DEVELOPMENT OF LEADERSHIP VALUES

  (Sunil Kumar)

(Member, Managing Committee & Coordinator, Value Education & Self-development Programs, Ramakrishna Mission, New Delhi & Founder Director, Vivekananda Center for Holistic Management.

Formerly: GM, The PEC of India Ltd & Founder Trustee & Professor, SriSim)

(Email: kumar2sunil@yahoo.com Tel. 98185-32157/2358-7110/2358-3023)

 

1. Core values

    Values can be defined as those, which can guarantee keeping us on the critical path to the fulfillment of our legitimate desires and goals, with peace, joy and prosperity all round, the state of Perfection that we seek.  

    The Public Servants are the leaders of society today. They are the elite, the role models and whatever Values and ideals they hold, will become the norm of behavior for the common people.  

    What Values do we expect from the leaders? As leaders, it is the fundamental responsibility of leaders to take responsibility to create the environment, systems and organizational and work culture where people are inspired to give their best and work for the good of society.  

If there is corruption and total lack of commitment to values and duties and total lack of care and concern for others, the responsibility is of the public servants. We have failed to set up better systems in the fields of education, administration, and politics. 

    Our education and training and development systems focus only on knowledge of subjects and evaluate people only on marks and degrees. No marks are awarded and no evaluation is done for character. The focus is on IQ and job-skills but there is no effort to build EQ (Emotional maturity) and SQ (Ability to plan and act on the basis of long-term good). After all Duryodhan and Ravan both were as good as Yuddhishtar and Rama in IQ and EQ, the only difference was in their SQ. While we realize that integrity and character must be the prime Value for any leadership position, we do not give it any direct, visible importance in the education system or in recruitment and appointments. The character roll as the criteria for promotion has been replaced by the confidential roll and by the performance appraisal.  

    Unless people are educated and trained and established in self-development processes, to develop conviction in the long-term good over short-term pleasant they will not have an intellectual conviction in the power of Values and goodness. We have to make the educated people aware of the higher Values. We have to help them get established in the habit of reviewing and harmonizing their personal goals and desires with the goals of the organization and society on a daily and continuous basis.

 

Values for Individual & Organizational Effectiveness:

    For individual and organizational effectiveness the first Value must be commitment to Quality & Excellence and to their duties. Are our educated people in public service, committed to quality and duties? No.  

The two basic sets of Values lacking in the educated people, which we must introduce in our education, training and administrative system, are:

i) The Value of commitment to and fulfillment of our multifarious duties – duties to self, family, organization and society at large, and to the Fundamental duties enshrined in our constitution.  

ii) Value of spontaneous feelings of love, care, respect and concern for others. 

   

TQM Values:

    According to CII, to achieve quality in any organization, people must have the Values of: People Focus; Self-control; Respect for others; Professional honesty; Openness; Continuous Improvements; Problem solving approach 

 

Reengineering Values:

    A good and effective manager has been defined as one who: Initiates & Implements Changes & Continuous Improvements in Services, products, and Systems. To sustain this attitude the Values needed are:

Creativity; Discovery; Synthesis; Intuition; Strategy; Holistic.  

 

2. How do we expand the mind and inculcate these Values?   

    It is said: Know the truth and the truth shall make you free. Therefore the following can be the structure to make people aware of the higher dimensions of life and to inspire them to struggle to acquire the necessary Values and walk towards the higher Values, in and through their daily work-life: 
1. Vision: Training programs must give people awareness of Higher Values in education, work & life.
2. Goals: Training programs must give people awareness of Need to Harmonize Goals, Desires & Thoughts towards higher Values
3. Actions: Training programs must give people awareness of strategies of Self-development to develop Quality Mind-set: Creativity, Vivek, Will, Concentration, etc. 

Vision: Each soul is potentially divine.

    India ethos is based on the conviction that each person has infinite potential and that our ‘WORK’ is our opportunity to manifest our full potential. ‘WORK’ here means not just our duties, work, relationships, ‘problems’, but our every thought, choice, word, and action. It also includes the permanent ‘impression’ our choices and actions leave on our mind. These impressions give rise to our likes and dislikes, our tendencies, our strengths and weaknesses, etc. and make us what we are, good or bad.   

Training the Mind towards the higher Values:

    We can never be contented, fulfilled, peaceful and blissful till we can manifest our full potential. The problem is that our own Mind is acting as a VEIL, because of these ‘impressions’ and does not allow us to experience our blissful ‘swaroopa’, our inherent nature of peace and bliss. So we have to ‘cleanse’ the mind. How?  

    Work done in the spirit of ‘Tyaga & seva’, for the good of society, purifies the mind. According to Swami Vivekananda the twin Values and ideals of India are ‘Tyaga and Seva’. He says: intensify her into these channels and everything else will be taken care of. And, he gives the way to do it: Strive for realizing your innate Perfection by working for the good of society. It is for the public servants to undertake this responsibility of directing people towards the higher Values and ideals? 

 

Professional & Managerial effectiveness is directly proportional to Calmness of Mind:

    A Calm, peaceful and concentrated mind is most conducive to quality and excellence in work as well as to happiness and joy in life. The secret for guaranteed success lies in our ability to control the mind so as to manifest the infinite perfection and joy that is within. How to calm the mind in and through our daily work, interactions & dealings?  

    Ability to think, plan and act on the basis of Long-term good not just short-term pleasant & for the good of more & more is to be acquired by daily, regular, continuous Practice & Focus on the Higher.  

    Daily ‘Work’ becomes an opportunity to manifest our full potential if we acquire a healthy worldview of reality (SQ) through continuous ‘study’ of positive, strength giving thoughts and lives and teachings of great leaders. The Government of India has declared (since 1985) the Birthday of Sw. Vivekananda as the National Youth Day. His inspiring words spoken mainly to educated people like us and to the West can give us the EQ and SQ to walk the critical path to the higher.  

    By constant study and practice we have to acquire the self-control, powers of discrimination, will, concentration and the emotional Stability (EQ) to handle our negative feelings.

  

 It is PRACTICE & FOCUS on the higher that alone can rewrite the constitution of the mind and redirect it towards the higher. We have to provide the time, space, environment and systems that allow us to think and reflect upon the higher. Unless people are established in daily self-development processes to reflect on the higher, they cannot be expected to grow towards the higher.   

SUMMARY:

    Thoughts are the building blocks of life. We must find time to pour higher thoughts in our mind and daily reflect upon our desires and goals, our governing Values and strive to harmonize our Thoughts-Words-Actions towards the highest Vision.  As executives our primary function is to choose between various alternatives. We can solve Value or ethical dilemmas better if we ‘see’ interconnectedness and oneness between ‘Work’, Man, Organization, Nature and Society. It is our responsibility to create a work culture where people can give their best & work together for the good of society. The needed Values could be: 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Sunil Kumar)

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