Happiness is a choice; a decision and an ability to not to get upset fast. Life and work is a balancing act
My approach in organisations is to work on the strengths of the people and help them to overcome their limitation in an empathetic manner over a period of time, rather than sitting on a pedestal and making quick judgement. Be always helpful to people. Try to be proactive than reactive. Try best to forgive and try not to get upset as much as possible. Don't spend time gossiping about others and don't listen to gossips. Develop our own analysis based on observation, and facts rather than what people 'feed' you. Try not to be judgmental on people. Every person is unique and he/she will have his own strengths. Discovering those strengths is a part of leadership capacity. Take people as they are - rather than they 'ought' to be. Patience matters a lot. Give people time to change, rather than force change. Be gentle with people rather than aggressive and abusive. It is easy to find a problem but not easy to find a solution. Evolve solutions. Take every stakeholder in to confidence when you take a decision that affect them.
Be professional and detached in decision making and always be aware about one's own conscious or unconscious biases and try to keep such biases out when we take a professional decision.Be focused and determined to make change happen. But change can only happen when there is a collective commitment- and hence the most important point is to learn to work with people- and people unlike you. And it is important to take decision without pride and prejudice. Be always open to learn new things and learn from everyone within your organisation. Because many people may have better knowledge than you on many things. Be always open to criticism and seek the help of those who criticize to find a viable solution. Everyone makes mistakes. And what matters is whether one realize such mistake or lapses and take corrective measures. And leadership of joy requires self-reflection, introspection, correction and an ability to say 'sorry'- and not to make a mistake again.
There will always be skeptics. There will always be people who speak ill of us. There will always be people who do not appreciate what good we do. There will always be cynics. There will always be people who are jealous. There will always be people who speak nice things in front of you and bitch about you in your absence. There will always be people who seek to undermine you. There will always be opportunists who want to make use of you and then forget you. There will always be ungrateful people.
That has been the story of life and work. But what matters is how we handle all these people without any malice.. What matters is how we are honest to ourselves and to others who work with us or live with us. How do we continuously listen and keep on learning. How do we move forward with sincerity, commitment and courage of conviction to make a positive difference wherever we are.
I keep my peace by spending time with people who think, act and move forward with positive spirit and try to not get bother too much about negative people and those who spread negativity. Because happiness is our choice. And we create our joy and peace..Love, peace and joy reinforce each other. When we learn to love people, when we learn to forgive people, when we learn to forget bad incidents, we learn to live with joy and peace. What makes life worth living is how do we earn love, joy and peace through our thoughts, words and deeds. Smile at people, They too smile at you. Smile at life and life in turn will smile at you. When we work and live with love a magic unfolds within us. When we live and work with love, we become creative. When we learn to live and work with love, we begin to make a difference. Then life is indeed worth living. That is what I have learned in life and work.
Love, Joy and peace are what we all can aspire for. All other things can be purchased from the market place!
