Indian mythology and Business Management_Part 2

This is the 2nd part of the article series on Indian mythology and business management. Through this article series, I am sharing my takeaways from Devdutt Patnaik’s popular TV serial on CNBC 18: Business Sutra.

In this 2nd part, we are looking at how Indian mythology explains the role of leadership using the role models of Brahma/Indra and Vishnu.

Indian mythology has three main Gods,?Brahma?(the Creator), Vishnu?(the God that maintains), and?Shiv?(the destroyer). Brahma is also known as?Indra; he is regarded as the king of gods and the lord of heaven. He is in constant pursuit of success and wealth, Lakshmi, but Lakshmi prefers the side of Vishnu, who cares for others success and growth. So should you be chasing success like Indra or success be chasing you like Vishnu?

Leadership

In Biblical mythology, the Creator is equated with God and worshiped, whereas, in Indian mythology, the Creator is that part of God that is not worshiped. But the one who preserves the creation and one who destroys are revered. Vishnu and Shiva are worshiped but not Brahma. Brahma/Indra always tries to take care of nobody except for himself, his own self-actualization. He is self-focused and therefore is insecure, and thus chases Lakshmi. While Vishnu takes care of the world, his reference point of action is the world, others, not him. He doesn’t try to actualize himself. He is secure; therefore, he looks at others and takes care of them, and in just doing that, he attracts success and wealth.

All the three different characters in Indian mythology engage with the three currencies in different ways. Brahma is a God who is yearning constantly, who is always chasing things; he wants to possess, control, and dominate everything, knowledge, wealth, and power. In the process, he loses his original purpose. We are like Brahma; we keep chasing something or the other, so we lose sight of what we really want, and we have to introspect to figure out what it is. Vishnu and Shiva, on the other hand, are gods that don’t chase anything, the goddess of knowledge, wealth, and power comes to them. For Shiva, the world doesn’t matter, and he doesn’t want any of these. He says the world is a Maya, a delusion, and he either shuts his eyes to the world to let go of everything or engages with the world without yearning for anything. Vishnu is a preserver. He is the caring God because we are like Brahma, chasing wrong things, so he wants to help. That’s why he is worshiped the most but not the creator god. This is what a leader should be. He should be wise enough to care and enable you to grow materially (Lakshmi), intellectually (Saraswati), and emotionally (Durga). In doing so, he grows himself. Your success and growth become his growth and success.

Context of Leaders

Vishnu has been depicted visually for centuries and ages as someone who holds a conch in one hand to communicate with the people and a wheel, chakra in his other hand for revealing. He also has a mace for maintaining discipline and a lotus flower called Padma for appreciation. This image of his represents the ideal traits of leadership. We don’t find any rule book with him because he needs a reference for rules if he has to set the discipline. And rules exist in a given context only. The interpretation of rules can be different if there is no reference to a fixed principle. In Indian mythology, the concept of context is explained using the Age (Yuga).

The human cycle of life has four parts, childhood when we learn, followed by youth when we mature, then comes old age representing systems slowing down, and then death. A corporation also undergoes such phases, and each of the ages will have a different set of rules based on Dharma, a common principle. Vishnu’s incarnation as Parshuram, Ram, and Krishna at different ages, upholding the same principle of Dharma, followed different rules. The same applies to organizations as well, different kind of leadership is needed in different phases of an organization’s life cycle, but all are abiding by one overarching principle.

Leadership in different Business Cycles

The different avatars of Vishnu represent the evolution of a leader. In the early days, one needs to be a leader like Parshuram, a rule-follower who is like a very strict teacher who punishes you if you break the rules. Then one needs to become a model leader like Ram, who hopes that by being a model of sacrifice, people will understand the meaning of sacrifice, that’s, leading by example. Then evolve into Krishna, the ultimate coach. He coaches, creates new talents and helps them back on the trail if they lose their way. Then one needs to become Buddha or Kalki depending on the situation. Buddha who switches off leaves everything or becomes Kalki, another avatar of Vishnu who breaks the system completely when it is not worth upholding. So a leader has to either withdraw if something is not worth sustaining or destroy it because it’s not worth maintaining anymore.

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Opinions expressed are solely my own and do not express the views or opinions of my employer.