Sadgati to Dr Bindeswar Pathak, 80. Founder-Sulabh International. A legendary sanitation icon. Missionary Social Entrepreneur.
Manish Ranjan introduced me to ‘Through the Broken Glass’ by TN Seshan. An autobiography of a legend seeding the change in the landscape of electoral politics and processes.
Mental Health conditions – anxiety, depression, substance addictions, radical swinging moods, schizophrenia, eating disorders, OCD, stress disorders – are troubling at least 13% of the population. This is an area of work that requires attention. Can we see – Covid killed some 7 lakh people; Ukraine War has already killed 2 lakh and it continues; but Mental Health conditions are torturing 1000 times more people.
It is not enough to feel guilty, or to offer an apology. We need to change – change our behaviour. No one is coming to save us from the internal lapses and external challenges of our lives. Only we have to save ourselves. It is our responsibility. We have the power and abilities for the same. Therefore, can we set our goals as clearly as possible? Can we accept our accountability for ourselves, learning from mistakes, if any? Can we see and seek challenges and opportunities as vehicles of becoming better? Can we build an ecosystem around us for this ‘we are in-charge’ paradigm? Can we celebrate our progress in this direction, however small the progress may be, as often as possible? In essence, are we building our agency?
We know that we are born leaders. Of ourselves, our teams, our stakeholders and changes around us. We lose this ‘ability’ as we grow because we do not practise. For many of us, many a time, the ecosystem around us suppresses and takes away this ability. Ability to lead and influence without authority. Ability to lead with authority. Understanding people, behaviour, dynamics, culture, costs, economics, and resources, structures, systems and seeding. Can we know these leadership essentials and practise them, 10,000 hours and more? Emotional Intelligence; intra-personal competencies; managing self; interpersonal competencies; personal plans and adaptation; team structuring; teamwork and dynamics; mutual delegation and sharing; difficult conversations and conflicts; handling failures; coaching, nurturing and mentoring; relationships; influences without authority; conflict management; collaborative decision-making; psychological safety and security; confidentiality and loyalty; resilience; managing lows and troughs; space management; task allocation and sharing; setting and agreeing with shared agenda; taking role in forming, norming, storming, performing, transforming, reforming; and taking role in ending if required.
Successful delivery of tasks, getting the delivery done, managing a portfolio of tasks of team is not ‘leading’. Teaming, building team capacity, deciding, nudging, taking chances, thinking, etc. Leading transcends all these. Possibilities are very high, the processes of A to B, will not help in B to C and so on.
Discovering ourselves and recording the discovery is an important foundational first step for us to become activists, animators, facilitators, managers, leaders in the livelihood-development arena. Unveiling a portfolio of things about ourselves. Social stripping; blindfold; personal vision – plan, ladders, snakes, steps, probability of realisation; river of life and book of life; our time an expenditure; and so on. Can we discover ourselves?
When we face and graduate out of the most difficult times, when we are evolving into higher selves, the road may seem lonely, but we are simply shedding the energies that no longer match the frequency of our destiny. We need to be in sync with the new possibility that is opening up. Previous performances cannot deter us to persist. Only the future possibilities, authentic possibilities, should drive us. We need to be engaged less with manipulative ‘losers’ overstating failures to be on our course. We need to be engaged more with Truth. Our Truth. Not the groupthink. Can we?
Yes, we can. If we coexist. If we are engaged on the ground. If we do not stop leading ourselves. If we reflect, meditate. If we flow in sync. The flow of N. For 7L.
Join us in the yoga of continuing to lead our lives in nature – pravartanayoga for 7L.
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