LEADERSHIP : A PEBBLE OF CHANGE
Leadership seemed like a really easy topic to write an essay on. Though on the contrary, while thinking about it I was thrown in a tornado of contemplation. Does being a leader, I wondered, just mean being accomplished, being successful? Does getting straight A’s make you a leader? I didn’t think so. Great heart surgeons or great novelists or great shortstops may be terrific and the best at what they do, but that doesn’t mean they Are leaders. A leader can be anyone. From the celebrity with a million followers on a social network site to the clerk giving food to the homeless every weekend. Leadership as a word has an indefinable definition. Leadership and aptitude, leadership and achievement, leadership and even excellence have to be different things, otherwise the concept of leadership has no meaning.
Before coming to Japan, my grandfather quoted me a simple line, ‘Be who you are. Care. Instigate.’ It has been six months since my departure and only whilst writing this essay that I began realizing the aura of these words. Reflecting upon this I would like to share a turning point in my life. A dividing line.
It was the 7th of May, 2012 ,the International Day of Service. My club decided to go to a very poor government school to meet with the children and give them our time and gifts. But on reaching there I realised that our time and trivial gifts would change nothing for them. Education is a lost word there. The children are bereft of the wonderful world of fairy tales and beautiful stories. We wanted to give them something value added. And I came up with an idea of gifting the poor children, a library. Through feeling the problems of the children, through imagining a colourful library, through working hard to complete the library by cleaning and arranging the books, we made a wish come true.
14th of November (Children’s Day) , was the perfect day to unveil the library for the children. The smiles beaming on their faces when...