If your mentor gives applause for all the good things you did; great. If your mentor is satisfied with what you have done and never induces you to push your limits; beware! Great leaders are great followers too. Leaders ideally will have mentor(s) who shows them the way to greatness.

A little experience with LeadCap has provided with the following understanding about the roles of a mentor when developing a potential leader into a great leader and also the role of the person mentored in the process.

Roles of the mentor:

1. Keep the vision alive with actions and words
2. Assurance that s/he will become a leader
3. Push her/his limits to greater heights
4. Freedom to fail

Roles of potential leader:

1. Decision to lead
2. Very positive ‘I can’ attitude
3. Challenge the self every minute of every day
4. Raise the bars
5. Work really hard

In a movement where we are building a nation of leaders each and every person must raise their bars and aim greater heights. Meeting with the defining moment and decision to lead is just a beginning. When the worldly comforts and sloth slows you down, remember that in the leadership journey you have to push your limits and keep the leadership quotient high with string of decisions. “Never give up” should be the mantra.

Mohammad Nibras P.K.
LeadCap

The square watermelon was “invented” in Japan in 2001. The following article briefly explains its origin, then offers some lessons that we’ve talked about before. Many of you will remember the “sacred cow” project we had a number of years ago…getting rid of those old processes that were ineffective, yet still done because “that’s the way we’ve always
done it.”

I think you’ll enjoy the story and find the lessons worth thinking about. Then consider how you can put the lessons to work and make your own ‘square watermelons’ - at work and at home.

Lessons of the Square Watermelon
Japanese grocery stores had a problem. They are much smaller than their US counterparts and therefore don’t have room to waste. Watermelons, big and round, wasted a lot of space. Most people would simply tell the grocery stores that watermelons grow round and there is nothing that can be done about it. That is how I would assume the vast majority of people would respond. But some Japanese farmers took a different approach. If the supermarkets wanted a square watermelon, they asked themselves, “How can we provide one?” It wasn’t long before they invented the square watermelon.

The solution to the problem of round watermelons wasn’t nearly as difficult to solve for those who didn’t assume the problem was impossible to begin with and simply asked how it could be done. It turns out that all you need to do is place them into a square box when they are
growing and the watermelon will take on the shape of the box.

This made the grocery stores happy and had the added benefit that it was much easier and cost effective to ship the watermelons. Consumers also loved them because they took less space in their refrigerators which are much smaller than those in the US meaning that the growers could charge a premium price for them.

What does this have to do with anything besides square watermelons? There are a few lessons that can you can take away from this story that can help you in all parts of your life. Here are a few of them:

Don’t Assume: The major problem was that most people had always seen round watermelons so they automatically assumed that square watermelons were impossible before even thinking about the question. Things that you have been doing a certain way your entire life have taken on the aura of the round watermelon and you likely don’t even take the time to consider if there is another way to do it. Breaking yourself from assuming this way
can greatly improve your overall life as you are constantly looking for new and better ways to do things. This was one of the most difficult things for me to do because most of the assumptions I make, I don’t even realize that I’m making them. They seem perfectly logical on the surface, so I have to constantly make an effort to question them.

Question habits: The best way to tackle these assumptions is to question
your habits. If you can make an effort to question the way you do things on a consistent basis, you will find that you can continually improve the way that you live your life. Forming habits when they have been well thought out is usually a positive thing, but most of us have adopted our habits from various people and places without even thinking about them. I have changed a large number of habits that I have had after taking the time to question them and continue to do so. Some of them I have no idea where they came from while others I can trace to certain people or instances in my life. It’s a never ending process, but by doing this,
you can consistently strive toward making all aspects of your life more enjoyable instead of defaulting to what you have now.
Be creative: When faced with a problem, be creative in looking for a solution. This often requires thinking outside the box. Most people who viewed this question likely thought they were being asked how they could genetically alter watermelons to grow square, which would be a much more difficult process to accomplish. By looking at the question from an alternative perspective, however, the solution was quite simple. Being
creative and looking at things in different ways in all portions of your live will help you find solutions to many problems where others can’t see them. I am not a creative person, but I’ve found that the more that you look at things from different perspectives, the more creative I have become. It’s a learned art and builds upon itself.

Look for a better way: The square watermelon question was simply seeking a better and more convenient way to do something. The stores had flagged a
problem they were having and asked if a solution was possible. It’s impossible to find a better way if you are never asking the question in the first place. I try to ask if there is a better way of doing the things that I do and I constantly write down the things I wish I could do (but
currently can’t) since these are usually hints about steps I need to change. Get into the habit of asking yourself, “Is there a better way I could be doing this?” and you will find there often is.

Impossibilities often aren’t: If you begin with the notion that
something is impossible, then it obviously will be for you. If, on the other hand, you decide to see if something is possible or not, you will find out through trial and error. Many of the lessons above are what I used to create my online income. As I’ve said many times, it’s not easy, but it’s certainly not impossible. Even for those of us that are not A-List Bloggers, creating a full time, online income is quite possible, as I have shown.

Take away the lessons from the square watermelons and apply them to all areas in your life (work, finances, relationships, etc) and you will find that by consistently applying them, you will constantly be improving all aspects of your life.

“Imagine what we can study from a tiny insect. They have an amazing four-part philosophy.

First part: Ants never quit. When they are going somewhere and you put your foot in their path and stop them; they will not say, “Oh a giant foot, we should go back”. They will look for another way. They will climb over, around and under if they can. That is the way it should be; never quit, keep looking for a way to get where you are supposed to go. There is no failure but feedback.

Second part: Ants think winter all summer. That’s an important perspective. You can’t be so naïve as to think summer will last forever. So ants are gathering in their winter food in the middle of summer.

The third part of the ant philosophy is that ants think summer all winter. That is so important. During the winter, ants reminds themselves “This won’t last long; we will soon be out of here” And the first warm day the ants are out.

And here is the last part of ant philosophy. How much will an ant gather during the summer to prepare for the winter? All that he possibly can. What an incredible philosophy, the all-that-you-possibly-can philosophy.”

Above is taken from a very good book “Reach for the Sky” by Dr. A. Abraham, director of MindMasters and a Master Practitioner in NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming).

There is abundance of learning for every leader who is ready to learn. The ant philosophy is one among them. When we put some effort to learn, we will not only see the forest, but also the trees.

Mohammad Nibras P.K.
LeadCap

From Charles Handy’s memoir, “Myself and Other More Important Matters”.

Here are a few lessons to take away:
1) If all your expectations with life work out well then you probably haven’t pushed yourself far enough. There may be lives out there that you could have lived had you dared more.
2) I learnt that in most human situations there is no textbook answer, that everyone is different and that you have to make your own judgments most of the time, make your own decisions and then stand by them. Only in technical matters does the expert know better.
3) Schools, at every level, prefer to teach what can be taught, rather than what needs to be learnt.
4) Organizations are not machines. They are living communities of individuals. To describe them we need to use the language of communities and the language of individuals. The essential task of leadership is to combine the aspirations and needs of the individuals with the purposes of the larger community to which they belong. You do not need to be a genius to see that the task is much easier if the leader knows what the purpose of the community should be and can convince everyone of its importance.
5) My belief is that most people have a fundamental understanding of what makes organizations work. They just need to be reminded of it and encouraged to apply their understanding to their own work. The late Sumantra Goshal of the London Business School once described Peter Drucker as practising the scholarship of common sense. I would like that said of me. For example, it is only common sense that people are more likely to be committed to a cause or mission if they had a hand in shaping it. That does not need research to prove it. Nor do you have to see the research to know that groups are likely to produce better results than the same individuals acting on their own.

Taken from Leadershipnow

This wonderful video pretty much encapsulates what LeadCap stands for: