I recently stumbled onto a blog that talks about how some people have figured out how to transform a barren desert into a lush, lively forest ecosystem. And it seems that the process is not very difficult. This has been done in China, India, Africa. I am always amazed at the ingenuity of the human race. We can accomplish almost anything, once we put our intention, leadership and collective action behind it.
You can watch this documentary film created by a photographer John D Liu here, in which he shares his experience in working with the team that has turned barren deserts into lush forests.
Now, you might ask why am I talking about deserts and forests on my blog.
I think there can’t be a better example of what we can accomplish if we decide to claim leadership about issues that are close to our hearts.
If we can convert deserts into forests in one generation, we can do almost anything that we can envisage and put our energies to.
And it is even more easier to lead our teams to build that product or launch that startup or initiate a community of practice within your organisation or start teaching online or anything else that we have always wanted to do but never had the time or felt was too big a project to start.
The world needs our leadership.
We need to care and do something about what we care about.
We need to lead and take action. As we have discussed, leadership is not a position, it is a decision.
So, we need to decide..
What are we going to care about?
Who are we going to lead?
There are enough of us who are willing to follow the leader.
As Mahatma Gandhi said,
“We need to be the change that we want to see in this world”
– Mahatma Gandhi
