On the eve of elections let us define what true leadership is.Once while browsing through the net and reading blogs I came across this piece of writing…“Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up. It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will be starved to death. It doesn't matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle. When the sun comes up, you better start running.”
We live in a world where leadership, flexibility and creativity are keys to excellent performance and –at times– survival.
What is leadership? According Sherman “… contemporary leadership seems to a matter of aligning people toward common goals and empowering them to take the actions needed to reach them.”
Value based leadership is increasingly becoming a popular concept and the current events that have rocked the IT World makes it is unavoidable and even imperative.
Leaders must know what they value. They must also recognize the importance of ethical behavior. Leadership ethics and values should be visible and leaders must live by them. “To lead others one must lead oneself first” said General Arjun Ray.
If leaders do not live by their values distrust among the led is inevitable. People would not know what to expect from their leaders, they would not have a vision to follow , a mission to achieve. Think of our leaders- Gandhiji, Netaji, Swami Vivekananda. These great men defined leadership with their lives.
When a leader chooses the values and ethics that he shall stand for , when he lives by them, he automatically connects with humanity. Leadership then becomes trustworthy. He then articulates a vision that is understandable to the common man. The leader exhibits a strong conviction and commitment in achieving that vision. Ethics and moral principles keep us aligned to our true self. A leader is a harbinger of change. A true leader rises above petty considerations of caste, creed and race. A true leader recognizes only one identity- that of ‘man’
Abraham Lincoln once said,
“Is leadership telling people what they want to hear or taking people where they need to be.”
