Leadership traits that separate real leaders from ordinary men....

Sometime back, while making a presentation to some young people about leadership traits and what I had done for my career growth, someone asked me what was the sign of a great leader? I know I am nothing like what a great leader should be - I am a very ordinary guy, who can easily be part of a crowd where probably nobody would ever notice me a second time, but this question was very generic, so I thought about it for a few seconds; and gave a very stockpile answer about what the leader does or should do, how he can be a team player and take strategic decisions and not tactical ones, … you get the drift. The attendees took notes, and seemed happy – but I was intrigued.  There had to be more that separated leaders from ordinary men. What did Shackleton do?  What made Sam Manekshaw a great leader? What about Churchill, or Alexander or Gandhi? What makes a real leader? 

Then I remembered a poem that my mother had read to me a long time back – and I thought this would apply to any good leader, irrespective of age or sex of the person. I like to think that I have grown keeping this as my goal, and if I can show even half of these traits, I will consider myself to have been a successful leader.

So here is the Poem If, penned by one of my favorite writers – Rudyard Kipling. 

If you can keep your head when all about you   

    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,   

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, 

    But make allowance for their doubting too;   

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, 

    Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies, 

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating, 

    And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise: 

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;   

    If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;   

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster 

    And treat those two impostors just the same;   

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken 

    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, 

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, 

    And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools: 

If you can make one heap of all your winnings 

    And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, 

And lose, and start again at your beginnings 

    And never breathe a word about your loss; 

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew 

    To serve your turn long after they are gone,   

And so hold on when there is nothing in you 

    Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’ 

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,   

    Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch, 

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, 

    If all men count with you, but none too much; 

If you can fill the unforgiving minute 

    With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,   

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,   

    And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!