The future leadership

Everyone here knows that Leadership is not inborn. Even if it is, according to some people, they have to constantly learn-unlearn-relearn in order to keep themselves updated.

So how do you get leadership ? Its a big question, if understood properly can bring you to the CEO position from an ordinary worker. If you don't believe, just Google on Indira Nooyi and in just a couple of readings you'd agree.

The leadership is similar to studying a degree: Once you learn it's always with you. Its different as the relevant attributes always change with new challenges and case studies that come up following success stories. I have been doing a lot of study on how will the future leaders look like, and that what in yourself you need to develop NOW to be a future leader.

There was a six-week blog series run by Harvard Business Publishing on their blog during first half of 2010. Articles posted under that covered a wide range of topics and also opened up new issues for the practitioners. One of the most interesting one's I found were just about defining leadership. Still no one has yet reached a stage where they can describe it in few words. Reason: Its undiscovered yet, anybody can argue against my lame viewpoint. I would only ask to agree on: "Great leaders require a necessary quality of continuous learning", that includes all the skills that they possess, when they are already a great leader.

In order to train yourself in a good leadership skills, one needs to be a leader and keep wanting to be a leader. This does not require you to go and apply for the position of manager. Its also not necessary to do a leadership course or enroll into an MBA program as well. You rather just have to stand up and take charge of yourself. Lead your work(your project), life(outcomes) and your friends/relatives(stakeholders).

Bob Johnson, In his book titled "Leaders make the future" describes 10 key qualities that will matter the most in the future. The reason behind quoting him here is not just these qualities, but the self examination attributes linked to these qualities. Examining yourself after every dominant transaction would guide you to the path of becoming a future leader. There is freely available survey available to carry out self examination. The link to the survey is http://www.bkauthorapps.com/lmtf1/quiz.php

The above was my perspective on what should one understand by the word leadership, what is it all about and How would you become a future leader! Hope you had pleasant time reading it and best of luck in becoming a future leader!

Man vs Women

I found this conversation in an email, when women tries to be like man. Exercising "what ever" - The magical words but that turns out funny!!

Men: What should we have for dinner?
Women: Whatever..
Men: Why don't we have Mexican?
Women: No not Mexican, the last time i got pimples on my face
Men: Alright, why don't we have Szechwan cuisine
Women: Yesterday we ate Szechwan, today too?
Men: Hmm..... I suggest we have seafood
Women: Seafood is not good, I got diarrhea
Men: Then what do you suggest?
Women : Whatever..

Men: So what should we do now?
Women: Anything
Men: How about watching a movie? It's been a long time
Women: Watching movie is no good, it's a waste of time
Men: How about we go for bowling, or some exercises?
Women: Exercise on such a hot day?
Men: Then find a cafe and have a drink
Women: I am off caffeine
Men: Then what do you suggest?
Women : Anything..

Men: Then do we just go home?
Women: You decide
Men: Let's take the bus, I will accompany you
Women: The bus is dirty and crowded.
Men: OK; we will take a cab
Women: Not worth it... for such a short distance
Men: All right, then we can walk. We can enjoy the weather
Women: I am hungry, can't walk.
Men: Then what do you suggest?
Women : You decide
Men: Let's have dinner first?
Women: Whatever...
Men: What shall we eat?
Women: Anything..

Simple chicken curry - the indian way!

Indian chicken curry is delicious. Isnt it? I have come across many people who like indian food but dont exactly know how to make it. So they buy ready paste from markets and just mix everything. Believe me, Its the most crap indian food ever! And when I make in front of them, they are surprised with the taste and its simplicity. Well anyone can make delicious curries if they follow these simple steps.

Ingredients

* 3-4 tablespoons of olive oil
* two onions (Large)
* 500 g of chicken fillet (or whatever chicken)
* 4-5 big mushrooms (optional for Qty cooking)
* 3-4 garlic cloves
* little ginger finely chopped
* 1 green chili/chili paste/chili powder/nothing
* 1/4 teaspoon of salt
* 1/4 teaspoon of turmeric
* 2/3 teaspoon of ground cumin
* 1/2 teaspoon of ground coriander
* 6-8 teaspoon of tomato purée/a can of diced tomatoes
* 1/4 teaspoon of garam masala (or a teaspoon of curry paste)
* 3 tablespoons of double cream

Step 1
Get bowls and cut the vegetables really small. Just remember that the smaller something is, the faster it cooks and better it mixes. You'll want the garlic cloves, ginger, onion, and chili to be finely chopped.

If you want the curry to be less spicy, take out more chili seeds. You can always omit the chili if necessary or wanted. Its a myth that Indians always eat spicy hot food. I myself can not bear chili in the food. If you've accidentally cooked spicy food. You can somehow reduce its spiciness by eating it with Greek style plain yogurt.

Step 2
Get a clean chopping board and also chop your chicken breasts into small pieces. Remove the fat if you've got leg pieces under a hot water tap. Just be sure that you wash your hands after cutting the raw chicken before moving onto the next step.

Step 3
Heat oil in a frying pan and cook both the onions and chicken pieces over medium heat. Cook them for about 10-15 minutes, so that the chicken is cooked thoroughly.

Step 4
Add the chili, ginger and garlic. Leave it on medium heat and keep stirring.

Step 5
Add the rest of the ingredients. Also, add double cream. Mix and cook everything together. Put some water so that everything of chicken is dipped into the curry. Get a cover for your fry-pan and keep cooking with intermediate stirring. The chicken tastes best when its overcooked. You got to keep cooking the curry with the pan-lid.

Estimated cooking times in step 5
Breast chicken - 20 min
Leg pieces/Wings - 40 min
Any other - 30 min

Make sure the things do not burn from the bottom. Serve the chicken curry with yogurt and rice or nan-bread..

Escapade

When you have too much of something in your reach you tend to feel greedy and want more of it. You start expecting more and more from it. Soon you start feeling insecure and unreasonable. It is really not easy to have control over what you want all the time. So it is normal to feel this way. Specially when the source is so stable and reliable that even you might start taking it for granted sometime.

Same happens with love. First you fall in love. You find yourself hopelessly in love. Then you build your world around it. You start expecting that your journey to the end won't be so lonely anymore. You often start feeling that this is what you were waiting for all your life. You start building your own dreamland without even thinking that this might not be the other person is expecting from life. Or may be both are expecting same things from life but in different way. May be your meaning of living life is completely different from each other. There it falls apart.

And then when you realize you can't have it the way you want it, you can accept it at once and move on or you can just cry over it for sometime, like a child. But at the end you will have to accept it. Life teaches us its' lessons anyway. There is absolutely no way you can bunk the class.

Now when you face the truth that you will have to accept the truth what do you do?

I start feeling pity for myself. I feel hurt. I feel sad for myself. I even cry for being such a mess. I criticize myself like an enemy should. I feel angry for being so weak and dependent on others. And at the end I accept the truth.

But this is really very negative way to deal with hurt. Is there any way to minimize the hurt? There is, may be. I am still trying to find the way, the Escapade from hurt and self-criticism.