Management tips from the ‘Gita’

Extract | Timeless Leadership

All wars are fought first in the mind and must be won first there too. The Hindu holy book Bhagavad Gita has not only been a source of inspiration for the spiritual, but its astute management policies hold true for all human situations.

In Timeless Leadership: 18 Leadership Sutras From the Bhagavad Gita, author Debashis Chatterjee distils those lessons and makes them relevant to current workplaces.

Chatterjee is director, Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Kozhikode, and has taught previously at the IIMs in Calcutta and Lucknow, as well as Harvard University, US. He has earlier written six books, including Leading Consciously and Break Free.

In a chapter titled “Leaders Are Integrators”, Chatterjee discusses the comprehensive roles of a leader, particularly those that extend beyond the individual. Edited excerpts:

Four kinds of virtuous men seek me, Arjuna:

The distressed, the desirous, the inquisitive.

And those in search of the knowledge of the absolute. (7.16)

Krishna teaches Arjuna what leaders are supposed to do: They liberate themselves and others from suffering. He elaborates four different kinds of suffering that we face in the human condition. The first kind is that of physical pain and mental distress. People in the world suffer not just the pangs of hunger and poverty but also mental distress caused by labels and designations. In many organizations people suffer because of the way they are categorized by the organization. A manager may find himself boxed inside a particular role and condemned to hours of drudgery. There is suffering when relationships within organizations become hostile and stressful due to performance pressures.

The second kind of suffering happens because of unfulfilled desires. Most people in organizations think of fulfilment only in terms of the next promotion or the next big bonus, the next vacation or the next car. This kind of fulfilment, even if we achieve our objects of desire, turns out to be as deceptive as a mirage that falsely promises water in a desert. It merely helps us shift the burden of our desirous and anxious minds from one thing to another. Our dependence on the people who could grant our desires keeps mounting. We keep thinking that ultimate success lies just around the corner. However, true fulfilment comes from what Krishna describes as “equanimity of mind.” This is a state of mind that is neither disproportionately elated in possessing the object of desire nor too depressed when we are dispossessed of what we hold as ours. A leader like Krishna leads us to this space of Self-realization wherein we find the completion of all our desires and cessation of all our anxieties.

The third kind of suffering happens when we do not have the right knowledge about who we are. This is suffering that comes from identity crisis. We have merely a casual curiosity about who we are beyond our physical body. We fail to recognize that although we have a body we are not the body; we have a mind but we are not the mind. This kind of suffering comes from forgetfulness of our essential Self. Imagine what would happen if the owner of a large business empire suddenly loses his memory, gets lost in a busy metropolis, and begins to beg for a living. Unless he retrieves his memory or unless some of his friends remind him of his real status he will continue to suffer the lot of a beggar because he does not have the knowledge of who he is.

Krishna talks about the fourth kind of followers, who are among the best and the rarest. They do not make too many demands, nor do they expect material rewards. They have already reached a state of Self-actualization. They are not interested so much in fulfilment of their personal ambition as in living for a cause greater than themselves. These followers are the seekers of wisdom. Their desires are not contrary to their essential dharma. Their only wish is to discover another dimension of life beyond their ego. Krishna says that these are the wise ones who offer themselves with all their personal ambitions as a sacrifice to a life of service.

The common feature of all these categories of followers is that all of them wish to end their suffering. However, their suffering comes from different planes of consciousness. Therefore, they need to be addressed differently. Someone who suffers financially is unlikely to heed the message of Self-realization. Similarly, one who is already Self-actualized is unlikely to be motivated by more money than he requires. True leaders realize that there is no such thing as a merely personal salvation. Liberation is a shared experience. In a living organization, unless the lowest in the hierarchy can be whatever he or she wishes to be, the highest in the hierarchy cannot be what he or she wishes to be. Such is the interdependent nature of the human condition.

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