CHETANAS BACHELOR OF MANAGEMENT STUDIES

SUBJECT: INDIAN MANAGEMENT THOUGHTS AND PRACTICES

TOPIC:

LEADERSHIP

GROUP NO.: 6

GROUP MEMBERS

Under the guidance of Prof. Hemant K

INTRODUCTION
In the Book of Proverbs it is said, "Where there is no vision, the people perish." This is as true in business as it is in life. Organizations whose leaders have no vision are doomed to work under the burden of mere tradition. They cannot prosper and grow because they are reduced to keeping things the way they have always been; they are guided by the saying, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." True leaders see things differently. They are guided by another belief more in keeping with the competitive world in which we live. They believe, "If it ain't broke, you're not looking hard enough." Realizing that there is always room for improvement, they believe that no one has ever done anything so well that it cannot be done better. For leaders, a vision is not a dream; it is a reality that has yet to come into existence. Vision is palpable to leaders; their confidence in and dedication to vision are so strong they can devote long hours over many years to bring it into being. In this way, a vision acts as a force within, compelling a leader to action. It gives a leader purpose, and the power of the vision and the leader's devotion to it work to inspire others-- who, sensing purpose and commitment, respond. Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things. The only real training for leadership is leadership. In simple words, if you want to lead, you have to practice leading. Classroom experience isnt nearly as valuable as actually leading people and learning from your own mistakes. Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a mans character, give him power. Leadership is understanding people and involving them to help you do a job. That takes all of the good characteristics, like integrity, dedication of purpose, selflessness, knowledge, skill as well as determination not to accept failure. The quality of a leader is reflected in the standards they set for themselves. Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it. It is action and not position. One, who cannot obey, cannot command.

TAKING A LEADERSHIP POSITION

Taking a leadership position means: Having a vision about what can be accomplished. Making a commitment to the mission and to the people you lead. Taking responsibility for the accomplishment of the mission and the welfare of those you lead. Assuming risk of loss and failure. Accepting recognition for success.

CHARACTERISTICS OF GREAT LEADERS

There is a saying that great leaders are made not born. This should give you hope that once you understand the characteristics of a great leader you can become one yourself. Here are a few things that every great leader does or possesses within themselves to inspire people around them. 1. Leaders are always improving. They understand that things are changing around them and for them to be great leader they must be changing too! 2. Great leaders inspire people around them to become better. People want to do their best because of their leadership. 3. Leaders know how to concentrate on people's strengths and not their weaknesses. Everyone has things that they are good at and leaders know how to bring this out in a person. 4. Leaders are pro active and not reactive. They understand the importance of leading their people and not waiting for somebody else to get started. 5. Leaders treat people with respect and importance. They know that to get a person to do something they need to want to do it. Treating people with respect and importance is a technique that works for this. 6. Great leaders are self-motivated. They understand there will be ups and downs in their life and in their business, but they stay positive and do not let outside influences affect their attitudes. 7. Leaders are well spoken. They know how to say the right thing at the right time.

8. Leaders are always prepared. They don't leave things to chance but rather they control situations through preparation. 9. Great leaders do not have big egos. They care about others as opposed to being a self centered individual. 10. Great leaders are great mentors. They know how to pass on the knowledge that they themselves have personally already attained. 11. Leaders are people who write down goals and strive to achieve them. They understand the importance of goal setting and the example that they are teaching by doing this. 12. Great leaders are ambitious hard workers. They never expect more out of the people around them then they are willing to give themselves. This type of attitude is contagious and leads to everybody working harder.

MANAGERS VS. LEADERS

MANAGERS Focus on things Do things right Plan Organize Direct Control Follow the rules LEADERS Focus on people Do the right things Inspire Influence Motivate Build Shape entities

KARTA
Karta means head of the family. When family members takes the initiative and starts the business, karta becomes the head or overall in-charge of business because business is an extension of the family. So whatever values, ethics, morals the karta believes that will be the base of business culture in the organisation. He is the ultimate authority in decision-making. The other members, involved in that business are called as co-partners. Karta is having unlimited liability. How to run the business, wherefrom finance will be arranged, whether to sell the property or not, all will be decided by him and co-partners have to follow his decision. He is the leader who manages the business. He directs, guides the other members so that they can give their best output to the organisation. He is a fatherly-figure who is always there to provide help and support. He rewards and punishes according to situation and does not interact much with followers. In his organisation decision-making is mostly centralized. As far as leadership style is concerned he plays the role of a benevolent authoritative leader.

LEADERSHIP CHALLENGES
There are five challenges most leaders will face during their tenure as leaders, whether working for a corporation or for themselves.

1. Creating and Maintaining a Diversified Team

All leaders work with teams. These teams include diverse individuals with different backgrounds, experiences and even ethnicitys. One of the greatest challenges of leadership in modern society is finding ways to create a unified front among team members. This is often difficult when members of a team may remain at remote areas. Thanks to modern technology, not all members of a team will necessarily work in the same facility. A leader can overcome the challenges associated with creating and preserving a diversified team by encouraging horizontal communication and knowledge sharing. What this means is information does not come from the top-down alone, but instead from person to person. The best way to create and uphold a diversified yet efficient team is to make sure each member of the team receives routine communications. Andrew Jackson Universitys Bachelor of Science program in business teaches leaders and future leaders how to work in the modern workforce, and create diversified teams able to communicate clearly. 2. Inspiring Others to Share the Leaders/Organizational Vision

A mission and vision are essential to any successful business. It is not enough however, for a leader to promote a vision or mission. Rather, it is the role of a leader to ensure that every member of their team and the organization share a common mission and vision. A leader can take on the challenge of inspiring others by clearly communicating how a companys mission and vision will benefit not just the organization, but also the people working for it. By explaining how each incumbent will benefit from the mission, a leader will inspire others to share the same corporate vision. 3. Facilitating Open and Clear Communication among Co-workers

Clear and concise communication is essential for success. A leader has a duty to communicate well with others, but also teach others how to communicate clearly. AJU offers

an online Certificate in Business Communication that teaches students how to communicate better when working in groups or alone in the workplace. 4. Empowering Incumbents to Take Action

The days of micromanagement are over. Nowadays, employees want to feel inspired. The best way to inspire employees is by empowering them to excel and achieve. A leaders role includes providing employees the ability to make proactive choices. That means including employees in the decision making process so they become part of the organizational team. A leader can also empower employees by encouraging them to write down an action plan for each problem that needs solving in the organization. This process should include setting up goals and the exact steps necessary to take action to resolve problems. 5. Providing Inspiration to Others Last, but certainly not least, a leader must provide inspiration to others. Some of the worlds best leaders are defined by their charisma or ability to inspire and motivate others. A leader must remain committed to the cause, but also recognize the potential in employees to achieve great things. To learn more about how to become an inspiring leader, check out the Brian Tracy College at Andrew Jackson Universitys leadership programs.

With the right skills and training, anyone can lead.

INDIAN AUTHENTIC LEADERS

SHIVAJI MAHARAJ
Shivaji Bhosle (19 February 1630 3 April 1680), with the royal title Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj was a Maratha king from the Bhosle dynasty who founded the Maratha empire. Shivaji led a resistance to free the Marathas from Sultanate of Bijapur, and establish the rule of the Hindus ("Hindavi Swarajya"). He created an independent Maratha kingdom with Raigad as its capital, and fought against the Mughals to defend his kingdom successfully.[6] He was crowned as Chhatrapati of the Maratha Kingdom in 1674. He achieved the re-establishment of Maratha rule on their homeland after being ruled and dominated by various Muslim dynasties for few hundred years. He established a competent and progressive civil rule with the help of well regulated and disciplined military and well structured administrative organizations. The prevalent practices of treating women as spoils of war, destruction of religious monuments, slavery and forceful religious conversions were firmly opposed under his administration. Shivaji was a religious Hindu, and showed respect for all other religions.

MAHATMA GANDHI
Gandhi can be considered the most modern political thinker India has ever had. He imbibed the best from the East and the West and evolved a political philosophy that worked miracles. Today, in a polity steeped in corruption, perhaps there is a need to rediscover Gandhi. As he opined in his journal, Harijan: "There are eternal
principles which admit of no compromise, and one must be prepared to lay down one's life in the practice of them." He adhered to these principles in all walks of his life and even extended them in his attempt to create a resurgence of the nationalistic spirit among Indians.

BHAGAT SINGH

The aim of life is no more to control the mind, but to develop it harmoniously; not to achieve salvation here after, but to make the best use of it here below; and not to realize truth, beauty and good only in contemplation, but also in the actual experience of daily life; social progress depends not upon the ennoblement of the few but on the enrichment of democracy; universal brotherhood can be achieved only when there is an equality of opportunity - of opportunity in the social, political and individual life." From Bhagat Singh's prison diary.

At an early age, Bhagat Singh started dreaming of uprooting the British Empire. Never afraid of fighting during his childhood, he thought of "growing guns in the fields," so that he could fight against the British. The Ghadar Movement left a deep imprint on his mind. Kartar Sing Sarabha, hanged at the age of 19, became his hero. The massacre at Jallianwala Baugh on April 13, 1919 drove him to go to Amritsar, where he kissed the earth sanctified by the martyrs' blood and brought back home a little of the soaked soil. He studied in the D.A.V. School in Lahore. At the age of 16, he used to wonder why so many Indians could not drive away this fistful of invaders. This man's only mission in life was to see his country free from British rule. He did his best and when he was being led to the gallows, he was satisfied that he had lived up to his principles, irrespective of the consequences. The only thing that made him sad was that he couldn't do more for his country.

INDIAN STYLE OF LEADERSHIP

1. Autocratic leadership

Autocratic leadership is an extreme form of transactional leadership, where leaders have absolute power over their workers or team. Staff and team members have little opportunity to make suggestions, even if these would be in the team's or the organization's best interest. Most people tend to resent being treated like this. Therefore, autocratic leadership often leads to high levels of absenteeism and staff turnover. However, for some routine and unskilled jobs, the style can remain effective because the advantages of control may outweigh the disadvantages.

2.Bureaucratic leadership

Bureaucratic leaders work "by the book." They follow rules rigorously, and ensure that their staffs follow procedures precisely. This is a very appropriate style for work involving serious safety risks (such as working with machinery, with toxic substances, or at dangerous heights) or where large sums of money are involved (such as handling cash).

3. Charismatic leadership

A charismatic leadership style can seem similar to transformational leadership, because these leaders inspire lots of enthusiasm in their teams and are very energetic in driving others forward. However, charismatic leaders can tend to believe more in themselves than in their teams, and this creates a risk that a project, or even an entire organization, might collapse if the leader leaves. In the eyes of the followers, success is directly connected to the presence of the charismatic leader. As such, charismatic leadership carries great responsibility, and it needs a long-term commitment from the leader.

4. Democratic leadership or participative leadership

Although democratic leaders make the final decisions, they invite other members of the team to contribute to the decision-making process. This not only increases job satisfaction by involving team members, but it also helps to develop people's skills. Team members feel in control of their own destiny, so they're motivated to work hard by more than just a financial reward. Because participation takes time, this approach can take longer, but often the end result is better. The approach can be most suitable when working as a team is essential, and when quality is more important than speed to market, or productivity.

5. Laissez-faire leadership

This French phrase means "leave it be," and it's used to describe leaders who leave their team members to work on their own. It can be effective if the leader monitors what's being achieved and communicates this back to the team regularly. Most often, laissez-faire leadership is effective when individual team members are very experienced and skilled self-starters. Unfortunately, this type of leadership can also occur when managers don't apply sufficient control.

6. People-oriented leadership or relations-oriented leadership

This is the opposite of task-oriented leadership. With people-oriented leadership, leaders are totally focused on organizing, supporting, and developing the people in their teams. It's a participative style, and it tends to encourage good teamwork and creative collaboration. In practice, most leaders use both task-oriented and people-oriented styles of leadership.

7. Servant leadership

This term, created by Robert Greenleaf in the 1970s, describes a leader who is often not formally recognized as such. When someone, at any level within an organization, leads simply by meeting the needs of the team, he or she is described as a "servant leader."

In many ways, servant leadership is a form of democratic leadership, because the whole team tends to be involved in decision making. Supporters of the servant leadership model suggest that it's an important way to move ahead in a world where values are increasingly important, and where servant leaders achieve power on the basis of their values and ideals. Others believe that in competitive leadership situations, people who practice servant leadership can find themselves left behind by leaders using other leadership styles.

8. Task-Oriented leadership

Highly task-oriented leaders focus only on getting the job done, and they can be quite autocratic. They actively define the work and the roles required, put structures in place, plan, organize, and monitor. However, because task-oriented leaders don't tend to think much about the well-being of their teams, this approach can suffer many of the flaws of autocratic leadership, with difficulties in motivating and retaining staff.

9. Transactional leadership

This style of leadership starts with the idea that team members agree to obey their leader totally when they accept a job. The "transaction" is usually the organization paying the team members in return for their effort and compliance. The leader has a right to "punish" team members if their work doesn't meet the pre-determined standard. Team members can do little to improve their job satisfaction under transactional leadership. The leader could give team members some control of their income/reward by using incentives that encourage even higher standards or greater productivity. Alternatively, a transactional leader could practice "management by exception" rather than rewarding better work, the leader could take corrective action if the required standards are not met. Transactional leadership is really a type of management, not a true leadership style, because the focus is on short-term tasks. It has serious limitations for knowledge-based or creative work; however it can be effective in other situations.

10. Transformational leadership

As we discussed earlier, people with this leadership style are true leaders who inspire their teams constantly with a shared vision of the future. While this leader's enthusiasm is often passed onto the team, he or she can need to be supported by "detail people." That's why, in many organizations, both transactional and transformational leadership are needed. The transactional leaders (or managers) ensure that routine work is done reliably, while the transformational leaders look after initiatives that add new value.

LEADERSHIP LESSON FROM MAHABHARATA

Mahabharata is an epic of historic, cultural and religious importance. A careful study of this great epic teaches us important lessons from the perspective of leadership too. Lord Krishna is an avatar (reincarnation) of Lord Vishnu and is a highly popular and respected deity synonymous with great intelligence, communication skills and love and affection capable of resolving any crisis faced by his devotees. Speaking in modern jargon, Lord Krishna can be best described as The greatest crisis Manager the world has ever seen. In the entire Mahabharata which has epical magnitude, there are many diverse characters impressing us with their responses in the midst of great challenges. However, Lord Krishna as a central character time and again comes across as a master strategist and tactful leader adopting different leadership styles according to situation and people he had to deal with. Let us look at some well known anecdotes to illustrate this point. 1. In the Kurukshetra war with Kauravas, Lord Krishna takes the reins as Arjunas charioteer. On seeing a reluctant Arjuna unwilling to fight and destroy his own relatives in the war, Lord Krishna advices Arjuna in the nature of a discourse called Bhagavad-Gita about the responsibilities of a soldier and the finer and broader aspects of human life. Arjuna was a sensitive but extremely thoughtful, righteous person with a great sense of duty. Here the tactful Krishna understanding Arjunas personality uses directive style of leadership effectively persuading Arjuna to begin the Great War.

2. Lord Krishna being a great supporter of Pandavas does not spare even Bhishma and manages to find a way to tackle the veteran general of the Kauravas who had led the war for the first nine days causing extensive damage to the army of the Pandavas. Great warrior, as strong as steel in character, symbolic of truth and duty and extremely human. He was invincible and blessed to choose the manner and time of his death. Lord Krishna takes Yudhisthira to Bhishma seeking the secret of becoming victorious in the war. Bhishma, knowing that Pandavas truly deserved to win the battle, tells Yudhisthira the secret of overcoming him as a

prelude to winning the war. Bhishma thus confronted by Shikandi on the tenth day of the war refuses to consider him as a man and throws down his bow and arrows choosing not to fight. Lord Krishna thus uses an influencing style of leadership and tackles Bhishma by making him the general of the enemy front as an ally by a tacit understanding using subtle diplomacy.

3. Yudhisthira, the eldest of the Pandavas, was the very embodiment of Satya (truth) and Dharma (righteousness). When Kauravas guru and general Drona was leading the battle, tactful Lord Krishna uses Yudhisthira cleverly. Drona was unconquerable and was devastating the army of the Pandavas. Lord Krishna realises that the only way to rid Drona was by exploiting his weakness for his son-Ashwatthaama. In the midst of all the think-tank of the Pandavas, Lord Krishna says that the only way to kill Drona is to convey to him that his son Ashwatthaama is dead. Understanding that Drona can only believe this story, if Yudhisthira says it, everyone look at Yudhisthira to take up the responsibility. Yudhisthira accepts the responsibility finally and says Ashwatthaama hathaha (Ashwatthaama dead) but his personality remains somewhat unblemished by clever manipulation of Lord Krishna by getting an elephant called Ashwatthaama killed and the word elephant getting lost and unheard in the din of the battle. A disheartened Drona gives up the weapons and dies soon in the battle. Lord Krishna thus achieves the objective of eliminating Drona by using a participative leadership style to prepare Yudhisthira to accept the responsibility of telling a half truth.

4. At another decisive point in the same war, Karna is fighting against Arjuna and the chariot of Karna sinks in the sludge of the battle field. When Karna reminds Arjuna that its not Dharma to take advantage of the situation, Lord Krishna taunts Karna by asking where his Dharma was when Draupadi was dragged into an open court and humiliated or when Yudhisthira was deceived in a foul play of dices or when Pandavas werent handed over the

kingdom even after the exile was duly completed. He thus influences the mind of Arjuna and then literally orders Arjuna not to waste time, take out his arrow and kill the evil enemy. In this scenario, Lord Krishna uses authoritative leadership style, literally ordering a wavering and shaky Arjuna to act. 5. As a true leader, Lord Krishna similarly manages Duryodhana. Lord Krishna learns that Gandhaari planned to use the magical powers of her eyes blindfolded for long and energise Duryodhanas body making him invincible from any attack. He meets a completely nude Duryodhana on way to meet his mother and mocks at him to at least cover his groin. Lord Krishna thus cleverly prompts Duryodhana to cover his groin and when Gandhaari opens her eyes; his body is energised and made invincible everywhere except his thighs and groin. Lord Krishna thus influences (Leadership by attraction) Duryodhana and makes him vulnerable. Later in the fight, Lord Krishna reminds Bheema of his oath to split Duryodhanas thighs and thus ordering (authoritative leadership) him to strike. Bheema hits Duryodhana with a mace in the thighs and kills him eventually. Lord Krishna changed his leadership style according to the situation recognising the people and their potential. He clearly knew what appealed to whom and how to get work done. He was the one who identified Ashwatthaama as Dronas weakness as well as the fact that Bhishma always wanted to be on the side of dharma and was caught between dharma and duty.

Equally outstanding are the ways in which he handled men like Duryodhana and Karna at very crucial points in Mahabharata. He effectively used different leadership styles such as authoritative, directive, participative or even attractive styles of leadership, changing sometimes as a chameleon but always safeguarding dharma and always working towards what is right.

Most importantly, being the people oriented leader that he was, he guided and facilitated

people to perform or achieve their goals. Imagine Mahabharata for a while without Lord Krishna and then we realise the vacuum in the absence of leaders. Lord Krishna was thus a great pragmatic and clever leader, using the resources of men and material most efficiently and proactively. A leader in corporate world attempts to do exactly the same, as increasingly, businesses are getting more people oriented. Therefore there is great potential and opportunity to gain wisdom by drawing examples from our great epics and use them as our guiding philosophy in the corporate world as well as in our day to day life while facing short term and long term challenges, a leader is continuously working towards influencing people, making powerful allies and neutralising competitors. A corporate leader is a visionary working towards the well being of all stakeholders while being on a righteous path (the dharma)