Tips on leadership- Mahabharat

Introduction

 

I was thinking of certain aspects of life and particularly the way to respond to certain situations. I always go to Mahabharat whenever I face any situations be it joyous or enjoyable moments, tough situations and difficult moments. The reading of Mahabharat gave me lot of energy and positive thoughts. Mahabharat is a classic piece on leadership and how leader evolves and how leader should perform. Mahabharat gives a perspective of how good leader evolves and be successful and how strong person despite having great individual skills is not able to perform the role of a leader.

 

Mahabharat and Leadership

 

One of the important attraction of Mahabharat is the qualities of a leader and qualities of good leadership. The leader and leadership should have the following criteria if we apply various instances of Mahabharat:

• It is not title but more responsibility and People consider you as a leader irrespective of the fact whether you have tile or not/ A mere title does not give you leadership unless people recognize you.
• Leader should know how to support his team and be a thinker and leader should think ahead of time.
• Leader should be strategist for a good cause
• Leader should get his thoughts through others instead of him rattling.
• Leader should support the team when chips are down.
• Leader should be an optimist to the core
• Leader should protect his people from mistakes which are genuine
• If mistake of his team members are not genuine, leader should correct his team members and it should be corrected in a right manner and not hurting his team members.
  Let us analyse how it is applied in Mahabharat particularly during Kurushetra war. In my view the leader of Pandavas was Lord Krishna. Let us analyse the actions of Lord Krishna under certain circumstances.
   
  Leadership is not a title but a responsibility.
   
  Lord Krishna never had any title of leader whether as Chief of Army or any other title. His role was Charioteer for Arjun but his responsibility was beyond of a Charioteer. His responsibility was to protect Pandavas and to ensure Victory for Pandavas. During the entire war, it was Lord Krishna's strategy, thinking and ability which won war for Pandavas. And he achieved without any title but his responsibility was much beyond anybody. Everybody in Pandava's camp would look for Krishna and his advice at every moment. Lord Krishna performed a role of great leader without title but completed his responsibility. This is what an important trait of leader. One may not have a title of a leader but the qualities in you will make you to perform the role of a leader without having title. It is not a role of a statesman but a thinker, strategist, advisor and ability to navigate the team n difficult circumstances.
   
  Leader as a strategist thinker
   
  Before the decision of war on both sides, Lord Krishna decide to give peace a chance. But Lord Krishna knows war is the only solution. But he will not say from his mouth directly. He wanted to convince Pandavas that war is the solution. But instead of him saying it directly he convenes the meeting of Pandavas. He knows Yudhishthira does not prefer war.  He asks the views of everybody. Everybody prefers war except Yudhishthira. When Bheem and Arjun insists on War Yudhishthira was speechless. But however Krishna wanted to pacify Yudhishthira and offers himself as an emissary to Kauravas to prevent war. He knows Duryodhan prefers war. Hence in order to complete the formalities’ and also to ensure that Kauravas should know the implication of war he sets himself as an emissary. In this few aspects of a leadership comes out:

• A clever strategist thinker comes to the forefront.
• Making Yudhistiir to accept war if Duryodhan does not give even 5 cents of land to Pandavas and only as a last resort.
• Krishna knows War is the solution but he offers peaceful solution a last chance.
• When nobody prefers peaceful solution, war becomes inevitable.
• He even shows Viswaroopam Darshan to Dridarashtra who was blind. The story is that Dridharashtra gets eye sight for few seconds to see Krishna Viswaroopam. The idea of Krishna is to warn Dridharashtra that a powerful person like Krishna is with Pandavas and hence war is not good for Kauravas.
• As a leader he issues warning, ultimatum for Duryodhana team to correct, but
• Duryodhan refuses to correct himself.
  Leader should know whom to support but support without making it obvious

• Lord Krishna knows whom to help and when Arjuna and Duryodhana came to Lord Krishna for help, he thinks as a strategist and offers either himself or his army. His first offer was to Duryodhan and Duryodhan picks his army instead of Lord Krishna. He goes without any army to Arjun and Arjun believes in Lord Krishna completely and he protects him completely. The strategy thinking of a leader come out here first.

 

Leader should protect his word.

• During the discussions with Pandavas on war vs peace, everybody offers their views except Sahadev. Krishna seeks the views of Sahadev, The Character of Sahadev is the most brilliant character in my view but people understate him due to lack of knowledge He is the most knowledgeable character and he knows the future very well. He precisely knows what is going to come, but he will not open his mouth as he is tied to his dharma. When Krishna seeks the views of everybody in Pandavas camp, Sahadev instead of giving his views on war or peace he request Krishna to protect Panadvas till last in the event of war. Krishna accepts request from Sahadev and gives a word to Sahadev that he will protect Pandavas till last. He keeps his word till last.
• At the beginning of the war Krishna gives a word that he will not touch bow or arrow or directly kill anybody in war and his role is that of a Charioteer in war. During the first ten days of war, Arjuna is not able to defeat Bhishma directly and Krishna at one point of times gest frustrated with Arjuna and decide to get into war directly with Bhishma. Arjun pleads with Krishna not to do it and promises Krishna that he would wage a war in full strength with BHISHMA. Krishna scares Arjuna and pushes Arjuna to wage a war in full strength and he pushes Arjun by saying that if Arjuna does not do, he need to break his words and commitment given at the beginning of war. The beauty is that he protects his word but he ensures that Arjuna realises the importance of ensuring Krishna protects his word. Giving a word is one thing but protecting and ensuring that others in your team does not allow you to break your word is also critical. Krishna does both in great manner.
  Leader should support the team at all times and get his team out of trouble and takes responsibility for the actions of his team

• Krishna does this multiple times whether it is plotting the death of Bheeshma, Drona or Karna or Jayathratah etc. Every aspect of war is plotted by Krishna and he owns up the action and responsibility.  Krishna does without any formal title but because of responsibility.
• Let me look at other instance: Before the war, both sides need to do a Pooja on an auspicious date. Duryodhana decides Sahadev is the best person to suggest an auspicious date as Sahadev cannot lie and will not lie. Duryodhana approaches Sahadev and Sahadev fixes a date which is considered auspicious. Duryodahan was happy but Sahadev informs Krishna. Krishna was surprised because in Krishna's view if Duryodhana performs Pooja on that day, Duryodhana will win war. So Krishna instead of chiding Sahadev plots one more trick and ensure that Duryodhana does not do Pooja on that day As the story is long i am narrating it here but the point is again protecting your team from honest mistakes is most important.
  Compare this with Gauravas. Everybody was great individually but collectively they could not perform due to absence of a strong leader.  Bheeshma was a war strategist for first 10 days but Duryodhna/Sakuni never believed him. Same in case of Drona. When Karna took over the responsibility his own charioteer pulled him down. The point is it is not the individual strength that matters but if a team has strong individual’s one need stronger leader to bring them together. Further if the team fights among themselves team cannot win. In the case of Pandavas they completely surrendered to Krishna but in the case of Gauravas, they did not accept anybody as a leader.
   
  Let us look in Indian scenario. Mahatma Gandhi never had any official title but he was unifying force of multiple diverse elements in Congress. Managing stalwarts like Rajaji/Patel/Nehru/Azad needs different skill sets. Despite being strong personalities individually, everybody accepted Mahatma's words as final and acted accordingly. This is similar to Lord Krishna who unified Pandavas for a common cause.
   
  In 1977 Janata Party had great stalwarts. Strong Individual leaders who have their own base. Strong personalities. But what failed them was lack of common cause and absence of strong unifying force. The death of JP created a vacuum and each individual leader took their own course of action. The party failed. This is similar to Kauravas where strong individuals cannot be a strong team unless the team has a unifying leader.
   
   
  Conclusion
   
  The story of Mahabharat gave me lot of insights on multiple aspects. Team Work, Leadership and being optimist.  The reading of Mahabharat after going through certain aspects of life taught me a basic life theory “Be an optimist and be a believer. Give your efforts beyond 100 percent notwithstanding the fact people may think you small or may even hurt your emotions and pride. But keep the faith in you and proceed. Success will be yours"