In the previous episode, we had witnessed the continuation of Bhishmachaarya’s important accord on “Raaja-Dharma” to Yudishtra. As part of it, we’ve been discussing thirty-six important qualities of a leader, as described by Bhishmachaarya. In this line, we’ve witnessed around twenty-seven out of the thirty-six qualities, and in our yesterday’s episode, we had witnessed two of them – Firstly, when we perform offerings (“Yagnya”) towards deities, we should do it with full involvement towards Bhagawan, rather than doing it for name and fame. In other words, we shouldn’t publicize that we are performing offerings towards Bhagawan. It should be a private affair and for the benefit of the world, and not for ourselves. Secondly, Bhishmachaarya explained that while we respect our elders including our “Guru”, it is important that we understand their perspective / advice while taking important decisions, rather than rejecting them outrightly. We might have this practice in today’s scenario wherein we tend to discard elders’ words of wisdom by saying that they are “outdated” and they belong to an older generation. This should not be done and as a leader, it is important that we give respect to the ideas of everyone. In other words, a leader should be “inclusive” with all people.
Moving on further, Bhishmachaarya continues thus, “Oh Yudishtra! Now I’ll talk about time and how it is important for everything in life. For all actions, time is a very important factor, and as a leader, you should be able to identify the right time to make key decisions and execute them. Only when you’re planning your activities according to the time, will you be able to be successful!” This is an extremely important point even in today’s context. For everything in life there is a “timing”. For instance, only when we are children, will we be able to play with toys. Only when we are in our youth will we be able to get married and have kids. If we miss the timing for all these in life, it will become too late, and there is no point in doing these. For instance, there is no point in playing with toys after growing up! There is no point in getting married after we cross the age of forty or so. Post this, we will automatically start losing our motivation for certain important things that have to take place in our lives. Similarly when we adorn leadership positions in organizations, we should ensure that timing is adhered to while decision-making. If the timing is missed and if decisions are taken late, the entire mission / project might go for a toss. At the same time, if there are a few compelling decisions to be made, we should not have an emotional rush towards doing so. We should at some point in time wait, analyze, discuss and then make decisions. Thus, “timing” is extremely important for all activities in professional and personal lives.
Moving on, Bhishmachaarya is now going into the next level. He says thus, “Oh Yudishtra! As a leader, you should know the art of “convincing” others. For this, you should be excellent in communication. While convincing is important, you should ensure that you convince people for their benefit, and not yours!” This is a very important point, especially for those of us who are in management positions today. As a leader, we should be able to rally people around us. But at the same time, we should ensure that we rally people behind us for the right cause, which would be of benefit for them. In other words, we should not end up rallying people for our own personal brownie points (selfish reasons) and leaving them in the lurch after that. In today’s context, we are witnessing a lot of advertisements in the media – Both mainstream and social media. While we sell a product to a customer, it is important that we convince the customer to buy our product, however, this should not lead to cheating the customer by giving false promises. This is one of the biggest mistakes which sales personnel make. If the customer buys the product and then comes to know that whatever promises that we had given him are false, it would create a very bad image and a reputation about us and our organization in the customer’s mind. Thus, the entire probability of “repeated purchase” of our product by the customer goes for a toss! Further, the “bad word of mouth” will start spreading, which would further dent our image in the market!
Hence, the point here is that, while it is important that we learn the art of convincing, it should be channelized in the right way, so that there is a benefit for all of us together. So for today, let us understand up to this point, and in the next episode, we shall continue this discussion further! Stay tuned! 🙂
The Indian Dharma 