Dhar Vybhav PP5168, One Page Short Essay #6

What is the leadership quality I consider most important and why? Illustrate
with a real life example

Leadership quality that comes to my mind at the very mention of the word is
semantically inseparable from the core meaning of the word, i.e. to lead, and further
borrowing from Michelle Rhee’s description of the three most important leadership traits, it
unequivocally is, ‘to lead from the front’. As I try to ponder on the traits, characteristics,
successes and challenges to a leader from real life, the reverent image of my school
principal Mr. ML Sharma, invariably comes to my mind.

2. Being a heavily subsidized central government school, my school was a classic case
of a headless organization with highly qualified teachers, yet no academic results, frequent
instances of rampant indiscipline and shabby infrastructure before Mr Sharma joined. As he
joined, he demanded teachers stand beside their respective classes during the morning
assembly, failing which they would be marked absent for that day – a seemingly unpopular
move but when, he himself would stand all through the assembly, that too on the stage, even
during scorching summer sun, the vagrant teachers had to literally fall in line. He would be
taking rounds of classes, sports rooms, music room, hostels, and school compound all
through the day, rarely sitting in the otherwise comforts of principal’s office.

3. He restructured the morning assembly, and nominated different days for specific
activities like Tuesdays as teacher talk days, during which a teacher would share the insights
on a topical issue/news. Here again, he led from the front as I still remember vividly, he
talked about economics and what does Sensex mean and measure. Debates, poem recitals,
speeches, singing competitions, parade, solo and group dance – classical and folk, started
filling up the morning assembly time, as he designated that as the most important ‘zero
Period’ on the lines of zero hour in the parliament. He would make a speech, almost every
day, always extempore, on diverse topics to students and teachers, on topics related to
health, studying, discipline, his own subject of economics and everything under the sun.

4. Towards the end of his stint as our ‘Principal Sir’, as we all called him, our school
was academically amongst top 3, in terms of sports, our school team sent two members to
national football team, we seized all the trophies at regional and zonal levels for cultural
activities like debates, youth parliament, poem recital, dance, singing, the list goes on and
on. The day of reckoning for us came, when we had parents of the wards studying in local
private and missionary schools queuing outside school office to secure admission for their
children at 5 INR a month. He did it all heads on, foregoing his personal cocoon of comfort,
making speeches in hot sun, running with the practising football players, dining in the hostel
mess, picking up litter on the assembly ground, networking for infrastructure and cultural
exchange events. He was doing, seen doing, and got it done heads on. He made my school
the epitome of pursuance of knowledge, culture and sports, who magically transformed the
most important aspect of our student lives with his Midas touch.

5. If a leader is only there with zealous words or stern orders without any concomitant
action at the front, they lose the moral authority to lead. Mr Sharma was always there at first,
be it standing in morning assembly, or dining with students, he set an example and moral
authority, which his subordinate staff and other teachers could not violate. When he
demanded exacting standards in terms of academics, sports or co-curricular activities, he
was the first to be in the field. Thus, a leader got to be in field, jostling with his team, running
with his mates or discussing with them hours on, as that implies top-level urgency and import
given to the matter. Physical presence also exerts a moral pressure on subordinates to
follow suit. Thus, when Mr Sharma picks up litter from the assembly ground, himself, no
student or teacher or cleaning staff, for that matter can resist the moral force of the leading
act. As followers or subordinates see their leader engaging personally, they not only get
inspired but morally constrained to follow his lead. Thus leading from front is the very soul of
leadership, without which, it is just meaningless management banter.