Celebrating Life

There were once 2 brothers who lived on the 80th floor of a tall building.

On coming home one day, they realized to their dismay that the lifts were not working and that they have to climb the stairs home. After struggling to the 20th level, panting and tired, they decided to abandon their bags and come back for them the next day. They left their bags then and climbed on............

When they have struggled to the 40th level by this time they had gone sufficiently mad and irritated. The younger brother started to grumble and both of them began to quarrel. They continued to climb the flights of steps, quarreling all the way to the 60th floor.

They then realized that they have only 20 levels more to climb and decided to stop quarreling and continue climbing in peace. They silently climbed on and reached their home at long last! . Each stood calmly before the door and waited for the other to open the door. And they realized that the key was in their bags which were left on the 20th floor.........

This story is a reflection on our life and times. All of us climb the tall building called career ...........some till all the 80 floors and some less. But do we know that the key to happiness is in the bag which has been left back on the 20th floor only Know your dreams and follow it so that you will not live with regrets.

Inside each of us are powers so strong, treasures so rich, possibilities so endless, that to command them all to action would change the history of the world.

Celebrate Life........"Your life is reflection of your thoughts".

PUT THE GLASS DOWN

A lecturer was giving a lecture to his student on stress management.

He raised a glass of water and asked the audience,
"How heavy do you think this glass of water is?"

The students' answers ranged from 20g to 500 gm.

"It does not matter on the absolute weight. It depends on how long you
hold it.

If I hold it for a minute, it is Ok. If I hold it for an hour, I will
have an ache in my right arm. If I hold it for a day, you will have to call an ambulance. It is the exact same weight, but the longer I hold it, the heavier it becomes."

"

If we carry our burdens all the time, sooner or later, we will not be able to carry on, the burden becoming increasingly heavier.

"

"What you have to do is to put the glass down, rest for a while before
holding it up again."

We have to put down the burden periodically, so that we can be refreshed
and are able to carry on.

So before you return home from work tonight, put the burden of work
down.

Don't carry it back home. You can pick it up tomorrow. Life is short,
enjoy it!!

A view of Leadership

Most of us as managers get on with our jobs,

• gettingthings done,
• meeting the targets,
• developing teams.

We see ourselves as leaders, we're often called teamleaders; but are we really leaders?

Is being a good,or even a great manager really the same as being a leader?

If we think about who are heroes are, they are oftenleaders, but rarely do we think of a manager as agreat hero.

Nelson Mandela is a hero to many, but hisautobiography shows that in reconstructing the newSouth Africa, Mandela left much of the enormous taskof getting things done to others. He was far moreconcerned with ensuring that people worked togetherand forging bonds between people, a hugely difficulttask given that many of those people had been enemiesfor so long. Mandela has also largely been concernedwith making sure that the external environment was well managed and spent much of his time as President outside of South Africa. Mandela and others who are considered to be greatleaders inspire us. They make us want them to win. They engage our emotions. They involve us in theirstruggle, and make it our struggle.

Leadership styles

Leading others involves a very different set of skillsto many of the attributes that are required foreffective management. In fact many commentators say that leadership is quite different to managing. Leadership is often seen as a set of characteristicsthat some people have and others do not. Leadershiptraits can include:

• Listening
• Seeing the bigger picture
• Focussed on a vision for the future
• Ambitious
• Committed
• Courageous
• Decisive
• Driven
• Positive thinking
• Passionate
• Wise
• High standards of integrity
• Able to take other people with you
• Curious

Although many of these traits are laudable, and perhaps something to aspire to , they are not often things that we can all say that we possess. In fact,we can argue that someone who feels that they encapsulate all of these qualities would automatically exclude themselves from wisdom which can only comefrom humility.

Is leadership a series of traits?

Analysing leadership as a series of traits can be deceptive. Peter Drucker, having considered what the personalities of various effective leaders have incommon, thought that there were no particular traits that stood out and that for each characteristic of oneleader, another who was equally effective had exactlythe opposite attribute. If you feel the need, or are required to lead others, it can be disheartening to feel that you are required to change your personality in order to be a good leader, not to mention the difficulty of doing this.

Others see leadership as a matter of style, rather than personality traits. A contrast can be made between autocratic, democratic and laissez-faire styles of leadership. Research has shown that the democratic style of leadership generally works more effectively at getting things done, particularly if the leader cannot be always there to ensure that people do what they are told to, as is needed under an autocratic leader. However, there are always exceptions to this rule, and many organisations have prospered under auto cratic leadership, although the trend for more highly skilled organisations is undoubtedly away from an autocratic style and towards a more facilitative and democratic style of leadership. Some people see the best leadership style as being determined by the context - at one extreme, helping people escape from a burning building needs someone who can tell people what to do and not worry about allowing them to have their say. At the other extreme, when seeking to reconstruct the office after the fire, and seeing the opportunity to improve on what was there before requires the leader to be able to listen to everyone's point of view, bring out the best inpeople and make a final decision, while inspiring them to work hard to repair the damage.

Conclusion

This leads us to consider leadership as a contextualised set of relationships with other people. Great leaders, in business or in politics, become those leaders both because of the context they were in (Churchill would not have been seen as such a great leader if he had not been British Prime Minister in war time, and in fact was rejected by the electorate after the war) and because people allow them to be leaders. To be a good leader you have to work to ensure that people will follow you in some way. This involves working to build trust, involving people in what's going on (even if it's only keeping people informed)and demonstrating that their cause will be best served by working with you. An alignment of values is required, whether that is persuading people that if they follow you then their jobs will be safe, or demonstrating that your cause reflects the values of your followers political beliefs. Leadership traits can be very varied, and it is almost impossible to change your basic personality to become whatever you think a leader is. Leadership style can be changed, and different style sare appropriate at different times and in different contexts. To be fully aware of what sort of leader you are, or can be, it is necessary to consider both the context and the particular set of relationships you have and can build with the people you lead.