From My Vantage Point "Timeless Poetic Wisdom of Kannadasan" Leadership Lessons - Part 3 - Embracing Life's/Leadership Challenges

Leadership is truly a demanding role, especially when you're at the top. Making crucial decisions and steering the organization through stressful times requires immense resilience and courage. Even with a supportive management team, the burden of critical decisions often rests on your shoulders. When leaders make such important decisions, sometimes they may go wrong and yield the opposite results. At times, your decisions may lead to failures. Facing such failures or unfavourable outcomes, along with other challenges, can be exhausting. In these situations, how you handle them—whether you are pulled down by your failure or face it and overcome it decisively—is what sets you apart as a leader.

Kannadasan offers a path to handle stressful situations through his evergreen song "Mayakkam Kalaikkama (??????? ???????)." Although this song is written for those who suffer failures in their day-to-day lives, it can be applied to any kind of failure situation. As we are all human and dominated by our feelings, the fact of human emotions does not change simply because we occupy a leadership position. Kannadasan offers a profound philosophical way of handling such situations just by looking around us and taking inspiration from other failures and successes, and overcoming them. This song emphasizes the importance of staying grounded and composed, even in the face of adversity. Its timeless wisdom can provide a source of strength and inspiration.

Let's explore the wisdom he shares in this song.

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Is it confusion or disarray?

Is it turmoil in the heart?

Is it tremors in life's sway?

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In these first three lines, each one reflects the state of our mind when confronted with failure or adversity. Our minds become clouded with confusion, especially when our well-thought-out plans fail. We invest a tremendous amount of time, analysis, and resources before executing a decision. When things don't go as planned, we are left questioning why it happens to us. It's a natural reaction to feel overwhelmed and disheartened when faced with setbacks, particularly when we’ve poured so much of ourselves into our endeavours.

This confused state of mind is a reflection of our emotional investment and the expectations we had. It's a moment where we grapple with self-doubt and frustration, seeking to understand what went wrong. It's important to recognize that these feelings are a natural part of the human experience. They remind us of our vulnerability and our capacity to grow from challenges.

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Life presents a thousand trials,

With sorrow at every door.

In these two lines, Kannadasan provides a philosophical perspective on life, offering solace to our minds. He reminds us that life is not always smooth, nor is any leadership journey always straightforward. Life and leadership are akin to walking through a path filled with many ups and downs, surprises, and challenges. If everything went smoothly and as planned, there would be no true leadership or life. Our life or leadership journey is intriguing because it brings numerous surprises and uncertainties. How we face these challenges defines our existence and leadership.

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Kannadasan suggests that if you look around, you will find some form of failure or sorrow at every door. This realization is not unique to you. By reading about every leadership journey, you'll discover that they have all faced tremendous adversities. Therefore, do not think that you are the only one facing these issues. It is a shared human experience. When you understand these lines, your confused mind suddenly calms, and you realize it is time to rethink and reassess.

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The timeless wisdom in Kannadasan's words encourages us to embrace our challenges and learn from them, ultimately guiding us toward resilience and growth.

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No matter what suffering arrives,

If you stand wearily, It won't pass by and fly.

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Entrust tomorrow's dawn to the divine,

Seek peace in the life you tread today.

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These four lines encapsulate Kannadasan's ultimate teaching, especially for those who lead from the front. He acknowledges that issues and failures are profound. If you dwell on them and remain stagnant, your situation won't change. You can't keep pondering what the future holds; you can only predict it to a certain extent. You might still succeed or face another failure, but it won't help you in adverse situations. That's why he advises leaving the future to the divine and focusing on today—how you deal with the current situation and find peace.

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A prime example of this wisdom is Steve Jobs. After being ousted from Apple due to product failures and disagreements with the then-CEO, he didn't wallow in his misfortune. Instead, he stopped worrying about his situation and started thinking about what's next. This led to the creation of NeXT, and the rest is history.

The key takeaway from Kannadasan's timeless lyrics is to understand that life's journey, including any leadership journey, will not always be smooth and predictable. Your situation is not unique; many have faced similar challenges in the past, and many continue to face them in the present. When you encounter failure or adversity, entrust the future to the divine and focus on how you handle the present situation. Remember this song the next time you face adversity; it will guide you toward inner peace and resolution.