THE PRINCE AND THE SHEEP

There was a beautiful kingdom, which was ruled by a prince who took over the Kingdom after his father’s death.

After a few months of ruling, things started testing him. The drought caused losses for the farmers, killed many animals, birds, and precious plants in the forest. And it was followed by an unknown disease which killed many people.

But then things started slowly improving. But before they could recover completely, an enemy king took over the Kingdom killing many people and imprisoning many other. The young king somehow managed to escape and planned to meet his childhood friend who was the king of a neighboring kingdom.

On his way he was thinking about how all these things could have happened to him. He was born and bred to be a king of the most powerful and richest Kingdom, but now he had lost everything. He believed that he had bad luck because nothing like this had happened to his father or any other king he knew.

When the Young king reached his friend’s palace, the guards did not allow him, because of his dirty looks and clothes and he tried many times to gain access but failed. The Young King then took a job so that he could buy some new clothes. After some days with new clothes, he was allowed to meet his friend.

To his king friend, he explained all the things that had happened to him. After hearing his story, his friend king ordered his people to give him a herd of 100 sheep. The Young King was surprised as he was expecting much more than this. He didn’t want to be a shepherd. But he had nothing else, so he took his friend’s offer.

After a few days, while he was grazing his herd, a group of wolves attacked his herd and killed each one of them. While the wolves were attacking, the king ran away from that place. The Young King again went to his friend king and asked for help. This time he gave 50 Sheep. But once again be failed to protect his herd from the wolves.

The 3rd time, he was given just 25 sheep.

This time young king decided that, if I didn’t protect my herd from these wolves, he would not get any more help from his friend.

So, he studied his place completely and understood the wolves’ attacking areas. Then he added additional fences and guards all around. He then continued to monitor the places and talked to all people and kept on learning the tricks of maintaining the herd. After a few years, his herd had grown to 1000 Sheep.

With much joy the Young King went to meet his friend at the place and told what he had achieved. After hearing him, the friend king ordered his ministers to give him a whole state to rule over.

Hearing this, he asked his friend “Why you didn’t give me the state to rule when I first came to you for help?

The friend king replied,

“First time when you came to me for help, your mindset was like you were born and bred to be a leader, but the truth was you were far from it. You might have been born in wealth, pride, and power, but you have never been properly educated and trained to lead your people. So, when I gave you the herd, I was waiting for you to learn, how to manage and lead others.”

“Dear friend, now I believe you are ready to lead others!”

Leadership skills are very specific skills. You don’t “acquire” these skills just because you got promoted to a “leadership position” in your organisation or were given a particular designation. You don’t get these skills because you spent “enough” time in your occupation. They have to be learnt. Many “leaders” fail because they did not learn the required “leadership skills”.