Leadership Lessons from Indian Knowledge System

Abstract

In a Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous (VUCA) world efficiently managing the human resources is highly challenging for this era leaders. Leadership is a powerful enabler that can leverage an organisation to any heights. But bad leadership can downside any organization which leads to destruction. To lead the organization effectively and efficiently leaders follow different types of leadership styles. So, one of the critical challenges is leading the organization and driving towards his vision. Therefore, one of the major issues and the real concern of any organization is identifying great leaders and nurturing the best qualities. Several theories were discussed and deliberated this issue from a multiple perspective. So many different qualities and styles of leadership have been discussed in modern management theories. The interesting observation is our ancient scriptures such as Bhagavad Gita, Mahabharata, Ramayana, Arthashastra and Bhoja Prabandha etc., we get different perspectives of what leadership is and what it can do to an organization. For Instance, Lord Krishna who was the avatar of Lord Vishnu who was a divine soul with a high degree of intelligence, communication skills and ability to influence others and capable of resolving any crises faced by his devotees. In the modern scenario, it can be said that Lord Krishna has acted as the greatest crises manager the world has ever produced. If we look towards Mahabharata, we can say that Krishna was the Finest Strategist. Even though many other characters in Mahabharata have responded to the great challenges at that time. Krishna was also a thoughtful and intelligent leader he adopted different leadership style according to the time; people and situation. Majorly this paper focus on how our Indian ancient scriptures such as Bhagavad Gita, Mahabharata and Ramayana had different perspectives on leadership qualities.