Gandhigiri and You!

Latest flick from Bollywood has some great ideas on how "Gandhism" can be applied to current world (our global audience who may not know, Gandhi is our "Father of The Nation" and played key role in Indian independence movement - a quick Google gets you 23 million results on "Gandhi"!).

 

Gandhiji is, unfortunately, is a forgotten hero today.  You may disagree with his actions, but you will agree that he was a great leader.  History tells us how powerful his ideology was in bringing an entire nation together!  That's the fact.  Though many of us (in this generation) almost forgot this gentleman, he was a hero for millions of our fathers' generation.  Gandhiji demonstrated some of the best success principles.  We will see how they can be applied (or at least related) in the context of organizational leadership.

 

Truthfulness and honesty are the core of Gandhiji's values.  He learnt very early in life how valuable these qualities are, and practiced them for the rest of his life.  His leadership-by-example model (practice-what-you-preach) inspired many to develop these qualities.  Let's see how they matter in our context.

 

Honesty and Leadership

Honesty is the best policy.  Isn't it?  I believe honesty is the best way to coexist and build long lasting organizations.  An organization is only as good as it's leaders.  It is the leaders who energize teams with their energy (incidentally, these two qualities - energize and energy - are the first two of Jack Welch's 4E's of leadership).  It becomes much easier for the leadership to motive and energize people when they gain buy-in.  And trust forms the core of this.  People only trust those who are honest.  Obviously, you yourself don’t like bluff-masters, do you?

 

I believe trust forms core of human relationships.  Trusting and being trusted are clearly visible in any healthy relationship.  And lacking them obviously results in conflicts.  Trust is built on the great foundation called "honesty".

 

Honesty is being yourself.  It is about being comfortable without having to wear masks.  It is this core value of people that lets them win others trust.  And honesty is strongly coupled with truth.  They are the Siamese twins of success.  As we observed earlier, without these qualities, people find it very challenging to gain trust.  It is this quality of being upfront builds reputation and wins trust.  Gandhigiri suggests the following simple practice steps:

 

1.      Don’t wear masks.  They are invisible to only ONE person in this world.  And that's unfortunately - you.

2.      Be genuinely interested in people.  Tell them how much you value them.  Tell them how you few being associated with them.

3.      Develop an important quality of leadership - listening.  Understand trust is NOT a one-way route.  Understand what people are genuinely interested in.  And show them how they can achieve them by doing what you want them to do.

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