Leadership quality 3/9

About 2500 years ago, a King had taken over from another king in North India. The occasion was joyous. The new king was about to move into the palace of the old king. All arrangements were made for the king’s eventual arrival.

Old enmities die hard. The old king’s minister was still around. He had deployed an army of men to hide inside the palace’s basement. It was a straight forward plan. When the new king arrived, they would come out and kill everybody on site. Assassinate the new king and take over the kingdom. How much simpler can it get?

But one man stood between the new king’s death and the old king’s minister. It was Chanakya. The king maker, who had made Chandra Gupta Maurya an emperor. The king was Chandra Gupta Maurya. Chanakya told the men around that he would like to inspect the palace himself. He went around the palace. He came back satisfied. But he had made up his mind about something.

He called the soldiers and ordered the palace to be burnt down. Chandra Gupta was confused. Chanakya asked him to wait for some time. Then the truth emerged. When Chanakya went for his inspection, he saw a few ants carrying rice to come out of the basement. Having a clear suspicion on anything related to the old king and having known the old king’s minister still had intentions to kill Chandra Gupta, Chanakya was able to deduce the presence of soldiers just by looking at the ants.

Seeing what others cannot see is Wisdom. Tiruvalluvar talks about Wisdom as the next important quality a leader should possess. Let us look at the couplet again

Fearlessness, generosity, wisdom, and energy: these four

Are qualities a king adorns for evermore.

Never to fail in these four things, fearlessness, generosity, wisdom, and energy, is the kingly character.

Why does a leader need Wisdom? I am particularly fond of this topic and I want to focus on three domains where Wisdom’s work is evident. One in the domain of Strategy, one in the domain of managing and leading people and the third in stock market and business Investments.

Nowhere else do we see Wisdom more valuable than Strategy. In Good Strategy – Bad Strategy, the author talks about the essence or the kernel of a good strategy. He lays it down as A diagnosis of a challenge, a guiding policy to address that challenge and a set of coherent actions. He gives numerous examples of Good and Bad strategies. I don’t want to go into the bad strategy examples here (which could be because of fluff, failure to acknowledge or see that a challenge exists). But looking at examples of Good strategies, I could not help wonder how much of this is plain old wisdom.

He talks about how David even though he was small, was able to defeat a much larger enemy by identifying a weakness in his opponent. Goliath didn’t wear a helmet. That was Goliath’s weakest link. David’s strength was the catapult. Even if David had carried a sword, it would have been heavy making that his weakness. So, he abandoned it. Applied his strength to enemy’s weakness. A simple strategy born out of wisdom.

The author also talks about how US’s strategy to make Soviet Union spend on indirect improvements during cold war could have made Soviet Union break down. It will be a great experience for people interested in strategy to read the book.

But, needless to say, Wisdom is the starting point of Strategy as that will help you see what others cannot see and take advantage of that.

Wisdom also plays a big role when leading people. Managing and leading people is thousands if not hundreds of thousands of years old. People’s mindset has not changed a lot in these years. The lessons on leading people from ancient times still hold true. Aristotle coached Alexander using the power of curiosity and not through brute force. Mahatma Gandhi led people to rally behind him through an insight (wisdom), the fundamental Indian ethos of Non-violence in our religious scriptures (Dharma). He wore a simple loin cloth to identify with the masses. We will see more of him later. Nelson Mandela had the wisdom to win a presidential election, using a complete defeat in the presidential debate.

Enter Behavioral finance. The basic premise of this is that markets are not driven by hard facts but by irrational fears and greed of people. Now, if an investor is able to see through this, there is money to be had. The same is true for business investments as well. Seeing something which others cannot see is Wisdom.

Leadership runs on the fuel of Wisdom.

How does one gain Wisdom? There is no straight forward answer to it. Reading, traveling, viewing, listening, writing, presenting, meditating, talking, walking, thinking, sleeping, dreaming. Varied Experiences. Interacting with wise and unwise people. Connecting the dots. Reflection. Is it going after and understanding the core principles at work rather than following the herd and adopting the current fad? Probably. Let me know your thoughts.

This post is dedicated to all the wise teachers, generals, advisors, consultants, entrepreneurs and Leaders of India who had the wisdom to see what others could not see and made a difference. If you like this post, more than just clicking on the like button, tag a wise leader you have known

If you like this post. You can find my other three posts below

Leadership qualities that cut across space, time and scale?

Leadership quality 1/9

Leadership Quality 2/9

All title images designed by Snehal: https://www.behance.net/gallery/92935885/Portfolio