Leadership is one of the key ingredients Indian youth need to develop to unlock and grow their potential. Enhancing leadership skills among the Indian youth is imperative for India to excel as a developed nation and also as a global superpower. There are various schools of thought on whether leaders are born or made. However, the book Emotional Intelligence, written by Daniel Goleman, cleared most of the controversies by substantiating that leadership is a skill rather than a talent that can be honed by training, observation, practice, and reading books. Hence, Indian youth can tap their potential and grow their leadership skills.
Leadership is not a badge of honor, but it is a job with responsibility. Leadership is not a title or designation, but it is an assignment to undertake and execute effectively. Leadership starts with example and ends with execution and along the way we need to emphasize ethics. There are various definitions of leadership. If you Google you will find so many hits for the terms leadership and leader. You will find several definitions of leadership. You will be amazed to know the importance accorded to these terms. However, we can precisely say Leadership is the ability to lead from the front. It is owning responsibility for failures and sharing benefits with others for success.
Youth Leaders and Examples Globally
Youth leadership is about youth undertaking leadership roles and responsibilities, thus donning the hats of leaders. It is all about acquiring knowledge, skills, abilities, competencies, and capabilities to excel as leaders at an early age. It involves fundamental, foundational, and formational ways of training and grooming Indian youth. Some teens and youth have leadership potential and spark. They exhibit their mindset, skill set, and toolset to demonstrate their leadership skills. When you look at educational institutions, we find few youth undertaking activities, as they have an urge to grow themselves as leaders.
It is essential to encourage youth to undertake leadership assignments in their educational institutions so that they find it comfortable in their post-college life. When we look at several political leaders, most of them were active in their college life. It provided a launching pad to test their leadership skills and abilities. It provided enough confidence and equipped me with ammunition to take on the challenges in the later part. In India, youth leadership is synonymous with Swami Vivekananda, as he is the symbol of youth leadership, and the government of India celebrates Youth Day as a mark of respect for this legend.
Most of the Indian youth are not interested in politics, as politics is riddled with a lot of corruption and there are politicians with criminal records. However, Indian youth should take a relook at the current political scenario, enter politics, and must clean the system of the mess. Youth leaders who are driven by ambition and who are driven by values and morals must come forward to cleanse the system, replace the existing criminals, and provide a new direction to build a greater and stronger India. At times, Indian youth claim that they don't get opportunities to enter into politics. The reality is that opportunities are not provided, but they need to be grabbed to make a difference in the quality of the political system in India.
Globally, young leaders like Theodore Roosevelt, Martin Luther King, John F. Kennedy, and John Major have changed the global equations by undertaking leadership positions at a young age. Historically, Alexander the Great was a young and charismatic leader who achieved everything at the age of 32 by conquering the world. India also had young leaders such as Adisankaracharya and Swami Vivekananda who influenced the world through their leadership.
Cultivating Leadership Qualities
It indeed takes a ton of raw material ore to produce an ounce of leadership material. Indian youth have leadership material and talent, but they don't know how to unlock and excel as leaders. We need leadership trainers and educators to spot and groom them as leaders. We also need motivated Michelangelos to turn raw youth talent into leadership potential, as it is well known that Michelangelo turned a block of marble into the breathtakingly beautiful Pieta.
Youth must listen to audio tapes of global leadership gurus, especially their body language and their presentation style, to bring behavioral changes in their leadership styles. In addition, they must also read good books on leadership and the biographies and autobiographies of great leaders to emulate the pain and suffering they have undergone and the struggles and sacrifices they have made. The process of leadership is highly challenging and painful, but worth emulating because there is no meaning to life when we don't contribute anything to people and don't pass on anything to the next generation. Youth must also set their visions clearly and move on. They must conduct a SWOT analysis, where SWOT is the acronym for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. After considering their strengths and weaknesses, they must capitalize on their strengths and look at the ways and means to overcome their weaknesses.
Learning leadership is like learning to swim. Mere reading books doesn't help in learning to swim. One has to get into the water to learn to swim. Similarly, merely reading books doesn't make people leaders. What you need to do is get into action by developing emotional intelligence because emotional intelligence is one of the important ingredients of effective leadership. You cannot become a crack shot unless you lose some ammunition. You need to learn several lessons by falling and failing and by bouncing back with resilience to cultivate leadership qualities.
Indian youth can also take a few role models for cultivating leadership qualities. Visualization techniques help in building leadership abilities. As the battle is won twice, first in mind and then in real life, leadership qualities need to be built in the mind first to apply in real life to excel as effective leaders. Above all, they must learn leadership lessons from the experience of other leaders who have made mistakes in their lives, as a wise person learns from the experience of others while a foolish person learns from his/her own experience.
Youth must learn that leadership is not for the fainthearted but for the brave-hearted. Leadership involves a lot of struggles and sacrifices. It consumes a lot of time. It involves both bouquets and brickbats. They must learn to take both praise and criticism in their stride. This is the essential ingredient of leadership.
Parents and educators have a crucial role to play in grooming students as leaders.
The Old Must Pave the Way for Youth
The future of India lies solely in the hands of the youth, who can add dynamism, innovation, and a fresh lease of life to every area of activity through their insights and ideas. The old must pave the way for youth. Most of the Indian politicians are old with old mindsets and thoughts. Most of the time, it proves to be counterproductive as they are not able to explore and experiment with new ways and means of solving several problems. I applaud Indian youth for their keen insights and ideas. Most of them are ambitious and driven. They are ready to undertake leadership positions. Most of the young people who are coming out of educational institutions are quick thinkers, learners, conceptually agile, comfortable with models and numbers, and able to diagnose complicated situations through their ingenuity. They often show keen insights into several problems through their out-of-the-box attitude and approach.
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