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What Obama’s Town Hall in Delhi Taught Me About Leadership & Life

Sujay Ravikumar shares his experience of attending Obama’s town hall as one of the selected young leaders.

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Sujay Ravikumar shares his experience of attending Obama’s  town hall as one of the selected young leaders.

I had the unique opportunity to attend former US President Barack Obama’s Town Hall with young leaders in New Delhi on Friday, 1 December. With around 250 young artists, teachers, entrepreneurs and activists, it was an intimate and lively session. Obama was the engaging, articulate and authentic speaker that the world has come to admire.

Here are four lessons on leadership that I took away from the event:

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Model the Kind of World That You Want

Sujay Ravikumar shares his experience of attending Obama’s  town hall as one of the selected young leaders.

After a brief ten-minute address, Obama spent over 90 minutes taking questions from the audience – an engaging format which made the event more conversational. He began the Q&A session with the rule that questions will be taken ‘boy-girl-boy-girl’ to “ensure gender parity… [because] we have to model the kind of world that we want”.

This simple gesture had a powerful impact on the discourse and audience engagement, as it ensured women participants had an equal voice in the discussion.

The former US president didn’t just express a value he holds dear, but chose to exemplify it. A fine example that can be emulated by aspiring leaders in corporate meetings, public seminars and classrooms. If many in the previous generation are accused of being ‘armchair critics’, this generation has taken the power and reach of social media to become ‘internet activists’.

We dole out opinions and hashtags, believing we are experts on a topic just by reading two articles. We strive to win arguments to show that our perspective is better. Obama insists that winning an argument does not necessarily result in good outcomes.

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Alluding to the dangers of social media, Obama warned that what we read online probably conforms to our pre-existing biases thanks to algorithms.

“Don’t be an internet activist,” he cautioned, urging us instead to reach out to people who don’t agree with you.

  • Listen to contesting views to better understand complex issues.
  • Listen to the people you claim to advocate for to stay rooted to the real problem.
  • Listen more than you speak to shape your agenda in a way that people are responsive.
Don’t be an internet activist.
Barack Obama, Former US President

“Know ahead of time that change is hard and slow,” Obama cautioned.

Citing the African-American Civil Rights Movement, he stated that after the US Supreme Court ruled that segregated schools were inherently unequal in 1954, it took a decade of political wrangling for the Congress to sign relevant legislation in 1964, and another decade of court battles for schools to start adhering to it in the 1970s.

Sujay Ravikumar shares his experience of attending Obama’s  town hall as one of the selected young leaders.
The lesson is that change in human society is incremental, as it is in nature. There will always be resistance, even after you think you’ve won a battle. But the former president asserted that preparation is key.

You must adequately understand the environment and stakeholders of the resistance, in order to chart a way forward. In his words, “know what you’re getting yourself into before charging up the hill.”

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Stay Motivated by Setting Bite-Sized Goals

Sujay Ravikumar shares his experience of attending Obama’s  town hall as one of the selected young leaders.

For impatient optimists eager to effect change, this slow process of change can often frustrate and discourage. This is particularly true for work in local communities, where change-makers cannot ride on media attention or large-scale pressure groups. If change is so painstakingly slow, how then, do you stay motivated in the long haul?

President Obama’s sage advice: don’t go for perfect, go for better!

He contended that abstract targets like 100 percent justice, 100 percent equality or 100 percent clean air will never be met, and only serve to demotivate people. You should instead break up efforts into “bite-sized achievable goals”.

With this model, you create victories at regular intervals, and that makes your efforts feel worthwhile. To really stay motivated and drive your mission forward, you must embrace the idea of incremental change.

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I walked out of the Town Hall inspired, not just by Obama’s aura and oratory, but also by the important leadership insights he offered. The most thought-provoking line of the afternoon came from the host, who quoted the then senator Obama’s campaign speech:

Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.
Former US President Obama

Watch the official recording of the Town Hall session on the Obama Foundation’s YouTube page:

(Sujay Ravikumar is a New Delhi-based professional working in the public health space. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)

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(This blog was first published on 05.12.17. It has been republished to mark the first Barack Obama Day in Illinois)

(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)

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