DLE

It is difficult to explain what really happened in the last four days. Because it is really quite absurd.

The company has this tie-up with one global firm which does leadership development courses for many companies. They have a four-day program called DLE - Developing Leadership Effectiveness. It has been a tradition in my company since long to send groups of unsuspecting managers to this program with the hope that they come out knowing how to become effective leaders.

Smacks of cynicism. I was, a cynic. A closet cynic till I went there. Even till the third day. Not any longer though.

So there is a group of peers, around twenty-eight of us from all over the country who land up and are confined within a room from 9 am to 6 pm for four days without any mobile phones or laptops along with the founding pillars of this program - a Mr Gareth and a Ms Amelia.

The modus operandi, and that is what it is, because Gareth and Amelia have been in this business since the last twenty years or so and everything that they do is calculated to the last insult. And insult is what they do. They insult us till we feel like we are morons.

The intention is to make us own up to our fears and our hang-ups. Our pretty little escape algorithms. The stories we tell ourselves whenever we do anything we know that we really should not be doing and is not going to help us.

It sounds like a lot of humbug and frankly speaking, I did not like being screamed at for the first three days. But that is what drove it home, when I am being dishonest with myself, I am doing a great disservice to my potential.

I also noticed, or rather it was brought to my notice that I, and in this case, I shall speak for most people, tend to seek refuge behind the safety of the collective - WE or the non-committed - ONE or the indefinite - YOU. For example, most of our sentences there begun like - "When such and such thing happens, YOU tend to do such and such..Or ONE thinks one is committed, when ONE is really not..Or WE always think that is the right way.." SAFETY! I want to be emotionally safe. I want to say things such that there is always some exit room to wriggle out. Instead of taking sole responsibility, I want everyone present to bear the guilt of what I have said.

I didn't participate much and I got screamed at for that. Because not wanting to open up in front of near strangers is also a hang-up and merits thinking about.

But here goes, I mean to change a few things and here they are -

I tend to take the back-seat when I find myself in a group where somebody knows how to do the task at hand better than me, or so it seems. I sort of take for granted that person's superior role in achieving that task.

I do not open up to strangers, or even people I have known since a long time but am not 'close' to. Why, because I would not know how that person would think of me and my insecurities. Would only open up in front of people who I know would love me/like me irrespective of what they hear. So, I don't accept myself the way I am and fear that others will not.

I link my self-worth to my success at the tasks I perform. If I fail at something at work, it means I fail, period.

There are many others. Like they said, we are born free of any hang-ups. But as we grow up, based on our experiences, we collect all these beliefs and build a personality around these beliefs.

I really want to shatter these so-called truisms of my life. I want to come clean, and to remain that way. So here I am, all of me, for-public-consumption.