I see people posting pictures on social media every day with their success stories and holding a piece of Rock, a.k.a. award. A rock that gives them a sense of achievement elevates their status in society, fuels their fame, and makes them prominent among the rest of the corporate honchos. A rock that empowers their authority and gives a sense of accomplishment – and a picture-perfect business portrait without a pout.
Almost every corporate honcho loves this self-indulgent hobby of collecting rocks, followed by publishing the picture in a vanity magazine through their corporate media channels. A magazine, where every other page is filled with images of corporate honchos, either giving a leadership lesson or holding a similar piece of Rock.
It starts with an awards night — an industry tradition, and a night where rocks are handed over, and achievements are celebrated without cheerleaders. It is an event sponsored by a commercial event organizer at the expense of the organization where corporate honchos work. The night is made glittery with the participation of C-levels. It is packaged well and spiced up with ingredients of glamor and vanity to make it a memorable night. The package includes: The Place, which has to be a posh venue; the Product must be a rock; the Price must be paid as sponsorship; the Promotion must be narcism; and the People are the corporate honchos. This is indeed a special night that transcends a corporate honcho into a leader, at least till the dawn of that night. It is a moment of epiphany that gets intense as the night progresses, and the newly transformed leader chugs endlessly for the rest of the night. The recipients of Rock share their feelings about how oblivious they were about being nominated and how anxious they felt when called to the center of the stage and placed under the limelight. A night is just a sheer display of power and eloquence in society by a few individuals who self-proclaim themselves as leaders, at least for that night.
The recipient of such Rock enjoys every tactile sensation of holding the award and yet has the audacity to ignore recognition of their own team blatantly. The obscurity of that night doesn’t reveal until they find themselves trapped in seclusion that there is no charm in being a leader without followers; there is now cheer without cheerleaders, and the real cheerleader for the leader is its people. Not the third party who arranged the piece of Rock in the glitter dark night.
The people in authority must realize that the leaders are made because of their followers, not through the agglomeration of rocks. The real power to become a leader is to reach the core of an organization and rule it with affection, and the core of the organization is the people of the organization, the humans who work towards progression and make the people in authority leaders. It’s not the AI algorithm, not a robotic process automation, and neither the tier-IV data center, which rests silently in the basement of the high rise to make the leader sit and rule from the top floor of Wall Street. The only recognition a true leader should seek is the recognition and appreciation from their own people, who live at the organization’s core.
Being a leader is a social trait, and there is no shortcut to being a leader. And that is the most challenging moment for an authority to transcend into a leadership role. Someone with authority could be a good manager but not necessarily a leader. And there is absolutely no need to enforce leadership qualities on managers or people with authority because expecting leadership from an authority is a sheer implicit bias.
As the party shuts its door for the corporate honchos as they reach the age of 60, the older recipient of the awards makes an honest confession in one of the solitary nights that all the success stories and endorsement of accomplishments by an outside third party were nothing more than self-indulgence wrapped in altruism.
One should remember that leadership is an endurance that is only possible with companions and cheerleaders; it is not a self-indulgent shopping spree to collect rocks, chug all night, and picture the front page of a vanity magazine the following day.
Asif Durrani
16 Sep 2023
https://www.linkedin.com/in/asifdurrani
Also published at Medium
Asif Durrani 