Powerpoint presentations and leadership

      The other day, dad gave me a task. He was requested by the guys at the "Human Resource" dept. of his company to give a presentation on "leadership" to all sub-ordinates and fresh recruits. he pretty much finds a waste of his time and prefers spending it doing something else, i.e. something productive. So, such frivolous tasks are given to me. I make the draft ppts, he then tweaks them a little and then gets the chore done with.

 Sometimes I wonder what number of people really think such presentations are of use. Like a presentation on management, or say "leadership", or "entrepreneurship", "personality development", how many really think all these topics can be "learnt", and that too through a powerpoint presentation? I believed its just something that was invented by the MBA folk. Some ritual of powerpoint presentations that they believe must be preserved to show that our organisation is organized, meticulous and believes in team participation. How much participation does a slideshow demand from the audience? Unless its of importance to the audience's daily or future productivity, its just a show of colorful slides!! with animation.

    A young entrepreneur, who co-owns a software company, "what does it take to become an entrepreneur?". He didn't recite out 15 bulleted points out. He just said, "You should be ready to take that risk". That is it. I next asked him, "Does doing an MBA make you better equipped?"."No it doesn't. Hardly ever has it helped anyone. The only thing I look for in MBA grads when I go recruiting, is that the institute he/she did MBA from already probably took an entrance test before giving admission. That cuts off my task of separating the completely dumb ones and narrows down my search. Rest, any business administration skills you need to know, are pretty much on the job.".

       Coming back to my topic, I guess its just the culture that brews in large organisations. The pros to it is that everything is meticulous organised and good, solid policies, and in-depth planning, in all departments including HR do make sustainability a much much more realistic goal. however, some things are really unnecessary sometimes. Mainly all the "soft skills" training that goes on.

       How do you train someone in leadership with just powerpoint presentations and speeches? Its a ridiculous idea that you can. If you really want to train leaders, spot the ones with potential, put them in a position where they have to take the lead, willingly or otherwise. And they will learn.

How do you spot a leader? easy thing. You see, it isn't something that exists only in organisations or say political parties, or the freedom struggle. Leaders exist everywhere. Its a primal instinct to lead. Why do you have to always only think of "Gandhi", "Nehru", "Kapil Dev", historical generals and prime ministers, etc when I mention the term "leader"? Anyone that assumes the responsibility to make decisions for a group, to take the risk, and guide the others. Pablo Picasso could be said to be a leader too; he lead the world of art into a new dimension. Of course a leader doesn't necessarily need to have a pack of disciples and minions following him wherever he/she goes. It could be as plain and simple as being the first to move in some new direction. In fact, leadership is a very primal, animalistic instinct that I bet got sharper through evolution. Don't we assume leadership of all the animals around us. We pet some, some we keep in cages, some we exterminate, and for some we decide that we would like to destroy their forests. And not just us, animals have leaders too. Each pride of lions has the alpha male. Every wolf pack has a lead male wolf. Elephants too. Bees have the queen bee and the worker drones. It's everywhere. How is it decided? Lions for example implicitly choose the strongest male to be the leader of the hunting group. He commands largest share of all the prey and has primary right over the territory and the females. Any contention as to who gets to lead the territory is decided by a fight between the contenders. Trust me, it is really that amazing.

   A leader is a leader, wherever he goes. Ideally it should be in all of us. Doesn't mean you convince some people to obey your command. It just means, being the first, taking charge. That is how you spot the leader. it is really that simple.