Leadership by example?

You do not know how much an impact you leave on the ones around you whether you like it or not. Most of the effect is unintentional and mostly occurs by passive diffusion. You also learn so much by looking at people around you just as much as you do to them! Others are teachers to you just as much as you are a teacher to them.

For all those unsavoury situations that my siblings found themselves in, I was admonished for not setting a good example, reminding of the obscure  things that I had done unwittingly or otherwise when I decided to let my hair down. I thought it was unfair for I had to be on my toes at all times for the younger ones to emulate. It was not fair to me for being first born. I did not ask to be born first. I needed space and freedom to express. I wondered why I was not 'praised' for all the exemplary things I did but that was a no brainer, I was expected to set a good example for the younger ones to follow anyway. In return, apparently, I was given certain privileges that I never saw coming!


In working life, I thought that I was just an average Joe who did his job without leaving much of an impact to my subordinates. I thought they would like to forget their working experience with me, carrying on with lives, forgetting it just as another bad phase of experience that came with the job.
Surprise, surprise. A chance meeting with not one but many of my down lines proved otherwise. Seeing many of them deciding to plunge into the same line of work as me, quoting me to be their role model was a pleasant eye opener! The words of my mother in my childhood came sprawling down. You do not realise how much you influence the people around you.

A few years ago, a speaker speaking of the then materialistic direction that the society was heading without improving the spiritualistic and humanistic development of its members, he had this say. From time immemorial, human beings have been looking for role models and heroes to follow. The usual figure that they tend to look up is their leader. They dress, behave, talk, look and try to follow the leader's footsteps. This probably how the mythological tales of Ramayana came about. There must have been a royal family revered by its citizens. People must have been awed by their dizzying display of power and fortune. Over the generations every bit of their actions, inactions, conduct, judgement, response in situations have been amplified, sugar coated, exaggerated and been used as a yardstick of how man should lead his life.