Some important principles of leadership:

1. Always, when leaders say that the people are not following, it’s the leaders who are lost, not the people.
2. Leaders get lost because of isolation, delusion, arrogance, plain stupidity, etc., but above all because they become obsessed with imposing their authority, instead of truly leading.
3. Incidentally, leading is helping people achieve a shared vision, not telling people what to do.
4. It is not possible for a leader to understand and lead people when the leader’s head is high in the clouds or stuck firmly up his backside.
5. That is to say – loyalty to leadership relies on the leader having a connection with and understanding of people’s needs and wishes and possibilities. Solutions to leadership challenges do not lie in the leader’s needs and wishes. Leadership solutions lie in the needs and wishes of the followers.
6. The suggestion that loyalty and a following can be built by simply asking or forcing people to be loyal is not any basis for effective leadership.
7. Prior to expecting anyone to follow, a leader first needs to demonstrate a vision and values worthy of a following.
8. A given type of leadership inevitably attracts the same type of followers. Put another way, a leadership cannot behave in any way that it asks its people not to.
9. In other words, for people to embrace and follow modern compassionate, honest, ethical, peaceful, and fair principles, they must see these qualities demonstrated by their leadership.
10. People are a lot cleverer than most leaders think.
11. People have a much keener sense of truth than most leaders think.
12. People quickly lose faith in a leader who behaves as if points 10 and 11 do not exist.
13. People generally have the answers which elude the leaders – they just have better things to do than help the leader to lead – like getting on with their own lives.
14. A leadership which screws up in a big way should come clean and admit their errors. People will generally forgive mistakes but they do not tolerate being treated like idiots by leaders.
15. And on the question of mistakes, a mistake is an opportunity to be better, and to show remorse and a lesson learned. This is how civilisation progresses.
16. A leader should be brave enough to talk when lesser people want to fight. Anyone can resort to threats and aggression. Being aggressive is not leading. It might have been a couple of thousand years ago, but it’s not now. The nature of humankind and civilisation is to become more civilised. Leaders should enable not obstruct this process.

Often people strive to acquire the number one position. However, once they become number one and feel that hey have achieved everything, it marks the beginning of the rather strange life. Their mind gets totally occupied with retaining the number one position. They become cautious of the people just behind them and put extra effort in maintaining image.

The person at a number one position sleeps less, eats less and his peace of mind disappears. Blood pressure, sugar, anxiety, restlessness and palpitation, suddenly become a part of this rich man’s world. In addition, he is left with no inspiration and no one to look up to and achieve a different, much higher target. Not merely he, his entire family bears the brunt of him being at number one position. A self-acquired responsibility dominates his mind almost 24 hours a day, seven days a week and 52 weeks in a year.

On the other hand, imagine the condition of the person who is at number two position. Apart from a little pain of not being at number one position, he is much relaxed and happier. He knows that he can get away with few things as there is a senior above him to take responsibility. He has a well nourished ambition to become number one and he works hard for it. He has a strong credibility attached, as people around him know that still has to reach top and will not spoil his position or reputation. He enjoys an easy life with family and friends. All he needs is to concentrate on his present job, work hard, be honest and dedicated and things would automatically fall in his way. If you have played the game of chess, you would understand the value of ‘Vazir’ who is considered number two in the game but is sometimes even more important than the number one, the kind. Once the ‘Vazir’ is killed, half of the game is won by the opponent. The ranks are in the same order. At times, the number two play a far more important and stronger role in an organisation, than the number one. The dependency of number one on number two makes the later the ‘Vazir’ of the organization without which the ‘King’ is incomplete and fears losing a battle.

This does not imply that one should not strive to become number one. This article is for those who are aiming at becoming number one but they are somehow are not able to achieve the position. Do not worry. There is a famous ad line ‘We are at number two we work hard’. Your efforts are duly recognized by everyone and especially those who fear that someday you would become number one, so be happy.