Leadership (Re) Defined

Sometime back, I wrote What the heck is leadership?

Seems that day, I had a selective amnesia, a momentary lapse in to loss of senses and forgot the definition of leadership taught to me by a much wiser (May be younger) kid on a very special circumstance.What he taught me was, A person who gets things done by his charisma, by his presence, by driving others hard is a manager but  definitely not a leader. A leader is the one who make things happen even in his absence by inspiring people.

How many leaders or people do we know who could pull off this kind of leadership?

After reading Line of Fire, the autobiography of  Pervez Musharraf, more especially the military coup by his troops, I would say he fits the bill rather than any one.

Why so and how so?

Musharraf was on his way back from Colombo in a commercial airliner unaware that he has been dismissed from the post of army chief.In his absence, with out his guidance or coordination or command, his generals carry out the coup, dismiss Nawaz Sharif, and ensure Musharraf's plane lands safely.

Of course, all this is allegedly based on the self account of Musharraf, which need not be true.

Of course, the destiny played its part where the flight got delayed here and there and with out those delays history as we know could have been very different as the timing played a crucial factor.

Of course, Musharraf and his generals would have considered the possibility of his dismissal brainstormed, played strategic war games on this scenario.

Of course, one could argue, the loyalty of Musharraf's generals should have been towards the country but not to a man called Musharraf and hence Musharraf has failed miserably.

Still, think about it, his generals are not sure, will he even land safely?  They could have simply kept quiet, saying no commander, no commands so no coup. Why should they risk their very lives and conduct a coup which may go wrong?

Still a bloodless coup occured which overthrew the government in less than four hours. [May be Musharraf later chided his generals, "Why the hell it took so long?]

So how many of us could take a vacation and be confident that your team could carry on even with out you? [No, I am not talking about how dispensable you are!]

P.S  
Thanks to the KID who taught me what leader ship is?  
Thanks to NHM for their special discount sale.
Thanks to friends who have listened to my rant on this.

The first, "Of course" scenerio mentioned above also did reinforce my faith, belief, philosophy and guiding principle of tough times:

Rather than fretting and feeling bad when things dont go your way or  starting to sulk for silly things, accept things as they happen, because, everything happens for a reason and for a very good reason.

Couldn't resist thinking, Was Gandhi, ever a leader, more especially after reading the pen ultimate paragraph here

Considering the special circumstance then, this definition of leadership was never far away from my mind, but off late it has been haunting me with high intensity...

Enlightenment

Ever wondered what  conversation does a guy who holds a phone glued to his ear has, while his lips too are glued to each other...well,  just his very own lips!

Hmm, he is just listening to a monologue, which we all mistake to be a dialogue.

So what is the monologue is all about?

Well, to name a few it could range across any one of the following or all of them ;)

• Reasons for suddenly disappeared from being online.
• How the desire to cook fish curry vanished because mom started cooking?
• Who are all the friends, who are dieting, how they are dieting and why they are dieting?
• Why dieting does not serves any purpose in the long run?
• Why today mom's hand bag is being carried to office rather than personal handbag?

Disclaimer:
This above blog post has no correlation to this tweet!

குரலோசை

கரைந்துக் காணாமல்
போகிறேன் நான்
உன் குரலின்
குழைவில்!
பி.கு
ஆன்ட்ராய்ட்டில் இருந்து
பகீரத பிரயத்தனப் பட்டு

Steve is Back

And he really did kick some ass.
Business press haven't learnt their lessons on Steve Jobs  from his past history.

Once Bloomberg worte his obituary when he was very much alive.

A month back, when he took his third leave of absence, business press was all over him bidding good bye to him forever. We also had some doctors who could diagnose patients just by looking at a picture and predict the death. And again business press did eat that...

All these inspite of having seen him rise like a phoenix out of ashes, more than once!

 

I would say, he rose out of ashes once again yesterday to launch the sequel of his third post-PC blockbuster product, iPad 2.

 

With the display of his magical formulaic Steve Notes[like starting with the updates, taking a dig at the competitors  by calling them copy cats and misquoting Samsung, well at least i think it was delibrate] he shut all the mouths [or should i say open mouthed] and showed them he isn't dead, at least for now!

 

As he once remarked, Death is the biggest invention but it is yet to discover him!