March 2010

Leadership, success, and happiness are three enigmatic words in every culture and every conversation.

We often ask the questions: What is leadership, what is success and what is happiness? Tonight is not the forum or time to talk about their definitions and meanings. But I can tell you one thing for sure; the primary reason why people lack motivation, and are therefore unhappy, is because they have no mission in life and are goal-less. The essence of leadership, success, happiness, and the ability to deal with a future we do not know, lies in seeking a higher purpose, and creating a powerful vision for the future, a future that does not exist. This is what we mean when we say that, at Indus, we are creating leaders of tomorrow. This is the new literacy of the 21st century.

At Indus, we strive to train, motivate and prepare your children to run the race of life - a race which is not a sprint but a marathon. A marathon, because life is a marathon, where finishing the race is more important than winning the race, where persistence is more rewarding than winning small victories, and where commitment, passion, and ferocity of purpose outweigh genius.

The School's responsibility is not limited to merely helping children and teachers to articulate their vision and goals. That is just the start point, the beginning of a long and difficult journey to become a leader.

Leaders are agents of change. They first transform themselves, then others, and the cycle continues. Transformation is never easy because life is full of challenges. There are road blocks at every bend. Even to be good and do good is never easy.

The best form of leadership training is experiential. To 'know about' is to be a good manager, 'to become' is experiential, transformational. At Indus we don't achieve it by words and inspiration alone. We act by manufacturing crucible experiences for your children, and then help them to reflect, and finally enable their transformation.

Towards this goal, we have created three powerful tools and structures - a strong community orientation, the Leadership School at Yelagiri, and the International Community School for poor children who live below the poverty line. These tools will endow children and teachers with the following leadership competences:

• A higher purpose - the passion to make a difference.
• The ability to cope with failures, and deal with ambiguity and paradoxes of life.
• Be value driven, and believe that the means are as important as the end, that you don't need a reason for being good, that righteous conduct is as aim in itself.
• Commitment and passion to pursue goals, and the perseverance to stick it out when the going gets tough.

Indus is an equal-opportunity school where we nurture the symbiosis of two great human ideals, individual freedom and equal opportunity. The leadership curriculum ensures children realize that equal opportunity is a right, not a privilege, that while all of us may not have equal talent, all of us must have equal opportunities to develop our talent, that equal opportunity is not about being equal but becoming different - different to realize our unique potential of the body, mind and spirit we possess.

We affirm total commitment to our leadership manifesto. Your children are already becoming leaders of tomorrow, leaders who will be prepared for all challenges, leaders who will make a difference in society.