Can leaders be 'created' or do you have to be a born leader?
A lot has been said by many people on what a leader should be. But there is very little that has been said about actually how to get there. What exactly do I mean by this?
Is leadership some quality you have to be born with or can it be cultivated? How can one develop leadership skills? Can a person truly lead an organization if he or she is caught up in personal struggles and confusions?
Before we get into these details, let me first say that leadership skills CAN be cultivated. It is all about achieving the state of consciousness of a leader and not the status that is achieved by becoming a leader.
When you read this, please do not think I am going to take you through a spiritual journey! The process I am going to take you through is a time-tested, proven science of personal transformation. It is a product of ten thousand years of research and development from the Eastern system of inner science. What do I mean by this?
Firstly, understand that every civilization has focused its energies in certain fields. In the West, they focused their efforts on the outer world science, innovation, discovery and creation of products and services to improve the quality of life and comforts. These outer world scientists have discovered so many products and services which have greatly benefitted humanity and improved the quality of life of humans all over the world.
Just as there is science of the outer world, there is a vast science of the inner world, something that lies within all of us. The scientists of the inner world or rishis worked on various tools and techniques to handle the different emotions we experience and our mind. Over the last ten thousand years, these scientists of the inner world have created tools and techniques that help us handle our emotions and overcome the stress and depression from emotions. They have created techniques for us to live blissfully with ourselves. These tools and techniques are what I call meditation techniques.
So most of my discussion on leadership will be focused on giving an understanding of human emotions, the mind and how we can use these simple understandings from the inner scientists to help us lead a successful and fulfilling life.
In most organizations, those who have become leaders have achieved the status of the leader. They may not have necessarily achieved the state of the leader. What do I mean by this? To understand this, first let us understand the key ingredients that make a successful leader.
A small story:
There was once a great war between two countries. The war had been going on for some time and the soldiers were starting to feel tired of the long battle.
On a hot afternoon, a man in civilian clothes was riding past a small group of tired soldiers digging a huge pit. The group leader was shouting orders and threatening punishment if the work was not completed within the hour.
The man riding the horse stopped and asked, 'Sir, why are you only shouting orders? Why can't you help them yourself?' asked the stranger on horseback.
The group leader looked at him and replied, 'What do you mean? I am the leader. The men do as I tell them.' He then added, 'If you feel so strongly about helping them, you are welcome to do so yourself!'
The man got down from his horse and started walking up to the soldiers at work. The group leader was simply shocked! The man took up the tools and started helping the soldiers and worked with them till the job was finished!
Before leaving the man congratulated the soldiers for their work, and approached the group leader.
He said, 'The next time your status prevents you from supporting your people, you should inform your higher authorities, and I will provide a more permanent solution.'
The group leader was now completely surprised. Only now he looked closely at the man, and realized that the man was the army general!
We now need to ask ourselves how many so-called leaders in organizations exhibit the qualities of the group leader. And how many people do you know who exhibit the qualities of the army general?
Regardless of the status in an organization, you will agree that the majority of the so-called leaders exhibit the qualities of the group leader. They achieve the status of the leader but not the state of the leader.
There are very few people who are ready to really help get the work done.
The army general exhibited some of the key qualities that are important for a true leader:
- 1. Honesty and Responsibility
- 2. Caring genuinely about people
- 3. Confidence
- 4. Efficiency and lateral thinking skills
- 5. Attention to detail
- 6. Efficiency and Effectiveness
- 7. Broad-based thinking and doing
I will discuss these traits in greater detail in the following sections.
Leader Consciousness
What do I mean by this term, 'Leader Consciousness'?
Most of us achieve the status of a leader, but not the state. State is totally different from status. Status comes from society. When you are leading a group of people, if you are forced to take the responsibility of some department or if you take the responsibility out of your greed, the status comes. But the state is totally different.
When I use the word 'state' I mean your inner space or your being should be mature enough to handle what you are entering or the responsibility which you are assuming. When we just get the status without achieving the state, all the problems which exist in the corporate world start – stress and tension in the personal level, and backbiting and politics in the level of the team. All these problems start when you don't achieve the state but just achieve the status.
Here I am trying to express to you the truths from the great traditions of the East – how to achieve leader consciousness, how to achieve the state of the leader and not just the status. See, status is very easy, state is something which we really need to achieve.
Status will simply follow a man who has achieved the state of a leader. Even if the status takes its own time, he will not be bothered, he will live like a king! His very life will be totally fulfilled. The invaluable feeling of fulfillment happens to beings who achieve leader consciousness.
What do I mean by the word, 'state of the leader'?
A true leader is a person who is ready to take responsibility consciously, who is ready to handle life consciously, who is not constantly dependent on the past or his memory. If you are dependent on your memory, if you are dependent on the past to take decisions, please be very clear, you will be a follower. You cannot be a leader.
Responding spontaneously to situations is what I call responsibility.
A responsible leader is a person who is able to respond spontaneously to situations, who is fresh and continuously keeps himself alive, who is not caught in the past.
Let me try to give you a small diagram on how the mind works, how the state of a leader is achieved, how leader consciousness happens in us. Let us understand how the mind works – how we receive data, process it and make decisions.
For example, you are seeing something through your eye. Of course, you receive information through all the five senses – eyes, ears, nose, tongue and touch. For now, let us take the example of the eye. When you see with your eyes, immediately the file goes to a space called the chakshu, it is just like a Digital Signal Processor (DSP). Whatever you are seeing through the eye is converted to a bio-signal, just like a digital signal file. This file moves to a space called chitta in Sanskrit which is just like memory in a computer. Here the process of identification starts. For example, you are now seeing this book – the whole file goes to the DSP, chakshu, and the whole file is converted into a bio-signal file, and then it moves to chitta, memory.
The memory starts analyzing – 'This is not a stone, this is not a tree, this is not an animal …' The elimination process happens in the memory. This process of elimination happens in the memory. Next, the identification, 'This is a book,' happens in the mind or manas. In the mind, you start identifying, 'This is a book,' 'It is a book on spirituality,' 'It is written by an enlightened being.'
After identification, the file then moves to a space which I call 'ego', the decision-making center. In the ego you start thinking, 'In what way am I connected to this situation?' If your past experiences with similar books were good, you decide to continue to read. If your past experiences were not good, if you felt 'Oh, this is not worth it, I felt very bored last time', or 'I read similar books but did not feel any benefit,' if you feel negative you will decide not to continue reading. The ego decides based on your past experiences. This is the way your mind functions.
Now, the important thing which you need to understand is, the decision is taken unconsciously. If the process happens in a straightforward way, you will not have any problem and things will go very smoothly in your life. Everything will be clear and straight!
But this process does not always happen in a straightforward way. Sometimes things start happening in an unconscious way. For example, if you were hurt or disturbed by something that was said in a similar book you read before, the moment you see this book, unconsciously that memory will be awakened.
You see, in your life, if you are hurt or disturbed in a particular place, or by a particular situation, or by a person wearing a particular colored dress, the next time when you go to that place, or the next time you see another person wearing the same colored dress, you will go through the same low mood even if you know logically that the place or that person has nothing to do with your past experiences. You will have that same memory again in your mind. You will again have that same experience. This is what I call 'samskaras' or 'engraved memories'.
These engraved memories distort or disturb your decision-making capacity. You see, if the whole process of the mind map I just described happens consciously, then it is a straightforward and logical process. But due to the unconscious mind, a lot of times, the process is not straightforward. As I described earlier, we tend to get biased based on our experiences we have had with a particular person or a particular situation. This is the space where politics happens! This is the space where things move illogically. This is the space where the past memories or engrams will be sitting and you do not even know what decision you are making!
Let me give you one more example to give you more understanding of the unconscious mind. If we analyze logically or consciously, all of you know that smoking is injurious to health. If we follow through the process from eye to the mind, you know clearly that smoking is injurious to health, according to the data collected by your senses. But suddenly, even though logic tells us not to smoke, you decide to smoke, beyond your logic and consciousness. This is where the unconscious engrams are sitting.
Even though you consciously know that smoking is injurious to health, when the data moves to the ego, when the file takes a quantum leap, you just decide to smoke. Maybe some memory, or some experience which you had in the past must have made you feel relaxed when you smoked. Or maybe when you smoked during your youth, you may have felt like a hero. So these engrams have been associated with this habit, and suddenly, because of this engram you decide to smoke, even if you consciously know that smoking is injurious to health.
In the same way, many times in your life, even if you know what is right, simply you decide unconsciously because of your engrams. Your life is under the control of unconscious engrams, it is not under your control. You may think that you are taking the decision, but your unconscious engrams are taking the decisions!
These samskaras or engrams are the root cause of our behavior. They are the reason why we behave in a certain way with certain people. The engrams tend to cloud our judgments when we have to take decisions. They influence how we accomplish our tasks in an organization. It is these engrams that dictate our productivity, interpersonal skills, teamwork, judgment and all our responses and behavior. But engrams are never understood and more importantly given any importance in the field of corporate training and leadership development.
The Eastern mystics and inner scientists have spent thousands of years developing tools and meditation techniques to cleanse us from these engraved memories. These samskaras can be effectively erased through meditation techniques.
Recently I visited one of my devotee's houses and saw a beautiful one-liner in the living room:
'I am the boss of this house, I have my wife's permission to say so!'
Similarly, you may think you are the boss, but your unconscious engrams are leading you! As long as you are caught by these unconscious samskaras, you can never achieve the state of a leader. You may achieve the status of a leader with a lot of suffering and struggle.
Be very clear, if you sit in the leader's chair with a lot of suffering and struggle, you will tend to create the same suffering and struggle for your subordinates!
Again and again, your mind will say, 'When I suffered and struggled so much, why not them!' You will just reproduce your old mental set up on others. This can be a very de-motivating factor in organizations.