ON BECOMING A LEADER
Published on : Tuesday, 29 September 2020
ON BECOMING A LEADER
by TM Mahima Bhat, PR Team
The Installation ceremony of National Institute of Technology, Karnataka, (NITK) Toastmasters Club, was held on Friday, 17th July 2020. Since the meeting was conducted online using the Zoom platform TM Supritha Harishankar, the current President of the club took the opportunity to invite DTM Deepak Menon, the President of Toastmasters International as the Chief Guest.
In his address, DTM Menon stated that in this time of crisis, it is important that we grow our competencies. He suggested three things that we need to focus on and practice in Toastmasters and beyond. He stressed the importance of building Confidence as a competency to face the challenges of life. Toastmasters’ helps build confidence. With confidence we will have the courage to tackle any problem that we come across. Courage gives us the resilience to bounce back from any challenges or failures that we encounter and if we are able to do that, we can be great leaders. Citing the creativity of the club members in making and using their own Gavel while the officers where installed, with much appreciation he highlighted how crucial it is to be Creative in everything that we do. That shows how adaptable we can be in every situation. He encouraged everyone to make meetings more fun and interesting so that people would feel engaged and would want to keep coming back to Toastmasters.
He also emphasized that one needs to practice Compassion – Compassion for people around us. If we are empathetic, if we practice active listening, we can be the best leaders possible. When we learn evaluation skills, we learn active listening skills and active listening is not just listening to the words that people speak, but to their body language, their facial expressions – what their eyes are saying, what the rest of the body is saying – because nonverbal language actually speaks much more than the words. In conclusion, he said that with Confidence, Creativity and Compassion we can be great leaders as Toastmasters is indeed where ‘Leaders are Made’.
NITK Toastmasters Club is a college club that was chartered on March 6th, 2017, with the support of their Alumni Association with the goal to providing the students of NITK, Surathkal, a platform to develop their Communication and Leadership skills, and to inculcate a sense of professionalism through a diverse approach.
