Leader Vs. Manager

Whatever the nature of activity that we have chosen for our life, if we wish to be leaders in those situations, the first thing is we must be able to lead by example. Not by words, trickery or cunning, but by example. Fundamentally leading people means your ability to take people in a particular direction that you wish, towards a particular goal. If this has to happen, you must be able to inspire them to go on by themselves in that direction. Only when people are so inspired to do what you want them to do, that they are going to do more than you yourself thought of doing, can you lead them. If you have to constantly keep them in line to get a job done, then it is going to be hugely difficult to be a leader. You cannot lead people when you have to constantly supervise and manage them. As the kind of team that you are managing grows beyond physical contact, then leading people in huge numbers is going to be very difficult if you cannot lead them by inspiration. To inspire people to do whatever is required out of them, the very way you exist must be that kind of an example that people naturally stand up and want to do things that are necessary to be done. Only then leadership becomes an effortless process. 

Leadership is about being able to take a group of people, a nation, or the entire world in a direction and to a destination that they have not imagined possible. If it was something that they could have imagined, they do not need you. They need a leader who is capable of taking them to a place they themselves cannot imagine.

For this, a leader needs a profound sense of insight, that he is able to see something that other people cannot see. A leader means in some way you are sitting on a perch. If you sit on a perch and don’t see any better than others, you will become an object of ridicule. Only if you are seeing better than others, you are a natural leader; otherwise you are a forced leader, and everybody suffers you and you suffer them in turn. It’s an endless process of misery.

If you believe that what you are doing is important, the most important thing in your life is to work upon yourself, to enhance your perception skills, to be able to see what others cannot see, to have an insight into what you wish to do.