Recently someone asked me 'Are you a team leader'?
I replied 'No, I am a team member'.
My friend there was holding a title of Senior Team Lead and hence deduce himself to be a leader. Automagically, he got abysmally disappointed as both of us were given same responsibilities.
That was another pattern I see in almost all of us. Especially when we get to our work lives. We ought to carry our titles in our heads and start considering ourselves leaders as soon as we start doing same things again and again.
When I raise my head to take a look around me that day, I saw more and more leaders & to be leaders than team members. I got shocked, the same joker is there, playing at this level so minutely,so smoothly that I never noticed him. I still remember those marks scoring days in school when the one who scored 99/100 was a hero. Are we not repeating the same pattern even when we are aware of it? Titles/achievements are still outweighing potential. Don't get me wrong, I respect titles, I honor achievements. But once again we are slapped hard in our faces by fate and our own human tendencies on this front
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Newton once said "For ever action there is an equal and opposite reaction".For every effect, there is a cause.
We, humans have a natural urge of getting so blinded by the effect that we forget the cause. We do fight against it but we are slaves to it.We smoke cigarette, drink alcohol not because we are not aware of what cause is responsible for the effects. We are so blinded by the effects that we want to and do forget the cause.
Ancient theory as understood by me was
'If someone is working hard,brilliant, has potential and doing well then he may get the Title(99/100)'.
We as always manipulated it to something like
'If I have title, I automatically have potential,am working hard and doing well'. Unfortunately we are so much brilliant in getting titles, without doing everything required to get it. That's why you can easily see a lot of potential less people carrying titles around.
The reason that scoring 99 out of 100 does not make me a mathematical genius is the same reason which does not make me a leader if I am chose to call a leader by those who I am not leading.
A leader was, is and will always become a leader only if people chose to follow him. There will be no titles, there will be no egos.
PS :-I am still trying to figure out what is a senior leader, probably the one leading senior people :)
Arpit
