As I sit to write my first blog of the year there is a
stream of thoughts flowing in my mind. There were a series of thoughts going
through my mind like how could I re-discover myself ,how could the values I posses be put to most of the use which
would make me stand out different and
helps me serving a purpose of life. Last
night when we were reading articles on self leadership at first It sounded
Greek and Latin to me. But as time passed by and the discussions got a little
bit intense with roommates I could relate
a few things mainly the pillars of the soil through the article on NHRD journal
and hoped that the pre read would be the kick start for the next day.
The morning started off with a class of self leadership by
Anil sir and the first thing which sets clarity for all my thoughts is when he
says “You cannot lead a person or the world unless you lead yourself”. The question
“If I had to lead myself what question would I ask” put by him trigged the whole
thought process and made think about the
very line quoted thus set the wheels in to motion for my journey of self discovery. I felt that the
moment unless we realize the power of value systems and practice them we cannot
lead our self. An interesting point which was brought out in the whole process
of discussion was that Understanding ourselves, living to our value systems and
taking ownership of our actions. Many a time we tend not to take ownership of
our actions and try to evade from it. The moment we start being responsible for
all our action and start listening to the inner voice and be honest to
ourselves our path to being an inspired leader would be setting its
course.
In our experiences we have seen that we are not able to
communicate our thoughts to our near and dear ones or to our colleagues at our
work place or extended work place. This is because we have not observed the
fact that the information which we want to send across to the other person is
possible only when we listen, observe and touch. These 3 tools have always been
in us, but the difference is the way we understand the tools and make use of
these tools in our day to day life.
Moving further we were taken into a new concept of six
layers of self. It was astonishing to note the fact that all the five layers
1.body and five senses 2.Instinct 3. Relationship/Emotion 4.Intellect 5.Ego –
values were objects and the only subject is the life giving source i.e.
mindfulness which is an observer of everything around us and which sets all are
impulses, reactions and triggers our thought process. There from Anil sir’s
words transpired through me that to be an inspired leader we need to discover I
in us which is meant for a higher purpose in life. An ”I” which is meant for a noble cause.
We have always been hearing that eyes speak a lot of
emotions and nonetheless I can bet that most of us have not been able to
capture a lot of emotions through our eyes. Eyes are our first source of
connection to the person. Our body language is the second thing which speaks a
lot. Our gestures reflect our thoughts which have an effect on the person in
front of us. Our connection to the other person is established to the fullest
when we speak about the thoughts, for which the kick start was our eyes, our
gestures/actions setting the context or providing an prologue for it and finally
our expression through words forms what we want to articulate. Our second
activity on leadership through eyes helped help me understand that work is half
done when we are able to communicate through our eyes.
Many a times when we are involved in projects, right from
the requirement phase to the delivery it happens most of the times that our
high level designs would capture only 60 percentage of the real requirements
whereas the whole requirement should have been present in the design document.
When the solution is transcended to the detail design the percentage still
reduces and finally what we deliver is completely different from what the
client would have been expecting from us. The reason why this happened is
because we lack the power of listening. At all times we tend to say that we are
listening but actually there are a numerous thoughts which are preventing us
from listening carefully due to which the percentage keeps on reducing. If we
had given proper attention to our clients and to the level following, we would
have not missed the information. The activity with listening helped us to
understand that how great the power of listening can be. It can solve the
complex of problems.
Our exercise with ego and alter ego helped us realize that
ego is the lyrics of the song and alter ego is what makes its melodious. Our
ego speaks a lot of thoughts but it’s our alter ego which is actually the
source of power which makes our thoughts precise by providing feedback.
Whenever we are wrong our near and dear ones make an effort to correct us. We
must take positives from feedbacks and try to bridge the learning gaps. The
same can also be applied to our office, where after completion of a code or a
module we receive constant feedbacks and as we appreciate the efforts we can
actually bridge the learning gaps which would create positivity around and no
room for negative thoughts would be left. In course of this activity we must
also learn to surrender at times when things are not in our way in spite of
following our best practices and putting in cent percent efforts.
Our final exercise for the day made me realize the power of
communication through touch. When we touch an object we tend to identify what
it is. This is because we are trying to feel the object through our touch. When
we realize the power of the diversity, compassion, ethics, sustainability and
mindfulness we would have discovered who we are. An inspired leader would be thus born.
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