Take the lead!

‘Hey people, let’s hang out someplace nice, say Juhu Beach’.

The response to this depends a lot on who’s asking the question, doesn’t it? Read on..

This post isn’t about personal bias, but it’s about how effectively some people can take the lead. These are the people who have mastered the art of persuasion. They are the ones who by one way or another refuse to take no for an answer and manage to get people to agree with the plan. This works even in situations where you thought ‘no’ to be a definite answer. Convincing comes so naturally to them.

I’ve never been good in this department, but have always observed the modus operandi of people who are good at convincing right from school times to college. They work in myriad ways, but the end result is the same. Being a good persuader and eventually a leader requires a lot of groundwork; it’s not an overnight process. There are many phases to it, first one being recognition. Unless you have recognition in the place where you want to influence your ideas, nobody’s going to listen to you. So, basic communication with everyone is a must here.

Next step would be activeness. One has to be very much active around the place where he or she has to aspire to be a leader. You can’t expect to come to college on time, leave right when the college is over and hope that one fine day when you plan a trek, many people from your class will come and join you. You can’t expect to hit the target right the very first time you try.

Bonding together with people who like to take the initiative is the next step. You gotta be amongst the planners of the group. It’s again necessary that you be involved in the plans these initiators make, then only can you expect them to join in your plans. Another vital aspect is building a bubble of trust around you. You can become a good persuader only if people trust you. This trust comes from small things like living up to the tasks that you took up, confining to yourself the personal stuff your friends tell you about their lives, helping your friends when they are in need, consoling them in their grief.

Getting the plan together gets a lot of patience. You have to listen to the tantrums of lot of people around, you have to clear everyone’s doubts, be ready to spend a lot of money on phone calls, sending reminders again and again and most importantly, not giving up despite the obstacles. Many a time, it also warrants to make big last minute changes to suit maximum number of people involved, keeping your own comforts aside for the sake of others.

It’s the satisfaction of a successful venture keeps you going through all this trouble. The joy of being together is more pleasing than relishing the happy times alone.

The thing I feel about leadership is that you don’t always have to be a leader, but you have to step up when nobody’s there to take the initiative. When few people are working towards a plan, we needn’t demonstrate our planning skill. After all, if everyone needn’t be cooking delicious food, sometimes we need to look forward to tasting those delicious dishes too!