Harry Potter, the leader...

Harry Potter – the boy who lived. Rather, if you will agree with my saying so - the boy who loved.

Harry has been able to redefine leadership with a completely different and charming approach to the art of being a leader. Rowling’s magical character is a hero like no other, with his heart dictating terms at each and every step. This quality of the young wizard makes him fearless, even while facing the greatest of adversities imaginable.

A leader searing with vibrant passion and a strong moral compass, Harry is no angel - he has had his fair share of ungainly moments. But even in times when he has picked the wrong battles and made unpopular decisions, Harry was true to his heart and his sense of right versus wrong.

It is no wonder then that he was an endearing leader for everyone who looked to him for guidance. Let’s take a closer look at how Harry Potter the boy transformed into the wizard who conquered the toughest dark wizard to have ever threatened wizardkind.

Harry’s story begins from the village of Little Hollow where his young parents were living in hiding, aware that the life of their one year-old son was in jeopardy. Earmarked by fate as a future leader even before he was born, Harry was prophesised to share a special connection with the evil Lord Voldemort who was usurping power in the wizarding world at the time. Fearful of Harry bringing an end to his reign, Voldemort endeavoured to kill him as a small child, and nip the danger in the bud.

In a bid to protect her son, Harry’s mother Lily made the ultimate sacrifice which bestowed on him a special protection – that of true love. It helped him to evade death at the hands of the Dark Lord and catapulted Harry to stardom at the age of one. There was a burden of expectations placed on little Harry and hordes of people looked upon him as a saviour. Not unlike the commoners’ perception of ‘Maid’ Joan of Arc, although Harry was much younger and had no idea of what was going on at the time.

Albus Dumbledore, who would eventually become a mentor and a friend to Harry, realised that Harry’s true potential as a leader could only be realised if he grew up far away from the wizarding world. Harry’s days with his relatives, the Dursleys, prepared him to understand what it was like to be at the suffering end of the food chain, and would work in his favour in the future as he learnt to appreciate the sensitivities of others.

After Harry turned eleven and the wizarding world was opened to him, he showed a great interest in learning as much as he could about things he never imagined possible and a tenacity to cope with all the adulation and speculation surrounding his name. At the sorting ceremony at Hogwarts, Harry displayed for the first time his ability to choose between right and wrong, as he fervently implored the sorting hat not to place him in Slytherin. The fact that he was eventually placed in Gryffindor was an indication of Harry’s courage and positive leadership qualities.

In the course of his first year at school, Harry developed strong bonds of friendship, with Ron, Hermione and Hagrid in particular, which would accompany him throughout his life and eventually mould him as a leader. On the Quidditch pitch, Harry displayed a keen sense of initiative as the seeker and this served him well in his future leadership role as well. When Harry realised that Hagrid was in trouble because of a pet dragon, he went out of the way to help him regardless of the fact that he might get into trouble himself – which he eventually did, and had to go into the dark Forbidden Forest as punishment.

When danger approached near the end of term, Harry displayed great courage and a sense of responsibility as he prepared to stop Voldemort from taking the philosopher’s stone. From Ron and Hermione’s insistence on accompanying him, Harry learnt a great deal about loyalty. Another intriguing aspect about Harry’s brand of leadership is the unselfishness of his pure heart – this could be seen when the Mirror of Erised gave him the stone because Harry did not want to find the stone for any selfish gain, but simply with the aim of finding the stone. Even as a young man, he only looked at the finish line and never wavered from the path – just like Arjuna from the Mahabharata, who only saw the eye of the fish.

The second year witnessed Harry getting off on the wrong foot – a misplaced adventure in a flying car as a result of childish innocence and a spell from the house-elf, Dobby. Here again, we saw the compassion in Harry as he treated the house-elf with a certain level of camaraderie rather than looking down on him with disdain as the rest of the wizarding world. As Harry learnt more about the life of young Tom Riddle and also the fact that he himself was able to speak to snakes, he learnt how to be able to digest surprising facts and take them along in his stride. He also owned up for his mistake and risked his life for the well-being of Ron’s sister, Ginny. In the heat of the battle, he demonstrated great loyalty for his mentor Dumbledore and supreme valour as he pulled Gryffindor’s sword out of the magical hat.

In his third year, Harry was faced with death omens and he again exhibited great tenacity by pushing it all to the background and concentrating on his education and Quidditch. Remus Lupin, a good friend of Harry’s father, was introduced in this book and he became another important mentor to Harry, teaching him to master a very complex spell, the Patronus. Harry became close to Lupin, however it was his father’s best friend, Sirius Black, whom Harry met for the first time at the end of the school year - an escaped convict and wrongly accused of betraying Harry’s parents, Sirius was Harry’s godfather and they grew very close in the years to follow.

The last of his father’s friends, Peter Pettigrew, was then found to be the traitor responsible for his parents’ deaths. Harry again showed great compassion and the qualities of a leader well past his age, by forgiving Pettigrew and imploring Sirius and Lupin to let him escape. Overjoyed at being called his ‘father’s son’ by Sirius, Harry was clearly a leader who deeply felt the absence of his parents from his life, and felt a sense of pride whenever someone mentioned he closely resembled his father, James, or that his eyes were the same green as his mother, Lily.

For Harry, the next year was a whirlwind experience which began with the scare at the Quidditch World Cup, when the Death Eaters ran amuck and Harry began to share dreams with a resurgent Voldemort. Harry was pitched into the Triwizard Tournament without any intention or inclination to enter himself; however once he was competing he put up a fine exhibition of sportsmanship. In the task involving the dragon, he showed great resourcefulness which every leader should aspire for, and also used Mad-Eye Moody’s advice to good effect. When it came to the next task in the lake, he again showed how great a leader he was – he virtually forfeited his chance of winning because he attempted to rescue the others’ hostages as well.

In the course of the year, there were attempts to malign him publicly by the reporter Rita Skeeter, and he took it in his stride as every great leader has done in the past. He also had to contend with constant bickering between Ron and Hermione, and there was a period when he and Ron himself had a fallout. Harry grew even more as a leader through the course of this year, with Dumbledore, Sirius, Lupin and Hagrid all giving him sound advice. More importantly, Harry presented to all of us how to put good advice to good use.

During the final task of the Triwizard Tournament, Harry found himself unwittingly transported to witness the rebirth of the Dark Lord Voldemort. Although he had to face the cold-blooded death of Cedric Diggory, although he was outnumbered many-to-one by the Death Eaters and although he faced a situation from which no one had a hope of coming out alive, Harry persevered and fought his way out of the graveyard and back to Hogwarts. A true leader was born at that moment, even as the dark villain was reborn.

After Voldemort’s return, Harry had to face some really tough times. Most people refused to believe what he had seen, and the Ministry of Magic branded him a liar. Although Dumbledore and the Order of the Phoenix rallied around and began to prepare a counterattack on Voldemort, Harry felt like an outcast. The fact that he shared visions with Voldemort made him appear a liability to Dumbledore as well, and there were so many times when Harry was kept out of the loop. However, a true leader does not allow circumstances to dictate him, and Harry did just that. He formed his own unit – Dumbledore’s Army. He was in his element as a leader, and everyone under his leadership truly believed in Harry and everything that he represented.

When Harry saw a vision where Sirius was being tortured, his pure heart led him into a trap set by Voldemort. Young Harry did a commendable job leading his troops in the face of certain death, and no one from the Dumbledore’s Army was critically injured. However, Harry had to deal with another death in his young life – Sirius Black, to whom Harry had grown so close over the past two years.

Dumbledore as a mentor again proved to be a great foil for Harry, as he calmed Harry’s initial outburst and thirst for avenging Sirius’ death. It was then that Harry learnt about the prophecy, and had to steel himself to accept the fact that it would only be one of him and Voldemort that would go on to live at the end. In the next one year, Harry learnt a lot more from Dumbledore about Voldemort and also about the horcruxes. Dumbledore’s death, apparently at the hands of Snape, was the final blow to Harry before he knew it was time for the final contest.

As a strong-willed leader, Harry made the final decision to go on his path alone, leaving school and even his love for Ginny behind. Ron and Hermione refused to leave his side and Harry was thankful for their support and friendship. In their search for horcruxes, they again tasted several ups and downs, but Harry’s leadership, persevering spirit and pure heart willed them to go on. Harry could have embarked on a quest for the Hallows, but he resisted, showing greater willpower than Dumbledore.

Despite Ron and Hermione’s help, despite the house-elf Dobby’s sacrifice, despite Snape’s efforts to protect him, despite Neville’s act of bravery in killing the final horcrux and despite everything that Dumbledore had done in preparation; in the end, it was left to Harry Potter to defeat Voldemort.

This he accomplished – with his pure heart, loyalty, determination, true love and the goodwill of thousands of people. The boy who lived was eventually victorious, and proclaimed a great leader at such a young age, because he was the boy who loved.