Leadership

I love reading books and especially autobiographies of great men and women.The first book I brought was M K Gandhi's autobiography "My experiments with truth".As a school boy it had a great impression on my mind.There was nothing remarkable about Gandhi in his early years.He was a very ordinary student.He was not very successful as a lawyer.He had fear of public speaking and in initial days wrote his speeches on paper.He didn't have much wealth.His physic was not very great.He wore very ordinary cloths and never held any position of power.But he went on the become one of the greatest leaders in modern human history.What made the difference was he always lead by an example.

He followed what he preached.In South Africa he lead an agitation against racial discrimination.He was beaten brutally as he was leading a non violent agitation.In South Africa he took care of patients affected by plague.It is a highly contagious disease but he had faith in God that he won't get infected by it.Once Nelson Mandela made a remark,"India gave Gandhi to South Africa and we returned back Mahatma to India". Gandhi took train rides in 3rd class as majority of Indians travelled 3rd class.His clothing was very simple as majority of Indians were poor.He did all his works on his own.Eventhough he was from upper caste he cleaned toilets of lower caste people.But today I will narrate a very less known story from his life which shows why he was truly a great leader.

One day a mother came to Gandhi with her son.Her son had a bad habit of eating too much sugar.She asked Gandhi to advice her son to stop eating sugar.Gandhi asked the mother to come back with her son after two weeks.When the son and mother came to Gandhi next time he adviced the boy to quit sugar as it was not good for his health.Once seeing this the lady asked Gandhi why he didn't say the same thing to her son two weeks ago.To this Gandhi replied ,"Two weeks back even I eat too much sugar.After you came to me I decided to quit eating sugar.Now I don't eat sugar anymore.Today I have the moral authority to advice your son to quit sugar".This is a finest example of practising what you preach.I will end with the famous quote of Gandhi"Be the change that you want to see in the world".