leadership insights from literature

8/12/2019 Leadership Insights From Literature

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himself, and as a consequence, for all mankind. Take for example How dull, stale and unprofitable toseem the uses of this world and elsewhere, What a piece of work is man and yet to me what is thisquintessence of dust? At the psychological level, Hamlet enjoys his suffering and the depressive vortex that he creates aroundhimself sucks everyone else in. His poetry, his vocabulary, his abstraction of thought, his clarity andpower of expression and above all his intuitive intellectuality render his saviors petty incapable intheir own eyes of helping him. Of all the characters in the play, Hamlet trusted only Horatio but Horatiowas too much in awe of the prince to be able to help him. Also, in Hamlets own words, Horatio was toospiritually evolve d and therefore detached to meaningfully intervene in Hamlets mind and bring about achange.Ophelia could have helped him but he sabotaged that. He alienated her. Completely. In fact almostpersonally drove her to insanity and then to suicide. This then is an abiding trait of a tragic hero healmost invariably drives the important woman in his life away. Or ridicules her. Neglects her. In so doinghe is killing his anima, his yin, his feminine aspect. In short, he alienates himself from the feminineas pect in his life. The Hindus have a concept of the ardhanarieshwara where one half of yourpsychological existence comes from the feminine presence in your life, just as Shiva himself is partParvati. An examination of ones personal life may indicate th at one is erring too much on the side of the

masculine and the rational to exclusion of the emotional. The blindness so self-imposed does provedisastrous. In the play, all the main characters die, succumbing to deception, deceit, revenge, power-games, lust (bordering on incest), greed and unbridled anger. Since these attributes are biologicallyhard-wired into the human psyche, the appeal is universal as is the fatality.An analysis of Hamlet will reveal an inner dynamic that is central to all of us in potential the lessontherefore is to cognitively understand its compulsions and then recognize them in ourselves as possibleoperating principles. Hamlets ability is that he sees too much, understands too much, empathizes toomuch, analyzes too much and consequently is paralyzed by his own intelligence. This is the classicintelligence trap: where you are trapped in a point of view by your ability to defend it. He can think forand against an issue with equal lan. He trusts the ghost of his father that tells him of the crime his unclehas committed by murdering him and marrying his queen this is double sin: murder of Gods

representative on earth and incest. When the time comes to revenge and deliver on the promise hemade to his fathers ghost, he is plagued by doubt by the nature of evil as a possible trick of themind induced by Satan himself! Thus no action flows, except internally as a monologue with the self.The other possible consequence of delay in action (procrastination) is his pathological fear of failure. Butevery fear of failure shares an insidious border with the fear of success. Success, specially the one youare not psychologically prepared for, brings with itself a host of fears about your competence the fearthat others will now know what your true worth is as if you were bluffing your way to the top allthese years! The solution is what Hamlet himself provides before he dies preparation is all along witha leaf out of the tome on the Level V leader who is equipped with the twin weapons of humility andferocious resolve.In an organizational context, Hamlet had no insider friends who would bring in raw data for processingand action. There are no external sources of communications. There is almost complete reliance onhimself and the meanderings of his own thinking. He has no mentors in the organization or outside it.No coaches just a nave, sentimental mother and a foolish courtier in Polonius. His dislike for Claudiushas an irrational (supernatural) basis and goes on to do the opposite of what his uncle could have liked.This is akin to a boss-subordinate relationship where the subordinate dislikes favoring the boss because,at some level, he fears becoming like him or being perceived as wanting to be like him. Hamlet felt amoral and ethical superiority to his uncle. While this has logic, it was, in the play self-defeating.Doubt. Indecision. Procrastination. Lack of external sources of reliable information. Absence of a coachand mentor. These are central to Hamlet and bring about the fall of the hero. The lessons from Hamlet


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are, therefore, clearly in the plea for task oriented, goal focused activity, avoiding emotional andintellectual excesses in pursuit of the larger good stake-holder value in this case.

The Self DestructiveImperative of NepotismDhritarashtra, the Mahabharata and Cultural Failures

In his usual thought-provoking style, Rajeshwar Upadhyaya, uses the exaggerated caricature ofDhritarashtra as a mirror to our society, which accepts nepotism as the norm

In the Mahabharata, there is one person who had the power to prevent the inevitable catastrophe of

the final battle at Kurukshetra. He never exercises this power. Contrary to popular belief, this personwas not Krishna. The only person with a realistic chance of preventing war, at least almost until thebitter end, was the Kaurava king Dhritarashtra. His physical blindness has always been recognized as ametaphor of his willful emotional blindness, his complete unwillingness to either face reality or acceptresponsibility for the tragic events that continually unfolded during his reign. It was leadershipderailment at a spectacular level and his only feeble justification was his love for his sons, but especiallyfor the eldest Duryodhana. Knowing full well his sons were greedy, unprincipled and out of control. Hewent along with their power grab, not because he was attached to his throne, but solely because theywere his sons. He was fully cognizant that he was being unfair to his brothers chil dren, the Pandavas.He agonized at length about the wickedness he was collaborating in, but he never put a stop to it.Nepotism always won out, and in the end he had the humiliating experience of surviving on the charity

of those he had wronged.It is absurd to note how may times he accepts guilt in the pages of the epic. Knowing full well he is doingwrong, he nevertheless goes along. It is Duryodhana who articulates this remarkably self awaresentiment Knowing the good I ignore it; knowing the bad I st ill follow it. My svabhava, inherentnature, is thus. - but the lesson had been learnt from his father. When his sons were dying like fliesbefore the justifiable wrath of Bheema, his self-pitying soliloquies no longer evoked any sympathy fromhis listener s. His confidant and factotum, Sanjaya brutally speaks truth to power in one of Ancient Indiasmost extraordinary passages. Why do you weep now? All your well wishers and advisors had asked youto reign in your headstrong and greedy son. You spoke harshly to them, ignoring Bheesma who is thewisest as well as your grandsire. You ignored Drona who is the greatest teacher in the land. Youbanished Vidura for a while, and he is both your brother as well as the greatest minister in all of theculture. Even I remonstrated with you and so did your wife Gandhari. To all of us you made it clear thatthe only thing that matters to you is your son and his ambition. This catastrophe is solely your fault andif you think anybody will mourn for your loss, you are delud ing yourself. What is astonishing is that theblind king meekly accepts this rebuke, acknowledges its truth and goes back to rooting for his sonsimprobable victory. He was incorrigible in his nepotism.Here is a provocative thought. In India, we profess admiration for the Pandavas, but in practice wefollow the Kauravas. This may not be universally true, but it is substantially so. Nepotism was andremains a core cultural imperative. It is a default psychological setting, and the need to cater for it mayaccount for the incomplete social project of modernization. As the depressing example of the epic


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shows, it is an ancient and enduring imperative. What is important is that nepotism is not regarded as aproblem normally not until it bars something you w ish to access. The acceptance of dynastic politicsas a normal social phenomenon instead of as a bizarre aberration in what is nominally a democraticpolity is a tribute to the enduring power of the nepotism imperative. Justifications and rationalizationsthat are offered up in defence of nepotism, the India way excuse seem not to take into account theimmense social losses that occur in having to negotiate such institutional barriers. To put it bluntly, thisis a mindset that is medieval; utilizing it as a paradigm for living in the modern world is to risk living inpermanent schizophrenia. It is not impossible; it is merely adding burdens to an already difficultexistence.The unfairness aspect of nepotism does not seem to hold much water, for like Dhritarashtra,everybody is perfectly happy if it is fair to my family! What is unacknowledged is the pervasivebitterness and resentment that seeps into the social sphere when such a value system is privileged. Theacknowledgement that life can be unfair seems to have been internalized into a conviction that life hasto be unfair. In such a scenario, any personal advantage that can be extracted trumps any socialresponsibility that may be vaguely felt. It is fundamentally a pessimistic approach to life, a lack of trust insocial systems to provide adequately for ones aims in life. The subtext to nepotism is a sense of enmitybetween the self and society; it is a seeking of security, a mental regress into childish fears.

Dhritarashtra knew full well that there was enough power and pelf for his children and their cousins butas Mohandas Gandhi correctly observed, There is always enough for peoples need, but never enoughfor their greed. At yet another level, nepotism is the refusal to accept social responsibility until ones personal ambitionshave been fulfilled. The blind king openly acknowledged that Yusdhishtara would have been a betterruler than his son, both for the people and the kingdom, but in the end, society got the dirty end of thedeal so long as his son was gratified. When Duryodhana was born, he brayed like a donkey, aninauspicious omen and a disturbed Vidura articulates ancient Indias vision as to what should be donewith a social menace. For the sake of a family, an individual may be aban doned. For the sake of avillage, a family may be given up. For the sake of the district, we can lose the village; for the country, thedistrict and for the World, an entire country. But for the sake of Dharma, the moral and ethical norms

that sustain soci ety, the very Earth indeed may be given up. Vidura was praised hugely for his wisdom and quietly ignored. He could have been living incontemporary times.This is therefore a more demanding challenge in our environment; the compulsions of a collectivesociety where the family is the unit of trust and tolerance. Family owned organizations want to keep theactual reigns of control in the hands of family members. And it is not entirely rare that a 28 year old sonof the promoter of a large Indian company immediately upon returning from an American universityheads an organization and compels deference from the rest of the staff whose experience andprofessionalism exceed his own by far. His learning curve becomes the organizations bottleneck andpersonal likes and dislikes drive the restructuring imperative. This furthers mealy-mouthed deferenceand an inability to differ from the leadership or even offer an alternate perspective. Obedience andcompliance kicks in irrational levels of fear and respect thus reinforcing the feudal ethos where loyalty ismore important than performance.Some organizations have struggled with the issue of professionalising themselves and have experiencedvarying levels of success. It is common argument that professionals do not truly have any real stake inthe success of the business. They can be head hunted and like salivating mercenaries they will join,lead and make successful the very organization he was competing with till yesterday. Whereas the truthin this can be debated , the sentiment is unwavering. This deepens the original need to interfere andtrust only kin. The promoters feel the need to ever so often step in and make the right decisions onbehalf of the professionals. Nepotism reinforced. Everyone knows the final controls lie elsewhere. And


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all future decisions must be made keeping that in mind. There is diminishing returns logic in the benefitsof nepotism. Dhritarashtra is an exaggeration of that failure. The purpose of exaggeration is notfalsification rather visibility.To make visible what would otherwise escape notice, so that more optimal action may follow. And yet,the exceptions to the norm are numerous enough to render the norm redundant.

1 Comments

By R.SundareshRefer Nepotism Article.It is true that professionals look at objectives and results in a dispassionatemanner and strive for continual improvements.Due to various reasons professionals do also switch overto greener pastures and the owner/promoter management is left with the company and itschallenges.In this context,one may have to accept qualified ,young offsprings would continue to be

there and they would also grow into a fine professional.There are many such instances.It would beindeed great to have a fine blend of emotions and results.R.Sundaresh,Pune

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