Leadership Qualities: Narada Maharishi to Yudhishtira

Mahab­harath is filled with sto­ries of great kings and queens known for the val­or, intel­li­gence, strat­e­gy and expan­sive vision. It also high­lights the lim­i­ta­tions of neg­a­tive qual­i­ties pos­sessed by cer­tain kings and the con­se­quences they faced as a result. In the Sab­ha Par­va, Sage Nara­da vis­its Yud­hishti­ra and asks him sev­er­al ques­tions about the lat­ter’s king­dom and lead­er­ship. These ques­tions throw light on the var­i­ous aspects an admin­is­tra­tor or leader should take care and the var­i­ous qual­i­ties to pos­sess inorder to keep his sub­jects hap­py and achieve suc­cess. We shall high­light some of these qual­i­ties in this post.

1. Spend­ing Wealth on prop­er objects

2. Adher­ing to the Purushar­tas: Dhar­ma, Artha, Kama and Mok­sha

3. Pos­sess­ing the six qual­i­ties: clev­er­ness of speech, readi­ness in pro­vid­ing help, intel­li­gence in deal­ing with ene­mies, mem­o­ry, famil­iar­i­ty with morals and pol­i­tics

4. Under­stand­ing the strength and weak­ness of com­peti­tors

5. Pay­ing atten­tion to the var­i­ous occu­pa­tions in the orga­ni­za­tion : low­er to high­er

6. Care in main­tain­ing con­fi­den­tial­i­ty of infor­ma­tion

7. Spend­ing some qui­et time at night con­tem­plat­ing what to do the fol­low­ing day

8. Mak­ing one­self approach­able by Sub­or­di­nates

9. Hav­ing close asso­ci­a­tion with expe­ri­enced teachers/ learned peo­ple who can advise on var­i­ous sub­jects

10. Hon­esty and Integri­ty

11. Lack of Jeal­ousy

12. Appli­ca­tion of Sama, Daana, Beda and Dan­da prin­ci­ples appro­pri­ate­ly with peo­ple at dif­fer­ent lev­els of hier­ar­chy in the orga­ni­za­tion or coun­try. Inorder to approach a giv­en sit­u­a­tion or prob­lem, there are 4 ways. Sama refers to gen­tle per­sua­sion, daana refers to per­sua­sion by giv­ing gifts, beda refers to cre­at­ing divi­sion among the groups and per­suad­ing and dan­da refers to pun­ish­ment.

13. Pay­ing atten­tion to income and expens­es every­day and mak­ing prop­er busi­ness deci­sions

14. Every mem­ber receives appre­ci­a­tion for good work appro­pri­ate­ly

TAGS: lead­er­shipMahab­haratMahab­harathampol­i­tics

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