Leadership

Sometimes back there was some initiative by a leading newspaper group in India to identify future leaders. Novel initiative no doubt, but it was mostly a marketing gimmick. Reason is simple, you cannot identify leaders through a marketing campaign. Leaders are identified through their work and attributes. True leaders do no need to go to a market place and beat their drums. True leaders do not need followers, followers need true leaders. As Ramakrishna Paramhansa used to say - "you do not need to write on your forehead that come people, I am a leader, I'll teach you, lead you. If you have right kind of attributes God will make you a leader, even if you do not want to be one." People will find the true leader and will follow him/her themselves. A Gandhi ( an I am talking about the only one true Gandhi who could abdicate all power and adulation, not the other power hungry ones)  emerged when there was a right situation for him to do, he was not picked up by some newspaper. Nobody campaigned for him, nor did he for himself. He never intended leadership. The same goes with Subhas Chandra Bose who was called "Netaji" or the "beloved leader". Even Herr Fuehrer was a simple tramp from Austria whose speeches struck a chord with the Jew hating Germans. There are lots of German tramps who hate Jews, but only one of them could go to the extent of reigning over Europe.
The point is, leaders are not made through sustained marketing campaigns. They are picked up by destiny and often they have to pay a very heavy price in their personal lives, for being leader, for changing lives of others.