Leadership Lessons From Mohanlal Sir

 

Receiving Best Bagpiper award

 

Long drives are times when I find myself recalling old memories. I had such a flashback today. In school, I used to play for the school band. I started as a side-drummer and did a decent job. One day I was trying to imitate my bagpiper friends, just out of curiosity, when Mohanlal sir (our band master) observed this and said:

“Subra why don’t you become a bagpiper? You will be good at it.”

He spotted potential and interest in me before I could. I took his advice and became a bagpiper in the band. In class 9, I was awarded the Best Bagpiper prize in school (pic).

Lesson 1: Leaders keenly observe, spot talent, and give opportunities to nourish the talent in others.

Once during the Annual Day celebration in the school, the Chief Guest (I think the then Police Commissioner of Delhi) turned up a couple of hours late.This pushed the entire schedule behind by 2 hours. The band plays the National Anthem at the fag end of the show and by the time we reached this part, it was very late in the evening/night. We were hungry, tired, sleepy and sweating.

The National Anthem started right, but 20 seconds into it, suddenly all we could hear was a cacophony of the drums (both base and side).
We ended right but the damage had been clearly done. We knew the exact people who had messed up but were afraid that all of us will get scolded.

When we met Mohan sir backstage, the only thing he said is:

“Thank You! and take rest. Don’t worry about the mistake.”

I was stunned. Was he out of his mind to not dig into who made the mistake? Not a word of scolding. Thank you??

Anyways we went home. The next day in the assembly the principal of the school said:

“We had a great Annual Day but the school band messed it up in the end. They should be ashamed.”

And when he said these words, the entire school turned and looked at us like we were one bunch of criminals. That image is still etched clearly in my mind. But Mohanlal sir didn’t react. He looked at us and made a gesture which communicated:

“Take it easy. Don’t bother.”

And that made it very easy for us to forget that incident and move on.

Today when I think of the incident, I feel that our 10th pass Mohanlal sir from Garhwal knew more about leadership than our doctorate, foreign educated and experienced principal. Everyone knew the mistake the band made. But the principal equated the mistake to lack of competency and commitment and further pointed it out publicly in a demeaning way. Whereas Mohanlal sir understood the circumstances which manifested the mistake and didn’t make a big fuss about of it. In fact he thanked us for staying up so late to play.

Lesson 2: Leaders don’t use mistakes to beat people up.

Lesson 3: Leaders get to the root cause of the mistakes and address that.

Thank You! Mohan sir.

Your student has not forgotten any of the lessons you taught — Be it drumming, bagpipe or leadership.

Originally appeared on July 8, 2017 on Medium.