Nitin Bhardwaj_BLP059_Self Leadership_Sep’11

A leader is best
When people barely know he exists,
Not so good when people obey and acclaim him.
Worse when they despise him.
But of a good leader, who talks little,
When his work is done, his aim fulfilled,
They will say:
We did it ourselves.
- Lao-tzu, 6th century B.C. Chinese philosopher

I would like to start by stating that for me Self leadership is all about discovering oneself. 

And one of the main reasons why I joined SOIL was that it will help me to in my passage of self discovery. And Anil sir’s session was one of the positive steps in that direction. Also I would state that Anil Sir is the most charismatic person I have ever met in my life and you cannot prevent yourself from being struck by his personality and commanding presence. Such is the aura of the man that whenever he delivers a speech I get completely engrossed in his words as if my life depends on it.

Anil sir’s on September 8^th was another of his inspirational session where emphasis was on self discovery. During initial part of the session it was discussed how to conquer your fears. I learnt that leadership is about ability to manage mind, heart and emotions. If an individual is able to control his thoughts and mind he has won half the battle. Moving forward during the session we tried to identify the root cause of success by asking “why” 5 times. We tried to identify an instance where each of us was at his best and then by using 5 why technique boiled down to reasons why we performed in that situation. Most important learning of session that I will try to implement in my life is that habits can be changed if we use proper approach suggested during the session. What comes in between this change is fear and ego.  The best way to overcome it is unconditional love.

Then session moved to Immunity map that was put in place by Robert Kegan, a Harvard professor. It basically revolves around four questions mentioned below:

1)    What is you want to achieve

2)    What is stopping you from achieving that goal

3)    Why you are not able to overcome deterrent identified in question 2?

4)    What are assumptions you have made which led to this deterrent?

For the true effectiveness of this session I had to answer these questions for myself.

Starting with first question. Professionally I would like to be a master of a particular business administration stream and then have a brief knowledge of other streams to develop broader perspective. And personally I would just like to be happy by being surrounded with my family and friends.

In case of second question although I have achieved the personal goal but I am yet to achieve my professional goal and worst part is that I do not think that I have started in that direction. I believe one of the reason is my exposure to business administration has been limited and post my BLP program I will be able to achieve to it. Second reason is my ego which I believe is the core reason.

I am not able to overcome my ego because of my inability to be dependent on others.

Lastly, my funda about life is that I should never be indebted to anyone.

Most important learning of this blog writing is that I was always knew that it was my ego that was playing the spoilsport but now I know what led to building up of my ego and can work on it.