06 August 2009

God@Earth - A Puncture Boy

Each one of us can think, write and want to live like Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Gautama Buddha. But most of the times, we forget to follow the soul. If we follow our soul, we will find all the great people among us. But unfortunately it takes a lot of time to understand this as we get stuck in details, see, smell and perceive things with poor understanding, and we never get connected with the whole - the soul.

Today, I happen to meet a great guy. I dont know his name, let us call him Mr. Perfect because for me he appeared perfect. He might have been 15-20 years old or may be much younger. He works in a cycle shop in Vadapalani (Chennai, India) and the cycle shop has an extension for fixing the puncture (both bicycle and bikes). Today, it seems like a good day for me and fortunately my bike got punctured (this is a regular phenomenon). I needed to walk at least 500 meters to find this shop.

When I parked my bike, Mr Perfect was fixing puncture of a cycle. He took around 10 minutes to fix it. He was fully focused on his work. There was another elderly person who was working with a bike. I thought that the elder one is going to fix my bike. As I was thinking, Mr Perfect was so fast to fix the cycle and he just smiled at me. Again, he was fully engaged and dedicated towards his work and my God, I never seen a "Puncture Boy" like him (you can believe my words, I have seen my puncture shops in Chennai).

After he finished, he double checked whether he fixed it properly. I m not sure how many of us, the "so called" software engineers do this. He said, "Sir, I ll make sure again, it is almost 9 pm and you will not find any shops if it again goes off". I was stumbled with his customer service, surely, he is "Gung Ho". The point is, he has already worked on 50+ punctures and he never got tired. He didn't take sandwiches, snacks or juices. But, his energy level was pretty high.

Truly, a God at Earth and one of the great leaders I have ever seen. Here is the picture of Mr. Perfect.



Leadership 101 - Leader Will Always Be a Follower

If you are obsessed with something, you will love it like a mad and it applies to leadership too. When it becomes a passion, you will understand the leadership is more about following and less about being followed. You will live for the principles that you believe in. When you have your vision on moving up the career or a top post, it is very unlikely that you will reach it. But rather, you to have see top post as a by-product of your leadership. The foundation is your attitude to see followership in leadership.

This following is not running after people. This is more about giving more power to people who think right and act right. Many people call this "Inverting the Pyramid" where the people are allowed and motivated to make decisions. It is faster way of creating decision makers and leaders and right way too. If you are a true leader, you will accept that creating thinkers and leaders will be of top most priority. "Inverting the Pyramid" and following the decisions of your people will make you unmatchable team and bring up the hidden potential of individuals leading to transformation.

So, a leader always has follower's mindset. Any thoughts?