LEADERSHIP is Action, not Position

It was the year 2015 in the month of October when summers were ending in Delhi and the chilly winds of winter had just set in.

I and my best friend who is my husband today had been taking a stroll in the park, post-dinner around 8 PM when some students in the vicinity shouted that the Staff Selection Commission preliminary results were out. This was the fourth time we had written the exam and each time we got better than the previous one. First, we checked my friend’s marks as his name came ahead in the alphabetical order and we were happy to find that he had scored 130+ marks in the prelims.

Now, it was the time to find my name in the list. As we typed-in my name in the search bar, it boldly showed “NO RESULTS FOUND”. We were trying different combinations to check if the name was there in the list but time and again it could not find the name in the list. Our hearts were pounding out of our chest and we did not know what was happening. Along with this list there was another list that declared the list of disqualified candidates, whose 0MR had not been evaluated for some reason. We found my name in that list and on seeing that I fell on the bench in the park in a nearly shocked state.

I could never imagine such a situation after an entire year of waking up early in the morning, preparing for the exam along with my day job, sacrificing the lunch-breaks to practice my lessons and running back from office to save time to prepare for this D-day. Suddenly everything had come to a standstill and it was no less than a nightmare. More than the effort it was the loss of one crucial year, the hopes of my family that had been crushed. At this time, I felt that I had lost everything and I had no stamina left to start the preparation of the exam for the next full year from scratch, going through all the three stages.

I had lost faith in myself, my sense of self-worth and my ability to achieve things in life had been shattered. The remorseful state continued for a few days till one morning when I was sitting in the park, I got my Aha moment!! Taking a look at how my life had unfolded in the past few years, I realised some valuable lessons to last for a lifetime:-

The simple mistake that I committed in my OMR was not because of my lack of preparation, nor lack of knowledge but due to my attitude towards the exam and the incessant stress that I carried over my shoulders. After all

“It’s not the load that breaks you down but it’s the way you carry it.”

The second life changing lesson I got was that no exam could decide the fate of my destiny. It was no yardstick to measure how good, how capable and how worthy were I in life. I realised that

“Leadership is a Choice and not a Position.”

I chose to be a leader each day and learn each day of my life to make it worthwhile. I understood that it was I who had to take responsibility of my life and could not depend on any exam or any type of employment. No exam could measure my tenacity, courage or my leadership skills.

The biggest takeaway for me was

“Leadership is Action and not Position”

It will be apt to quote John Maxwell here

“Great Leaders’ courage to fulfill their vision comes from Passion and not Position”