Perspective

Leadership in Children

Shohag Mostafij

Gone are those days when leadership was all about the position. Now people get to realize that it is more about influence and power. No matter how young or old you are, you can still be a leader. Irrespective of your position, if you are capable of influencing people positively then you are a leader. We can make our children leaders. Because children possess many basic characteristics of great leaders. For example, Children are passionate, they love connecting with others easily. They forget bad incidents as well as forgive easily those who did harm to them. Children are very keen observers. They learn what they see. It is said by the social scientists that the personality of a child depends on mostly three important factors e.g., the relationship between the parents, the relationship between the parents and the children and another one is the relationship among the children or neighbors' or as a whole peer groups within a locality or society.

To sow the seed of leadership, a child needs to be nurtured properly. The educational institutions, parents and above all the society could play a vital role in developing the future leaders. We can talk positive, we can motivate them all the time and despite all their failures we should let the kids feel alright. We should constantly cheer them. At least you know the process. Keep trying. Failure is the pathway to victory. We can train them to be disciplined, punctual and focused. We can tell them about goals and objectives. There is no denying that it is difficult to lead our children in such a constructive manner. Nevertheless, we are to try. Because it took one Mahathir Mohammad to change the fate of millions of people in Malaysia. It took one Nelson Mandala to get rid of colour discrimination for the entire Africa. It took one man called Kamal Ataturk for the planet to know about the Turkey.

Therefore, who knows one day we would get that very leader or a pool of leaders who are to uplift the image of the nation and thus we should be well-behaved, kind, encouraging and good friends to our beloved children. As they have enormous potentials to make a difference.

The writer is a doing his MBA (Strategic & International management), University of Dhaka)