Leaders are about Influence, Nothing more, and Nothing less!

Posted on May 30, 2016
Location: London
Leaders are about Influence, Nothing more, and Nothing less!

What is the definition of a true leader? Was Mahatma Gandhi a good leader, who didn’t wear proper cloths, who didn’t travel in charter flights, who was not surrounded by army of security staffs or Politicians of current times are better leaders, who have every bit of all that at their disposal? Was Mother Teresa a good leader who did so much of charity work without speaking a word or those social leaders today, who publicise their work in the social media to beat the competition and remain successful? Are the leaders supposed to be visionary or they should be continuous learners? Are they supposed to be good communicator or they should be good listener? Are leaders generally courageous or they preferred to be secure and stable? If we go by some of current classifications of leadership qualities, we can easily deny Mahatma Gandhi or Mother Teresa to appear in the leadership list. 

Confusing hey? If we think about it, it’s very simple. Leadership is all about influence, nothing more, and nothing less. Mother Teresa had that, even if she did not speak much. Mahatma Gandhi had that, even though he did not wear suits and bow-tie. How many lives between them, Mahatma Gandhi and Mother Teresa had influenced together? Just imagine.

Since childhood, we have been taught that leaders are born. Good joke. How else ? But it is true some people are born with some natural leadership qualities but it does not make rest of them disqualified from being leaders. Mahatma Gandhi was not a born leader! He was a happy family man living & practising law in South Africa. Situation forced him and he did take that difficult decision to be a leader, at the cost of his comfort and stability.

There is a difference between a “Boss” and a “Leader” . The word “Boss” can be bit strong and negative. Boss to me, is about position, authority, demand and everything which is very forceful. Leader as I said is about influence, nothing more, and nothing less.  What need to be done must be done. Leaders focus on getting things done only. Position and Authority are more important to the boss to prove all the times to his/her subordinates. The Boss focuses on that therefore. My point is: A Boss may not be a good leader. Boss can just be a boss or both Boss and Leader together. Make sense?

Husband-Wife relationship has become a wonderful context for Hollywood movies, Bollywood movies, jokes-substance which gets circulated in social media platforms on a daily basis. Husbands keep circulating jokes about their wives within their comradeship and vice-versa. Here are some global opinions on marriages. I am not sure if these people truely said what written below but these are being circulated in the social media platforms.

  • After marriage, husband and wife become two sides of a coin; they just can't face each other, but still they stay together. - Al Gore
  • By all means marry. If you get a good wife, you'll be happy. If you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher. - Socrates
  • Woman inspires us to great things, and prevents us from achieving them. - Mike Tyson
  • I had some words with my wife, and she had some paragraphs with me. - Bill Clinton
  • Some people ask the secret of our long marriage. We take time to go to a restaurant two times a week. A little candlelight, dinner, soft music and dancing. She goes Tuesdays, I go Fridays. - George W. Bush
  • A good wife always forgives her husband when she's wrong. - Barack Obama

What are they trying to say, if we pay attention? They are possibly implying that they are great leaders, and they have no intension to be boss at home. Make sense? What need to be done must be done. Leaders focus on getting things done only and they do not waste any time bossing around.

That’s all for today. I want to keep going but remembered that it is an important day tomorrow, birthday of a friend, younger brother and probably one of the most comfortable friendships I have made in my life. Comfortable? Why it is? It is because we naturally enjoy friendship, which reminds us, how good we are and there is no one better than us. Friendship for a purpose fade away naturally in couple of months, years but if a friendship lasted for decades together, with same consistency and the friend continues to make us feel special – then it is something else. I am what I am, because of the faith of friend like this, on me. Love you. Happy Birthday.

Comfort se yaad aya – we don’t feel comfortable doing everything with every friend. I tend to have a long conversation with some of my friends, go to a movie with some others, go on feasting with some, go to a holiday with some and prefer to work/brainstorm with some. They all are friends and I love them all with equal intensity, but we match each other’s frequency differently on different subjects.  That’s perfectly fine and natural.  If thie above friend was in the town and tomorrow is his birthday, I shall drag him to a musical like this below. Because this is one of the subjects, where our frequencies would match on a birthday.  I heard this song for the first time, when another good friend of mine tried his voice with it once and since then I am huge fan of this song. Apparently it took 16 years for the original creator  “Leonard Cohen“  to create this song/lyrics/music. Many have tried to sing this since then and here are some of my favourites. Hope you like it. I get goosebumps everytime I hear this song...I get lost in my dreams.

It is going to be short but a rocking week. Chalo; Goodnight…Sleep Tight. Because tomorrow the first thing we have to answer ourselves as soon as we wake up is: how are we all going to influence? Just one person, everyday for a good reason – Shall we ? Most importantly - lets make it clear within - whether we want to be a leader or a boss ? Subhratri…Sabah Khair.

Well, I heard there was a secret chord

That David played and it pleased the Lord

But you don't really care for music, do you?

Well it goes like this:

The fourth, the fifth, the minor fall and the major lift

The baffled king composing Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah..smileylaughwinkyes

Bikash MohantyBikash Mohanty"Welcome to my website!
I am grateful for your visit. Please enjoy my writings and reach out to me, with your feedback."

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