This is one issue that is continuously under brainstorming from various angles in multiple fora, often leads to intensive blamestorming if the leadership goes awry for whatever reason and a few sacrifices thereafter in the form of pink-slips. Expensive and lavishly appointed seminars are organised at exotic locales, self-certified Leadership-Dons travel all over the globe in Business Class, then check into 5-Star hotels to deliver oft-repeated lectures on leadership quality that may be at best a bundle of well-known common sense, repeated a few hundred times here and there !! Astronomical fees charged by these ‘ISO/BV certified’ consultants have forced management schools to pass it on to their students who have to cough up huge tuition fees inevitably supported by education loans. By the time these starry eyed ‘Management Shishu-s’ (i.e. Management Trainees !!) enter into employment zone through excessively glamourised campus recruitments or employment columns, they are heavily burdened with loans running into lakhs of rupees. First four to five years of their career is burned out in repaying educational debts before they seriously begin worrying about job-security and career instability. The crisis has been further compounded by schools like Indian School Of Business founded by Rajat Gupta and Clintons who sell their 1-year diploma course on leadership management priced Rs. 35 Lakhs or more !! Well, ISB is a prestigious management institution or a coaching academy running an extortion racket !! These so-called premier management institutes never disclose what happens to their ‘Sishya-s’ say 4 to 5 years after their campus placements with five-figure ‘packages’. Are they able to sustain the ground, continuously rattling with uncertainties, with 10 to 20 % annual pay-hikes for next, say 25 years at least ??
Leadership quality exists in every human being in the state of a latent potential. If every Jivatma is potentially divine, every human being is also potentially a great leader. Crux of the matter lies in the fact, how much leadership quality has been excavated by him/her imbedded deep within his/her inner being. It is this inward journey that in reality, escorts us to the glory of being a leader. Whether management seminars and leadership sermons facilitate this inward journey at all and how much, may be interesting topics of research projects leading to a cloudburst of PhD degrees !! However, it is certain that such an exercise shall be stoutly resisted by self-professed leadership dons lest they forfeit their uninterrupted ‘cash-flow’ of ‘revenues’, business class international travels and sauna baths in luxurious, starred hotels at exotic locales, so on and so forth.
Inward journey to hidden leadership potential begins with sprouting of a burning aspiration to realise a certain irresistible mission. With this vehement aspiration weighing heavily on mind, a potential leader starts organising inner as well as external resources available at disposal. Organising ones inner resources during inward journey is the strive to attain ones leadership potential. If a plethora of Management ‘Guru-s’ can venture to sermonise on leadership qualities, how could Veda-s be left behind ?? Or may be some or all Management ‘Guru-s’ plagiarised Leadership wisdom from Veda-s alone !!
According to Vedic wisdom, leader is a celebrity disrupter endowed with a strong mind who can tame even a fierce opponent; drives away an arrogant one; most menacing challenge he tackles first and head on; resolute in all attributes; transforms weakness in subordinates into their strength; distinguishable like a north star in a galaxy of stars; capable of turning even a stick into an oar to cruise; restless in absence of hurdles; capable of turning victorious; even cowards become courageous in his presence; observes zero-tolerance towards unrighteousness and perversion; tactful when called for; commands awe even in inimical minds and strong in splendour; ceaselessly energetic bubbling with vigour and vitality; exceedingly cheerful in disposition; absolutely unwavering; patient listener to all; motivates and inspires others by stirring their thinking faculty; endowed with unassailable and indefatigable creative strength; outstanding in wisdom and profoundly comfortable in company of erudite ones; proficient in laws; always regards law above him and everyone else; commands and controls team-members as well as their thoughts; acts promptly and swiftly; an enthralling orator; thoroughly compassionate, gracious and humble; benevolent and bounteous; dependable and a liberal ally; has no enemies as he does not antagonise anyone; sagacious, dignified friend of all; impeccable commitment to responsibilities; noble and venerable disposition; sparkling and transparent character; integrity unimpeachable; evokes veneration by the dint of his attributes; an anti-dote to misfortune; never violates others space; unfailingly truthful; responsible guardian and infallible protector to followers and team members; renders complete justice to obligations and responsibilities; venerable and cheerful always; propitious rising above men; ever ready to sacrifice personal interest. On the contrary a wicked person, evil-wisher, unwise, niggardly, weak person must never be allowed to become leaders.
(Ref. – VEDA-S DEFINED LEADERSHIP QUALITIES THOUSANDS OF YEARS AGO !
These alone are sterling leadership qualities enshrined in Veda-s albeit pedalled by Management Guru-s in a wide variety of lexicons, permutations and combinations in various seminars and workshops. It will be a landmark management discovery to find out, whether even the best of all Management Guru-s ever incarnated so far on Planet Earth, has been able to establish even a single leadership attribute that is absolutely independent of what has been described in Veda-s on leadership qualities. When a band of visually impaired attempt to visualise physical contours of an elephant by touching the elephant here and there, you are offered narratives ranging from anything to anything in a bid to describe the elephant. Similar is the tale of all leadership narratives offered by celebrity Management Guru-s without perception of the issue at its roots and source of all leadership attributes.
All leadership attributes as described above in Veda-s as well as discoursed by Management Guru-s variously spring forth progressively and spontaneously when five human frailties of Kama, Krodha, Lobha, Moha and Ahamkara plummet to mere existential levels. As we advance inward through variety of Adhyatmika Sadhana-s, combined impact of Kama, Krodha, Lobha, Moha and Ahamkara starts declining with concurrent manifestation of all our divine faculties latent within ourselves. It is so vast a reservoir of faculties that one is spoilt with multiple options to pick and chose anyone of ones liking. Great leaders are those who are in complete command of themselves by successfully harnessing their subtle assets to the highest extent attainable simultaneously obliterating their share of Kama, Krodha, Lobha, Moha and Ahamkara. No adversity whatsoever, can perturb such leaders. Without undertaking subtle inner engineering resolutely, it is impossible for anyone to be an effective or a successful leader irrespective of any amount of leadership courses undergone and leadership seminars attended anywhere. Those who do not, remain stuck at a certain level in hierarchy fructifying the well-known management adage, every manager/leader inevitably reaches his/her level of incompetence sooner than later in career !! Or may be blown away even by a breeze of not very significant challenges.
Recent technological as well as non-technological advances have been too fierce for frail humanity to cope with. It is amply exemplified in Whatsapp usage. Just one technological tool of Whatsapp has gone beyond human control and lot of ill-effects on human psyche are being reported every now and then. One may shudder to visualise the scenario after powerful tools like Artificial Intelligence are allowed to be available in all young and old hands. When technology leads humanity instead of technology being led by the humanity, it is a disasters galore all the way. Technology being led by humanity is possible only when man is in command of self by overpowering his/her inner, subtle frailties of Kama, Krodha, Lobha, Moha and Ahamkara. Advances in knowledge encumbered with upward social mobility of all classes have raised complex challenges at family or social levels too, cannot be confronted effectively unless again, man is in command of self through effective inner, subtle engineering. For becoming a successful, effective and powerful leader, one must embark on inner, subtle engineering through Adhyatmika Sadhana-s and incessantly pursue a rigorous, highly disciplined life-style. One may ignore it only at at an enormous hazard as eloquently illuatrated in the life and career of Rajat Gupta –
(‘JATAKA KATHA’ OF RAJAT GUPTA !!
https://niratishaya.wordpress.com/2016/04/28/jataka-katha-of-rajat-gupta/)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi does not hold MBA from Harvard Business School, never attended any worthwhile leadership course or workshop yet he is a legendary world leader before whom even celebrity management leaders pale into insignificance. So called management legend Peter Drucker surrendered before him flat on the ground and declared it in so many words too. And secret lies in the fact that he is a renunciate, an ascetic politician who thoroughly commands himself, entirely in grip of all his subtle, inner frailties. Major share of the accolade goes to greatest management institute in the world known as Rashtriya Svayamsevak Sangha whose ‘Shakha-Pathshalas’ churn out large number of management legends in the making. Narendra Modi happens to be the source of inspiration of this article that now stands dedicated to him as an ample measure of tribute to his outstanding leadership acumen. Isn’t this one example enough to assertively underscore core of leadership philosophy essentially being subjugation of our frailties manifesting as Kama, Krodha, Lobha, Moha and Ahamkara hidden deep inside us ??
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