Bhagavad Gita on Leadership in organizations
"I owed a magnificent day to the Bhagavad-Gita. It was the first of books; it was as if an empire spoke to us, nothing small or unworthy, but large, serene, consistent, the voice of an old intelligence which in another age and climate had pondered and thus disposed of the same questions which exercise us." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson1
Mahabharata2 is one of the major ancient Indian Sanskrit epics. At roughly seventy four thousand verses, it is one of the longest epic poems in the world. It is also of immense religious and philosophical importance in India, in particular for including the Bhagavad Gita, an important text of Hinduism. Bhagavad Gita3 is a philosophical text that has had an immense influence on most Indians. It is considered by some to contain within itself the summary of the Indic philosophy as expounded in Vedas and Upanishads. Having read expositions of the text by Gandhi and others I have gleaned a lot of leadership lessons from it. I believe that looking at organizational leadership through the lens of Gita can be very enlightening. So, I will talk about what I see as the most important lessons for leadership in organizations seen through the lens of Bhagavad Gita.
Context of Gita2: Pandavas are 5 brothers, sons of Pandu. Also, Kauravas are one hundred brothers who are sons of Dhritrashtra. Both clans belong to the Bharata Dynasty and share a common paternal grandfather who was the ruler of a major Kingdom in India. Kauravas have been evil rulers and have through deceit taken away the just share of the kingdom from Pandavas. After negotiations completely fail, Pandavas and Kauravas agree to meet in the battlefield to make the decision. Here Arjuna who is of the Pandava clan can be seen as the le ...