog more effective and everyone could learn something out of it to develop our selves and our communities.
