The leader and the self

I’ve always worked with the best. I have fought being with the strongest, driven by the desire of learning from the manifestation of their strengths.

What I noticed though, most of the times, was people’s inability of exerting their power for a purpose other than that of protecting themselves. A warning here, a sharp reply there, another smart word thrown on their way out, the door closing behind them, lacking an invite for a response of any sort, for a chat, for communication…
No! Better for us to remain accomplices, in silence, in expectations, untold, assumed.

I’ve always strived finding reasons that would offer them the benefit of the doubt. And more often than not, the vicious circle had closed on the same spot, that of the loneliness.
Turns out that it’s lonely being the best.

If you’ve been a flag bearer back in school, your role was to teach your colleagues the values of that flag, why it was worth knowing and loving, regardless of what grade anyone was in or wherefrom they would witness its scrolling.
If you’ve been a flag bearer and all that you confessed about was how much a burden and uncomfortable the flag was, you did not do your job as a leader.

Whatever your role was in life, that’s put you in the spot light, be it due to your higher IQ, your better skill or simply having been graced with early lucidity of the mind and/or spirit, your role was to put that capacity in the service of others, helping them to arrive closer, quicker, to the common milestones of life.
If all you’ve done was complaining on how difficult the common challenges were for you too, using others’ praises of you to build a pedestal to your EGO, you haven’t done your job as a leader.

Leaders, for leading sakes, bear no justification. They do have a meaning, to help others become … better. They are invested with leading by those who aren’t yet ready to make it on their own.

Leaders, like parents, bear no justification. They do have a meaning, to enable others (kids), to stand on their own feet, to become … independent.

As you are leading it’s possible that you see yourself as the best, partly because you’ve thought so on your predecessors, partly because you are feeling lonely.

Picture yourself among people! How do you occur to you? How does the world occur to you?
If you aren’t sure what to make of yourself, choose to study yourself!
If you aren’t sure what to believe of the world, choose to study yourself!
Should you avoid growing your self-awareness you won’t be doing your job as a leader!