Monalisha Pandey

FYEX

Dr. Dahlman

11/20/2016

My journey of understanding Leadership

I have always been curious about one of the widely-used phrases about leadership, born

to lead. In many instances, I have heard opinions where people believe that some people are

born as leaders. Its a special commodity one is blessed with from gods or supernatural energies.

During my childhood, I used to hear stories about our gods who were great leaders, they were

born powerful and they led our world to be a better place to live in. Growing up, I always wanted

to become a leader because I realized how they were respected and loved by everyone. But, I

was too doubtful about it because I thought that if was a leader, I would be different, I knew I

wasnt born with any rare powers, I was just a normal child.

My understanding of leadership was about having rare skills like magic so that when time

comes, one could save the world. This concept shattered while I continued my journey at school.

There, leaders were monitors, house captains and prefects. These leaders were my friends and

other seniors who did not have any magical powers either. They were these students who were

academically excellent, active in sports and other activities. Then, I switched my opinion and

believed that leaders were perfect at everything. I thought to become a leader, one must be good

at everything he or she does. Eventually, I started to strive for excellence, I dug my nose in

everything I found and tried to excel in all those things because I wanted to become a leader too.

Thus, during school years, I was able to participate in many leadership activities.
 So, with this concept that leadership equals to excellence and perfection, I continued my

journey of becoming a leader. But, when I stepped outside school and started participating in

other leadership programs, my concept contradicted with the reality. Leaders were not always

perfect, every leader I encountered, shared their experiences of learning from their mistakes,

every leader had trajectory development while learning from their mistakes. While observing

those leaders around me I realized how I was driven by this concept of becoming perfect and was

struggling to act as if I was, or should be, perfect. I was not only struggling to become a perfect

leader, but I was also struggling to find one until I realized how unrealistic that was.

There was one more thing common about all those leaders I encountered, they had

identified their strengths and weaknesses. They knew how to use their strengths and were

striving to overcome their weakness. They did not hesitate to tackle their weakness and were

confident enough to overcome them because they beloved in themselves, they believed in their

strengths. As written in the Strengths Based Leadership book by Tom Rath, the primary

components that an effective leader should possess were trust, compassion, stability, and hope.

From my experience of learning from few leaders, these four components were the visible parts

of their leadership. They were trusted by their followers, they had uniquely different but deep

bonds with them. They not only gave hopes about the better leadership to their followers, they

gave them hope that they could become better leaders too. Having faith in their leaders and

knowing that things can be better highly motivated the followers. This was how these four

elements helped people to rise from the position of boss and become a leader who is aware of

their strengths and limitations.

While continuing this journey, I came across another question during one of our readings

for class, why people follow leaders? Gautam Buddha was one of the great leaders of all time
who had given up his royal rights, wealth and family to find a way to stop the cycle of suffering.

On the other hand, Adolf Hitler, one of the most infamous characters in world history who

influenced damages all over the world. Both were leaders who had thousands of followers. Now,

how can these people who have totally different characteristics and goals have so many

followers? How could Buddha influence his followers to give everything up and live for others?

How could Hitler influence people to kill others lives? While dealing with this concern, we find

people dwelling around leaders, their experiences, and opinions but often ignore their impact on,

and the opinions of, the people they lead. As mentioned before, followers dont always follow

their leaders for an absolute purpose. Both leaders, despite being so different from each other had

thousands of followers because they trusted them. They could emotionally connect to them and

they were hopeful about them. This shows how fundamental these components of trust,

compassion, stability and hope are for a leader and his or her followers.

In the article, what makes a great leader, focus, confidence, inspiration, transparency,

integrity, passion, innovation, patience, stoicism, wonkiness, authenticity, open-mindedness,

decisiveness, empowerment, positivity, generosity, persistence, insightfulness, communication,

and accountability were the factors which helps a person to become a great leader. This made me

wonder about the same question again, is it nature or nurture that determines leadership? One

requires knowledge and experience to acquire these characteristics. So, is this concept of born

to lead flawed?

In this journey of understanding what leadership is, I have known that it is about

influencing people to follow ideas and values. People who can use their skills to influence others

are effective leaders. Leaders are learners, from success, failures of themselves or others, and life

itself. They are passionate about their beliefs and interests, they expend enormous personal
energy on and give great attention to whatever matters to them. Effective leaders inspire loyalty

and goodwill in others because they themselves act with integrity and trust. They are capable of

bold and courageous moves and confident in their ability to deal with situations as they arise.
 Reference:

Rath, T., & Conchie, B. (2008). Strengths Based Leadership: Great leaders, Teams, and

Why People Follow.