OBEISANCE
Obeisance to the best-in-laws SRI T.R.RAGHAVA IYER and SMT. LALITHA
for their eternal love and support
VOLUME VI – CHAPTER I
YOU CAN REACH THE TOP
Your first day as Principal- what is your vision, your ambition ? One day I should reach the top – become an icon, a role model, an example, a legend absolutely nothing wrong with this thinking, a quite legitimate desire which you should make yourself deserve.
The top, the zenith, the peak, the acme of excellence is eagerly waiting to welcome you, to receive you in its fold. When you are in the first rung of the ladder, it is compulsory, mandatory for any intelligent, earnest person to climb up. You should, you must, but once you reach the first rung on the top, then it is mandatory you should stay put there. Getting down is optional. Attaining a height is difficult. But more difficult is retaining it. This process is just the reverse of mountaineering where climbing to the top is optional, but even if you don’t reach the peak but only stand a hundred feet below the summit, halted due to blizzards, it is mandatory that you should climb down to the base.
There are several routes to the summit. Some difficult, some slippery, some steep, some circuitous – but not one route easy. Because climbing up is always difficult. Your leg should be strong be strong, firm and not shaky and feeble, your hand must hold the axe firmly, throwing it up should be forceful. Once you hold it and start climbing your grip should be tight and you should place your steps evenly and with surety about the soil underneath. Once you reach the top the whole beautiful panoramic vision of the wonderful valley and plains below is all before you and for you.
But one faltering step near the top will make you fall and roll down to an abysmal depth – what a fall it would be ? This is the ease in every field. Aspiration coupled with ambition, guided by alacrity and reinforced with ability will result in achievement.
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VOLUME VI – CHAPTER 2
HAVE YOU ESTABLISHED YOUR IDENTITY?
WHAT IS YOUR IDENTITY?
While a student, the author’s son one day came home and told him, “ Appa, from today I am the class pupil leader”- so class pupil leader became his identity.
One day the author’s grandson returned from school and said, “Today they have made me school pupil leader. SPL then became his identity.
When you go to college and get elected President of the Oxford Union in UK-that becomes your identity.
When you join the school for your first job. The word ‘Teacher’ becomes your identity followed by Professor, Principal, Vice Chancellor and so on.
From Vice Chancellor, Dr. S. Radhakrishnan became Indian Ambassador to Russia, Chairman of the University Grants Commission, Vice-President and then President. At each stage the term that is found below your name in the visiting card becomes your identity.
But after retiring as President, his identity became just Radhakrishnan, Dr. Abdul kalam, C. Rajagopalachar, so also Gandhi, Nehru, Patel, Kamaraj each one of the them started with the same name in small letters but finally became known forever by the same name only – But in bold capital letter monopolising that name. There might have been earlier many more. May come in future – but these names will forever be associated only with these men. This name which at the end stood alone without any prefix or suffix – that was their identity.
Will your performance over decades marked with intelligence, precision, patience, perseverance, diligence and with humility make your name as your identity and the only identity for the whole world? Not your position, power, authority, prominence, honours, awards – finally when your name stands out just as a name and the world recognizes that name as such. That is your identity.
The world will understand your identity. All these great people went “ within” themselves and found their identity. Their identity, the moment you go inside, that identity is revealed to you. Knowing your identity you start to look outside from within.
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VOLUME VI – CHAPTER 3
ARE YOU A MOTHER OR MOTHER IN LAW?
Your attitude and approach to your staff decides your ascent to the top – A mother-in- law’s relationship with her daughter and daughter in law.
She tells her friend :- “My daughter is very lucky to get an wonderful husband. She is in the bed till 7 AM and he makes and brings her bed coffee; by the time she finishes her bath, the breakfast is ready for her on the table”
But look at my son. He is very unfortunate to have a wife who gets up late in the morning. They are living alone at Bangalore; in that cold weather he gets up early, prepares coffee for her, gets the child ready for school and also has to prepare the breakfast for his Maharani”
The best way to reach the top is to avoid the caste system. Don’t have any trouble in talking to staff at the lower end of the hierarchy, placing too much importance on degrees, don’t miss assessing these people and discover the skills hidden in them. Place stress, emphasis on one’s attitude and sincerity.
Once the author asked a candidate for Chemistry PGT’s post “why do you find all tablets packaged in aluminium foil and cough syrups, tonics in coloured bottles?.” He couldn’t answer – M.Sc., Ist class.
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VOLUME VI – CHAPTER 4
DO YOU HAVE THE PANCHA MANTRAS?
You have to decide always two things – ‘What to do’ and ‘How to do’. For this you should have the capability to focus on people (staff), process (Management techniques) and a deep understanding of pedagogy in its various facets.
You can’t afford to procrastinate or postpone. When a change is sweeping over the scene, you have to respond in real time to those changes in parental expectations, student’s motivations and competition in the field.
Prof. Michael Cusumano of the Sloan School of Management at MIT, USA, emphasises that it is not enough if you are efficient but you must be flexible
‘Mind tree’ lists out 5 attributes of a leader to reach the top:
a) Achievement Orientation:
In a group of schools, the Principals change often like the English weather. They have to quit when they are unable to carry out what the Correspondent says. The teachers are very efficient and work hard because Damocles sword of pink slip is hanging over their head
Achievement orientation is good but HR is absent
In Govt. schools when the results fall down to the dead storage level of 30%, the Principal, HM and concerned staff say: what can we do? All first generation learners! We can’t do more than this. At the most what will happen? We may get a memo and a transfer on administrative grounds. We will enjoy a Tamilnadu Darshan at Govt. expense and leave the substitutes face the music and heat.
b) Ability to Question
In many private schools this is conspicuous by its absence. Questioning is construed as indiscipline or disobedience. The Principal is afraid of questions by the staff or the staff is afraid to question the Principal. But it is forgotten that question are the wellsprings of creative and critical thinking.
c) To think differently
Principals normally are happy to maintain status quo because, to disturb it is to invite trouble. So lateral thinking becomes absent or extinct. You should be aware that only tangential thinking will take you forward and higher.
d) Network Effectively
Today we find top industrialists often consulting their old school friends. They maintain that it is important to develop a network and maintain the contacts. The contacts are like the offshoots of the Banyan tree which add strength to the tree.
e) Be inspiring
First be inspired yourself. Then only you can inspire. A lamp must first be burning, to light other lamps
Inspiration comes from potential. Potential comes from expertise. Expertise comes from experience. Experience comes from performance. Performance comes from knowledge. Knowledge comes from willingness to learn.
God had given an opportunity to the author to work with Principals who exhibited these 5 attributes in different measures. He had tried to act as a transformer, sometimes stepping up or sometimes stepping down and bring the temperature in all the five barometers to an optimal level. But he had to face persons who refused, who could not and who would not. Every meeting, every discussion, every encounter with them was a great learning experience for the author to improve the reservoir of his experience.
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Yearn to fill your heart with Him, not with you. Your yearning must be warm, so warm that it can be called “Thapas” (Heat). Become hot (earnest). Now it is only a lukewarm longing, a surface activity. Examine yourselves how far you have filled your heart within. Measure the heights you have reached with the yardstick of virtue, serenity, fortitude and equanimity. You now become easy victims of lust, anger, malice, envy and the rest of that evil brood; the atmosphere of the heart is polluted by the ego-fumes. – Sri Sathya Sai Baba
