Today was my first class at SOIL and I waited in the
BLP class with lot of enthusiasm as Mr. Anil Sachdev, CEO of SOIL was the lead
instructor for the Self Leadership session. I felt that I couldn’t have asked
for a better start. In walked Anil and the noise in the class had subsided. He
started the session saying that he would be sharing the presentations that he
prepared to present it to the high level corporate staff. He said that he
wouldn’t dwell on his past. He started sharing the teachings of Swami Chinmayanda.
He further said that all the religious texts speak the same thoughts.
The first exercise was to ask a question “If I had
to lead myself better, what question should I ask to myself?” I thought for a
while and my answer was “Am I doing justice to my talents? What stops you from
using your talents? How do you want to overcome it?” Anil had asked us to
discuss our views in our group and our views had a common theme “Self
realization”. I learnt that one should be able to know oneself better; one must
know the strengths and weaknesses to be a better leader because a person who
doesn’t know themselves better cannot understand the views of the other person.
I learnt that only the soul of a person is a subject
and rest all are objects. The SELF is made up of 6 layers.
Anil emphasised on the power of “Communicating
through eyes”. The next exercise was to express an incident that had impacted
you. Through this I learnt that it is really difficult to express emotions
through the eyes and I found that I was able to convey my thoughts when I was
allowed to use gestures as part of my expressions.
Next Anil shared his views on how to understand the
surroundings by using the “power of listening”. A person who is able to observe
the surroundings better is in a better position to know the feelings of the
people surrounding them. There was a
listening exercise and during this exercise I observed that the speaker was
willing to share more thoughts when the speaker had the conscious that the
audience was listening to them. When the audience were more attentive it
encouraged the speaker and it discouraged the speaker when the audience were
not attentive. One important thing to note here is that one should listen to
the implied meaning the speaker is trying to say. We used an ego/alter ego
exercise to understand this.
Anil ended the session with a lecture on the “power
of touch”. I learnt that a person of highest integrity would be able channelize
the positive vibes and heal the people. A touch could be used as powerful
medium to express various emotions because one is able to express various
emotions like caring, compassion, encouragement through a single touch.
To summarize my learning today, I would say that a
leader is a person who knows oneself better. A leader should be able to observe
the surroundings and people through senses. A leader should be true to the soul
and must practice the values before preaching it.
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