I received this book as my 26th Birthday present from my team at Citrix. I can state that it is a Guide to get out the leader within, I loved the foreword by Rahul Dravid who talks about “How storytelling is proudest amongst the Indian Tradition.” It is the beauty of storytelling that helped our elders embed few values in us and teach a lot of lessons. This Book is more like storytelling, which has different sections that talk about different areas to concentrate on.
The book is divided into 4 parts: The Leader Within, The Leader’s MindSet, The Leaders Way, and Leading Team.
The Leader Within: Gives various example so as to how much you can learn from a small tea Bag. Get “Ph.D.,” he says – not your DegrPh.D. but – “Passion, Hunger and Discipline”
Becoming a Passionate, Hungry and Disciplined Person can put you on the road to realising your true Greatness.
The Lesson from Baby Giraffe’s life : The lessons we learn early on become part of our habit, our instinct, and stand us in good stead all through our lives. And an important lesson to learn is that :
Never mind how hard you fall, always remember to pick yourself up and get back on your feet.
There are few more stories so as to an Advice from the driver’s seat who talks about how classroom and the real world are different, how dirtying our hands is important to learn our lesson and where we are never matters as long as we are using our skills efficiently. The Author also talks about concentrating on our life and career, celebrating our own success and achievements and not worrying about the once that couldn’t be met.
The Leader’s Mindset: Gives a lot of stories on a Leader’s Mindset which relates to so many circumstances of life. I love the way author puts across the most essential lessons through stories. The Stories I loved the most are ” When one Door Opens” , “Confront your fears and You’ll Conquer them!”, “What’s your next mountain?” These stories not just help us learn the leader’s mindset but it also gives us an idea of what one can come across. I like this quote from “When on Door Shuts” Which speaks volumes about how we react to the shut door:
We get so busy staring at the closed door and banding our head against it that we fail to spot the other door opening. Learning to cope with failure is ofter the first and most critical step towards success.
Similarly, Leader’s way and leading team also gives us an idea so as to what a leader does and how he leads the team with loads of examples. I personally loved this book for the way it tells us the story and embed the actual lesson on to our brain. I would encourage each of them to read it not just to bring out the leader with in you but more as to read the stories that the Author shares.
C. A. Stubborn Pen 