Leadership, Productivity, and other things people can’t teach you
Preach what you’ve practised.
There is a very popular website that is widely acclaimed as the social network of “professionals”. I too have created an elaborate profile on the said website and find myself scrolling through my feed more often than not. It is truly a wonderful application, which if correctly leveraged, can work wonders for your career. Every now and then (more now than then) I come across a post that teaches me something. These posts follow a general structure:
- Today, I faced a challenging situation (X)
- I did Y to solve this issue (Y is usually an act of great empathy or commendable decision making)
- I have concluded Z from this event and want to share this with you all (Z being some moral or virtue we all have read somewhere but have never seemed to implement. Or maybe we did implement said virtue subconsciously but did not make a post about it)
- Lastly, at least 10–15 hashtags (may or may not be relevant, all the lines are blurred honestly)
When I come across such posts, and I see a LOT of them. I wonder, what drove these authors to create them. There sure are a lot of people who seem to know what leadership is, how to stay motivated, how to handle stress, how to stop procrastinating…Damn!
They must be excellent life coaches, devoid of stress because they know how to avoid it, always productive because they create “brain dumps” (google it) when they work, always admired as leaders because, well, they..lead?
I tried, I really did. I tried not to think about the 462 things I needed to do and their respective deadlines. “Put it in a to-do list and you’ll feel better about your agenda and avoid stress”
I did as I was told.
Filling those three pages with my to-do list wasn't really comforting, heck, I remembered a few I’d forgotten and now I was almost hyperventilating.
Okay, so much for avoiding stress, maybe I can boost my productivity?
I set up a reward system as instructed. It was so that I wouldn't procrastinate when I was working. 30 minutes of work/study followed by 5 minutes of YouTube. Let’s get productive!!
This one worked quite well initially. The only problem I had was with those selfish YouTubers. No video they made was less than 10–12 minutes. Soon I found myself watching a 1.5 hour-long documentary, all caution thrown to the wind, or in my case, to my already huge to-do list.
What about leadership? Everyone seems to be saying different things. Leadership is helping others, one said. Leadership is tough decision making, said another. One proclaimed being a straight shooter is the key. Another said to be empathetic is the most important virtue. I don't know man, it's all a bit too complicated to me, If only I had an official definition.
So with my inability to adopt these life hacks, I almost concluded I’d remain a slob for the rest of my life.
Then, like a true procrastinator, I closed my eyes and went back in time:
I remembered that one semester back in college when I had to take a whopping 8 subjects. 6 theory exams. 3 labs. 5 projects. Man, that was an INTENSE 5 months. I don't know how I did it but I came out of that sem with good grades in all those subjects. I even managed to publish some research work, all with countless assignments and quizzes through each week of the sem. How I still managed to take out time for my Student Chapter and football team during that time, I have no clue. Plus I almost always managed to make time on Sundays to go out. Come to think of it, that was some top-notch time scheduling. I can’t remember if I made any to-do lists though.
And what about the time when I organized that large event for the chapter, planned and executed in 3 days? I remember how the invited guest speaker cancelled last minute. Me and the team I was leading felt so helpless then. But somehow, I managed to arrange a replacement speaker and ensure the event fillers kept the audience engaged. I remember my brain ticking, sweat pouring from my temple, working with my team furiously, evaluating options, taking on-spot decisions. Whew!! that sure was stressful, but we pulled through in the end. Wait…was that…leadership?
If only I remembered how I did it. Maybe I’d have written a post about it.
Let’s come back to the now. The purpose of this article isn't to discredit anyone who shares their experiences with leadership and all of life’s best virtues. It is merely to say, you as an individual need to look no further than yourself to identify those virtues.
Remember those situations, remember how you felt, remember how you overcame.
No matter how small the memory, how trivial, there is always something to be learnt. The people who share their experiences have lived them, have experienced the dilemma of a tough decision, the empathy towards another human being and the anxiety attached to achieving their goals. They are deeply connected with their learnings. But you? are you connected? You might be. I know I’m not.
Most of us know the leadership buzz words, the productivity hacks, the stress-busting practices. But do you practice what they preach? Do you accept and make it your own? Do you prepare to be a leader having never been put in that tough position? That’s a question for you to think about. There is a reason why terms like leadership do not have a single definition. There are schools of thought but at the end of the day: to each their own.
So throw yourself into that deep-end, and find out for yourself what leadership really is. Take up a mammoth task and find out what productivity really is, and when you succeed, you’ll have an answer on how to manage stress.
And maybe write a post imparting your newfound wisdom while you're at it!!
