Relevance of Gandhian Principles in the 21st Century

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, one of the greatest and well-known personalities of the 20th century, had a very deep influence on the second part of the last century, which is incontestable and beyond any dispute.

Some Gandhian principles, mantras and habits that today’s institutions and corporations can learn from – and we can apply to our lives.  

1)    Leadership by example: - He always led by example He was prepared to go to jail for the sake of his principles, Obviously, today’s we should learn and practice the principles of leading by example, of standing by your core beliefs are sound leadership mantras for our time as well. 

2)  Manage by Mind, Lead by Heart: -A visionary leader like Gandhi ji constantly builds his relation with the employee only through their heart. He needs to capture the hearts of the people by showing compassion and listening deeply to them. This is what Gandhi ji best by listing to their worries and their struggle. 

3) Reward Routinely, Recognize Relentlessly: - Gandhi ji said “Customer is the king in your premises…”. He had gone the extra mile for many of his followers (clients in corporate lingo) to seek justice in their cases. Many of his clients had become co-workers and had actively taken part in his rights movements. Volunteers who did work for him used to get some sort of rewards as a token of appreciation, which came at no cost. 

4)    Continuous learning and open mind: - Gandhi’s whole life was one big experiment and kept learning for his day to day experienced from being thrown out from the train to applying the principals of satyagraha in real life. Present day leader also should keep his mind open and constantly evolve learn form his daily experience. 

5)  Cooperation instead of competition: - today with the ever changing environment, when two organizations come together they make 11 not 2. Gandhi ji argued that cooperation instead of competition was a more natural state of humans. Recognizing this fact he used his non-cooperation movement as the most effective tool to ouster the British from India.

6)    Ultimate organizer: - he shook the foundations of the mighty British empire by launching movements like – from the Non-Cooperation Movement, Quit India Movement to the Great Salt March, one has to studying Gandhian methods to manage extremely complex and fluid situations in modern corporate world. 

7) Focus on your health and fitness: - I have not seen a fitter leader than Gandhi ji who walked and walked and walked, or sat on satyagrah for days. Gandhi’s habit of eating not more than necessary and using his two feet to make most journeys is quite relevant to today’s context where we just jump on the wheels for any short trip, and pay big bucks to health gurus for a fitness mantra. 

Let us not only remember Gandhi ji on his birth anniversary but also try and imbibe his principals and become successful in our daily lives.