Irrefutable, perhaps, is the reality that each of us tends to know so very much more about others, but we hardly know our own selves. Most of us do not know ourselves. We remain strangers to ourselves, again unbeknownst to us. The pretentiousness we exhibit in claiming we know ourselves is a façade. We seek an escape through thinking that we remain fully discovered to ourselves at all times. Invariably, this is flawed thinking.

We have unique attitudes. We possess varying levels of knowledge. We have ordinary and special talents, including differing skill sets. No two individuals are alike. It is this mark of distinction that separates one from the rest. Leaders, generally speaking, are ordinary persons; they attain recognition through a process of self-discovery, and it is this process that catapults them into the spotlight or centre stage.

The inadequacy, real or perceived, caused by the lack of self-discovery is the supreme reason that creates fear in our minds. And fear is the eternal foe of innovation. Our fears and inhibitions act as stumbling blocks to our own progress. Our minds, if they remain in subjugation to the pros and cons (mostly cons) in relation to new initiatives, would tend to avoid challenging the existing models of behaviour or unsettling the status quo.

In the discovery of the self, a lot of effort is required to sift through the demons of self-aggrandisement in both thought and action. We think we are flawless. If anyone arrives at such a station in life, that person indeed has arrived at the gates of abhorrent arrogance. All fall into the temptation to see what lies beyond the gates of arrogance—glory or insult. While the allurements are many, essentially it is the absence of humility on the borders of the horizon of an arrogant persona that makes for the vulnerability of........

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