Learnings from Military Academy

A couple of days back I was watching the movie - ‘Scent of a woman’. Al Pacino’s act as a retired army officer was splendid. He lived the character. The movie made me think about the qualities of a great leader. And as the lead character(Al) rightly says towards the end of the movie, it is integrity. It is one quality of a human that will earn him respect, earn him values and earn him trust.

People trust him because he is dependable, is calm under fire. This one quality needs to be instilled in a man right from his childhood. The army does a nice job of religiously instilling this character in a human. It may work under pressure but not always. So how do you build integrity into a person.

Hmm..no simple answer. It starts very early is my guess. When a child grows up he/she is taught to react to situations in a certain way by their parents and the world. Hence being the first people to impact a change in a child, parenting plays an important role.

As our president says, the indian psyche is always confused. We are prepared to fail, prepared to know that there are shortcuts to the top. We are prepared to fall for anything.

To finish: If we dont stand for something, we will fall for anything. I wish that ’something’ could be - truth, honesty, and in all ‘Integrity’