Jackie’s Journaling: Day 74 — Five Seats of Power: Leadership Insights from the Mahabharata

As an active consumer of varied podcasts, I find great joy in listening to nuanced and layered conversations. While some podcasts have become staple diet for me now (The Seen and the Unseen, The Knowledge Project, Tim Ferris Show, etc.), every now and then I come across a new podcast that blows my mind. The?Play to Potential Podcast ?was one such podcast that I chanced upon a couple of weeks back. Hosted by Deepak Jayaraman, I was able to instantly connect with the purpose of this podcast. I am quoting verbatim from his website (so as not to lose any context in translation)

“Deepak Jayaraman? is an Executive Coach and is the CEO of?Transition Insight , where he works with successful senior executives and helps them play to their unique potential by working with them closely during phases of high stakes transition. Transitions are often points in time when people are lonely, problems are complex, stakeholders are many and stakes are high. Deepak finds it fulfilling to make a difference to people at these pivotal points in their journey.”

The episode that I chanced upon was Deepak interviewing Raghu Anatanarayanan. Raghu is an IIT Madras alum, who has made it his life purpose to deeply immerse himself in the study of Mahabharata and the Yoga Sutras and derive meaning from them. I was starting my own enquiry with the great myth, and reading + listening to a bunch of stuff around it. During this pursuit, I came across Raghu as an authority on the subject. Borrowing directly from?his website , this is how Raghu describes his work.

The basic context of my work is rooted in the study of the Yoga Sutra and contemporized through an embodied exploration of the Mahabharata. The various offerings of Ritambhara that deploy theater, dance, art and contemplative conversations enable a person to explore ones archetypal energies, inner drama, role propensities, group dynamics, and the sAdhana?of a karma yogi. The goal of this exploration is to discover how to live one’s life in a way that is?rasAtmic?(full of joy) and simultaneously a pursuit of excellence. The books authored by me like “Leadership Dharma” provide thought-provoking frameworks drawn from Indic Wisdom for understanding leadership and culture-building.

A conversation between two extremely thoughtful individuals — Deepak and Raghu — set against the backdrop of a great epic that has served as a moral and social compass for generations of Southeast Asians serves a ripe background for reflection. There was so much in the conversation, that any attempt to reflect on it will be imperfect at best. With this humility and acknowledgement in place, what follows is my attempt to discern key concepts that I took away from?the conversation .

Pandavas as archetypes:

As a paradigm, this was revelatory. In all my previous interactions with the Mahabharata, I viewed the Pandavas as stereotypes.?Stereotypes are, for example, the way Bhima would be portrayed in a film: a big, musclebound, and impulsive person. An archetype is much deeper; it is the quintessence of a psychological pattern.

In an organizational context, the author refers to these roles played by the Pandavas as an archetype, a specific way of using your power, to distinguish it from the idea of a role as a title: vice president, executive, management trainee and so on. These are positional descriptors. They are also different from the idea of functional roles such as finance, marketing, etc.

This idea of Pandavas as archetypes is fascinating. Each of us have these 5 archetypes in different proportions. The purpose of self-awareness is to understand which archetype we are naturally predisposed to, what context demands which Pandava to come to fore, and what maybe the downsides (shadow side) of over-using any one facet.

I have the 5 Pandava archetypes etched in my mind forever now:?Yudhishthira represents the power of order; Bhima, the power of passion; Arjuna the power of self-reflection; Nakula, the power of service; and Sahadeva, the power of knowledge

Concept of Shadow Self

The concept of shadow was first coined by Carl Jung to refer to a collection of repressed behavioral patterns of ourselves. When we distance ourselves consciously from those behaviours, emotions and thoughts that we find dangerous, and we push them into our shadows. When triggered by stress or any external/internally jarring stimulus, these tend to emerge from our shadow (subconscious) and become a blind spot.

In the Mahabharata, the Pandavas are laid out against the contrast of Kauravas. Each of the Kaurava characters is endowed with all the capabilities of the Pandavas. However, they are caught in choices that come from their shadow selves.

The Pandavas also fall prey to their shadow selves. In Yudhishthira’s commitment to role appropriateness and discipline, he represses his spontaneity. This energy explodes through compulsive gambling in one of the most tragic and well-known episodes in the Mahabharata — the humiliation of Draupadi. This is his shadow — his disowned side. Nevertheless, it is a part of him. A leader who believes in order and the rule of law gets pulled into gambling, where the outcome is defined by chance. It is at the other end of predictability. He is unable to respond adequately to unexpected outcomes and gets caught in the vortex.

Raghu defines it beautifully when he says:?A leader who believes in order and the rule of law gets pulled into gambling, where the outcome is defined by chance. It is at the other end of predictability. He is unable to respond adequately to unexpected outcomes and gets caught in the vortex

Here’s another quote from the book that left a deep impact on me. It pertains of leadership and shadow sides, and how they are so interlinked.?In the Mahabharata, there are three people who are in constant touch with a deeper Intelligence called Krishna: Karna, Arjuna and Draupadi. All of them articulate the negatives of the system clearly at different points in the story. But the one who goes through the process of having the conversation with Shri Krishna and awakening to the divine Intelligence within is Arjuna. To radically redefine a system, one needs to first dissolve one’s own shadow sides so that one can judge things clearly. Second, one needs to see profoundly both the visible reality and the invisible dynamics of a system. This then enables one to envisage a more dharmic system.

Post Script: This conversation between Raghu and Deepak is best supplemented by reading Raghu’s book?Five Sources of Power: Leadership Insights from the Mahabharata.?I personally gained immensely from the conversation because I followed it up by reading the book cover to cover.

The book takes the conversation nuance several notches further. It lays out provocative questions, some of which I reproduce below:

- Was Bhishma excessively rule following? Did he lack contextual intelligence, so critical for a leader?

- Did Karna lack flexibility to accept Krishna’s offer of changing sides. Is Karna an example of being so overawed by a past favour, that you feel lifetime indebted towards a manager or a leader?

- Were the 13 years of vanvas a metaphor for taking time off for reflection? How come the Indian myths are filled with instances of tapas; does it mean that Indian leadership always understood the importance of self-awareness and reflection.

- How important is it to be in shantam while taking leadership decisions? Is mindfulness the same old wine in a new bottle, a wine that our ancient epics has tasted several generations back.

- At the core, is the Mahabharata a Leadership tool? What’s the larger metaphor when Arjun stands between the two armies and asks existential questions of Krishna?

The end of the book has fascinating real life stories of Anu Agha (Thermax), Narayan Murthy (Infosys), S Ramadorai (TCS) and others. I feel richer by following up the podcast with a thorough reading of the book. This post can go on indefinitely, such is the richness and depth that the Mahabharata lends itself to. For now, I’ll stop here and wait to hear your comments and feedback.

At the core, like I mentioned before, the Mahabharata resonates with me as a Leadership Tool. I look forward to your partnership, in case you are keen to further investigate and decipher leadership through this tool.