Fostering Leadership at Toastmasters and Power of the “RIGHT” People
“How a bunch of “Ambitious” kids made an empire to foster leadership”
Leadership is one of the most common words among the millennials who live in their world to be the next Steve Jobs or next Richard Branson. And out of many people, I saw who want to achieve such magnificent heights I met a set of people who actually work hard, trying to strive for excellence. While others were busy defining the best vision statement members at Gavel Club were already in their mission to perceive what seems impossible, and its very start, start from our humble beginnings at our Gavel Club, The Colombo Gavel Club.
After being with such a set of passionate like-minded people who are self-propelled to go beyond what they are doing right now, I just would love to share a couple of things I learned from these great people, knowing that I soon will have to update this article as, there is always something new to learn, in every new person you meet in this community, and at every meeting we attend. However, every great journey always starts with a humble first step, so let’s get STARTED!
1. Power Intrinsic Motivation
Have you ever wondered how at times where you were looking for motivation to do something? Motivation to study? Motivation to ever get started with something? Or even motivation to wake up the next morning and to get out of bed? As Deci & Ryan said in 2008, there are two types of motivation. The intrinsic and extrinsic. While extrinsic motivation is good to get started with something it will always fail in the long run and on the contrary, the intrinsic motivation will always keep the ball rolling. What I realized, while being with this amazing set of people was that the motivation comes from inside, the intrinsic motivation never dies, whereas extrinsic motivation fades really soon. The member base consists of members who join the Gavel Club for different reasons. There are people with different demographics, goals and career aspirations, and that is what makes us unique. But what makes them special is that, even though they have so much of work, have to travel long distances or even cancel a long-awaited vacation, they would just do anything for A Gavel event. That’s how powerful the intrinsic motivation is. So, as Steve Jobs said in his speech at the Stanford University, “Find a passion, something you love, which connects with your soul and you do it no matter what happens, just because your heart cannot live without it”
2. See yourself in a few years times
For the rest of the world, Gaveliers (Members of the Gavel Community) are just a bunch of kids who are studying for some sort of an exam from Ordinary Level to an undergraduate university exam. But we, we see the bigger picture of ourselves. While others call us as kids we see CEOs of multinational conglomerates, entrepreneurs who start successful aviation ventures, singers who can amuse an audience and even scientists at NASA ready to find the next breakthrough discovery and that’s our purpose. And when that purpose connects so much with our passion it is just a matter of time to achieve the pinnacle, and for that, we see ourselves in future and that keeps us going, fuels our energy making us do better things than what we have been doing.
“Friends Helping Friends”
3. The power of “Right” people
The club has already produced many entrepreneurs, executives, and undergraduates in fields such as Business, Engineering, and Medicine and they are scattered all over the globe from the United States to Australia. However, no matter what, they still share the same compassion with new members whom they just met, which they once shared with the members at their days and it is truly phenomenal to be at a Gavel event to watch how everyone is ready to help one another in both their personal lives and to do more at the Gavel Club to be a better version of themselves truly living our motto of “Friends Helping Friends”.
4. The Situational Leadership
Then there is the annual Gavel trip, which was introduced by Mrs Meena & Mrs Vino, the mentors for year 2017/18 who truly were the game changers bringing together many aspects evolving a club which was just focusing on delivering public speaking to fostering leadership. And on that trip we do not just hang out with friends, share food and come, it's instead it was a one day full of building rapport with members, finding the hidden leaders, promoting teamwork and most importantly finding situational leaders during the activities.
The club has 7 members who are serving as the steering committee but sometimes I have seen the true situational leadership and ideas in members sometimes we as the EXCO could not come up with and we make sure to identify such leaders and give them opportunities which directly support our mission of “… offering a limitless number of opportunities with an unparalleled exposure for leaders” which I myself experienced both the power of working with the right people and power of synergy and collaboration as a newbie to the EXCO in April, 2017 when I was able to lead our team finding out the inner-self of mine driving our team who undoubtedly had a great set of people, who shared a great synergy, towards victory while collaborating with other teams whenever needed, as Robin Sharma puts as being “A leader who did not have a title”
The more you invest in trying to build the second line strong, giving them opportunities to prove themselves the outcome, its results are often beyond satisfactory giving a “WOW” result
5. Importance of succession planning
Most of the successful companies, teams and even families which have failed, fail miserably due to the fact they have not trained a proper second line. They do not ensure that a second line is ready to take up the good work they have been doing so far, and whenever those high-profile tycoons leave making their positions vacant the remaining members often end up giving it to someone who is not yet ready to take up such work or end up recruiting someone outside the company who often do not share the same beliefs and vision as the founders (Like what happened in Alibaba recruiting an individual for marketing). as it’s true that everyone is not Sandberg and every company is not a Facebook. But at Gavel Club, the succession planning starts from the very roots right from the first day when a member is appointed to join the prestigious EXCO the member(s) of the EXCO ensure to train the next line to take up the good work from where they have taken the club to which has been so successful that, when I first joined the Gavel Club in March 15, 2016, in just a few months I was trained and given opportunities by the then president (2016/17) Gv. Sahana, to be the next year's treasurer, which ended up with great results making me the Gavelier of the year, which is given to the most outperformed Gavelier during the year in a number of critical aspects and I still pledge myself of thinking about those memories even though I have come a long way from that.
And, it this would be complete if I do not mention Gv. Shyranthi (President for 2017/18) who gave me a limitless number of opportunities to network and work with Gaveliers from other clubs with Gavel Conference 2016 which ended up making me the youngest committee head, for now, the Head of Marketing. Hence, the more you invest in trying to build the second line strong, giving them opportunities to prove themselves the outcome, its results are often beyond satisfactory giving a “WOW” result.
6. Competition vs, Collaboration. Together, WE WIN!
As my good friend Gv. Bimshika puts it as, “Gavel family helps you to grow while the society DOUBTS you. It is true that you can do so much when you face the competition to unleash the hidden potentials. However, there is much much more you can do when you collaborate and that is what makes Gavel Community truly stand out from the rest of the communities and clubs. I have often seen the true spirit of our motto in the intra-club competitors when the speakers who are competing with each other have helped each other to come up with better speeches with pure intentions and that is the true testimony to the world of what we are, and often those ones who helped each other has placed and won the inter-club competitors outperforming other clubs showing the world our identity of “The more you collaborate, the more you achieve” which such partnerships are seen in some of the successful companies starting from Bill Gates-Paul Allen, Steve Jobs-Steve Wozniak and the recent one Mark Zuckerberg-Sheryl Sandberg.
7. The power of requested opportunities
Talking with some of the people I have worked with there are some really talented and amazing people but they do not stand out from the audience (Rest of others) because they only do the work if someone asks them to do, they are not leaders themselves. But at the Gavel Club, the people who not only lead the rest of them but also lead themselves (Which I believe leading themselves needs much more of a commitment) and truly capitalize on the opportunities they have. While the rest of the country is waiting for their chance to be the change, the members at the Gavel Club work hard, learn new things, make them deserve themselves and request for opportunities to lead, to represent the club and there is nothing better than watching such passion taking off as leaders and striving for excellence. Being honest, while was in the EXCO I was inspired by a member who worked hard to eventually join the EXCO just because of the intrinsic motivation they had and trying to put their passion in action, finding their purpose.
8. Mutual interest can ignite passion. 1+1>3
The connections you make at Gavel are more than just Friendships, they are relationships that make you part of one big family, and the mutual interest groups ranging from interest to put a dent in the universe to rock-music are so powerful that they often inspire each other in the inner circle to do more, collaborate which each other and this article is the true testimony of that as a result of inspiration from a member who was doing great work uploading his messages to SoundCloud, Gv. Sandro. Such friends who are in the mutual interest group are the ones, each other turn to whenever there is a great opportunity for a team event, the first to be called whenever there is a vacant opportunity others cannot make it to and even who we will turn at whenever we need help because we help each other propel the passion and being around each other as it gives us the fuel it needs to do the next big thing, and the more you can connect which each other to share compassion, to play by each others side, they result in making teams like no other.
9. Learn from mistakes, and be a better version of yours
As Gaveliers while we try to help each other we also humbly learn from each other’s mistakes. The amazing thing about being in a Gavel Club is that we get to learn in an environment where mistakes are celebrated, ensuring you will not do the same mistake again, and while the one who did the mistake learn it through experience others can learn from one another which outlines one of the favourite Gavel quotes which says “We laugh with you, not at you”. It nurtures our vision of “Friends Helping Friends” and I have personally experienced it many times from both the constructive feedback given by fellow members sharing compassion and the mentors who always try their best to give us something more. It says “A master has done many mistakes than a beginner has ever tried” and the Gavel fosters on a culture where we could do mistakes, and learn from it without ever being shy to try out new things.
And would like to give a big shout out for my Gavel family, Gv. Bimshika for helping out with the article and a big thank for my first mentors at Gavel Mrs. Meena Butani, Miss Vinodhini Durgabakshi, Mr Rameshkumar Karuppiah without whom I would have never become what I am to write this article, and would like to thank my university lecturer Mr Muditha Batagoda, for his encouragement inspiring to write more on Medium.
And at last, but not least would like to thank my family and my BEST FRIEND for helping me with different means encouraging to expand horizons in writing.
#FriendsHelpingFriends #WhereLeadersAreMade #Winning There is so ALWAYS so much more to improve! — Keep Learning!
