Leadership Lessons - Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj

Shivaji Maharaj was one of the most visionary leaders in India during the 1630 to 1680 AD. I will not go much into history as all that is available on Google and Wikipedia. However I want us to remember the key Management & Leadership lessons of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj on his Birth Anniversary (Yes. He was born on 19th Feb 1630 about 394 years ago) and these lessons are valuable for every leader in the industry today. ?Henri Fayol?was known as the father of modern management. He gave us the famous 14 principles of management. According to him, the 5 main functions of management are Planning, Organizing, Commanding, Coordinating and Controlling – You can see that in action in the life of Maharaj.

?

I have not compiled every lesson into this Blog so if you feel there are other lessons worth learning/teaching do write in comments section.

Decentralization & Delegation

He believed in empowering the Marathas and delegating authority to local leaders but at the same time keeping checks and balances to allow mobilization of a large force of loyal soldiers and followers. Uniting a disparate and largely agricultural community to come together, fight for a cause, inspire them to greater heights and command them justly, fairly and sincerely required tremendous organization skills.

Building Moats (Forts in this case)

You may all have heard the importance of Moats (Warren Buffett made this famous) and in our case this is a Fort. Shivaji Maharaj realized the importance of Forts and in his lifetime he built over 240+ forts. These forts created a disproportionate impact vis a vis the size of the army vs the opposition. Even in Corporate world we are facing continuous challenges and sometimes we get a chance to create the ‘Forts’. These could be technological accelerators, differentiators and the ‘Moats’ which keep our competition at bay and provide us with a disproportionate and non linear edge over competition.

Ethical Leadership

Today we have the sayings like ‘’Walk the Talk”, “Lead from the front”, “Get in the trenches”. Chattrapati Shivaji Maharaj embodied the spirit of ethical leadership. He would lead from the front and would not ask his troops to do what he himself is not willing to. There are numerous stories of how his ethical leadership style galvanized forces and united them. As we work in Hybrid mode now, its all the more important for leaders to have a Ethical compass to their leadership which can unite and drive inspirational leadership.

Shivaji Maharaj didn’t motivate his troops; he inspired them.

Innovation

We all talk about innovation; in his lifetime Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj had to demonstrate innovation. Be it the use of Ghorpad to scale the enemy fort walls or the use of ‘Wagh Nakh’ to demonstrate stealth and bravery. Shivaji Maharaj also established a strong navy on the Arabian sea with Cannons mounted on Ships. This was the Brute force deterrent and a very innovative and bold move in the 1600s. The corporate demands of all leaders require us to rethink our strategies. ?We need to think, what are our ‘Ghorpad’s’, what is the ‘Wagh Nakh’ which we use metaphorically (with our competition). It could be GenAI, Industry specific Bots, Rapid acceleration of Cloud, 100% certified teams. But we need to sharpen our edge.

Empathy & Diplomacy

As a leader Maharaj demonstrated empathy towards the poor, women and sharpened his diplomacy & wit. Again; the books are replete with instances of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj’s diplomacy and use of wit to outwit opponents. In Corporate leadership we find that the use of diplomacy gains much larger wallet share as compared to brute force methods of "My way or the Highway". Listening to people, sharing ideas and building consensus through diplomacy and getting the people to do what they probably don’t want but they agree to out of sheer respect for your thought process is an art. An art which almost 350 years ago was demonstrated in great detail by our leader.