A leader is a visionary who inspires the team, guides where necessary, and drives an enterprise towards success and profitable growth. But leaders go beyond accomplishing tasks or managing a team. They are dreamers, thinkers, and catalysts of change.
The Mahabharata gives many great leaders and spiritualists speak of Lord Krishna as the greatest of them all. This is perhaps because Lord Krishna introduces a dimension to leadership beyond material success, bringing us to face the polarities that are at war within all of us: the ego and the Self.
Ontological leadership is a spiritual dimension stemming from the metaphysics of ‘being’. The Indian ethos highlights that one’s being should be based on the macrocosm of the five elements— air, space, fire, water and earth.
If one’s centre of being is anchored in space, it is a sign of being open, and one has a potential as vast as the sky. The quality of air is the ability to touch everything and move on, which tells us that a leader should not stick to a particular experience. Fire is not attached to anything. It burns both garbage and diamonds. The leadership quality that is implicit in this is—be committed, not attached. Water has the quality of being flexible and flowing. Hence, a leader can learn to be both free-flowing and flexible in approach while dealing with situations. Earth represents the very ground of all beings, denoting a sense of acceptance. It bears both the neem tree as well as the rose plant with equal ease. Therefore, the centre of ontological leadership emerges from the qualities of these five elements.
So let us look at leadership in the material realm of the corporate paradigm, and through this understanding of how to achieve success, move towards the ultimate victory in the spiritual paradigm.
Research has shown that leaders can be broadly classified into four main types: Strategic leaders are reality analysts. Objectivity and rational thought are very important for them. They ask hard questions and are ready to put vision above people. They take pride in their knowledge, aspire to find the right key to wisdom, and often stay in the background.
On the other hand, directive leaders weave the big picture. They paint broad strokes and don’t like to spend much time on the process details. As effective speakers, they have a high motivational capacity and possess the ability to make people feel important. They are great at dealing with large groups and directing them to a set goal, but not so with individuals. A short attention span with restlessness means they might be acting, ignoring financial limitations.
Team-building leaders are all about people. They are charismatic and enjoy rallying people around a common cause. Their knack for generating high morale receives loyalty and respect from people. But they can also be hurt by people, allowing relationships to hinder progress.
Operational leaders are very practical. Devising systems and processes to run things smoothly comes easily to them. So, they bring a lot of stability from their leadership. They can create new solutions to old problems. They dislike conflict and sometimes don’t see the big picture; a shortcoming which can make them slip into ‘managing’ rather than ‘leading’.
These categories can help us understand and achieve success in the spiritual realm as well.
