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  3. Timeless Lessons for Modern Leadership and Efficiency
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Timeless Lessons for Modern Leadership and Efficiency

SHRM Advisor

Bhagavad Gita, an ancient Hindu scripture also known as the “Song of Lord,” serves as a guiding light for self-knowledge and inner peace. The Bhagavad Gita is considered a complete guide to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of employees to achieve the desired goals.

By disseminating views like changing weaknesses into strengths of the individual, sharing responsibilities, selecting the right person in the team, raising awareness about the challenges in the job environment, and the need for charismatic leaders who inspire, energize, and counsel in dilemmas, the Bhagavad Gita strikes a harmony in work-life balance by aligning our thoughts, actions, goals, and results. 

Leadership Behavior 

Amongst many lessons, a significant teaching from the Bhagavad Gita pertains to leadership. The Gita talks about how a leader’s behavior becomes an effective model of social behavior. As one of the shlokas of Gita quotes, “yad yad acarati sresthas tat tad evetaro janah sa yat pramanam kurute lokas tad anuvartate." Whatever actions great people perform, common people follow. The understanding is that the behavior of the leader becomes the standard that other people around them follow. 

As the saying goes, with great power comes great responsibility. People copy the behaviors of leaders, and therefore the responsibility of providing a motivating behavior rests on the leaders. 

Accumulating Knowledge is Important

The next lesson that the Gita talks about is the emphasis it places on accumulating knowledge. As the Gita’s shloka says, “sreyo hi jnanam abhyasaj, jnanad dhyanam visisyate, dhyanat karma-phala-tyagas, tyagac chantir anantaram,” which means better than mechanical practice, is knowledge on the first level. Accumulating knowledge is an extremely important thing to do. 

Having the knowledge of how something happens, works or is done, is better than being able to just do it. This also focuses on the need for upskilling these days. To believe that the skills that we had when we joined our organization is going to be enough and we can just coast on it for the rest of our career is clearly not the way the world is working right now. We must be up to date with what is happening in the world to do well at ones job. We must constantly be seeking the knowledge around it. This too has been emphasized by Gita in a shloka that says “ na hi jnanena sadrsam, pavitram iha vidyate tat svayam yoga-samsiddhah kalenatmani vindati, . In the in this world, there is nothing as purifying as knowledge, so never stop learning, be it in professional or personal life.

In Conclusion

To conclude, the words of wisdom from The Bhagavad Gita are treasures to behold for lifetime for mankind. The greatness of Gita lies in the fact that it has answer to all the questions of life. Beyond its spiritual significance, it offers practical lessons and wisdoms for today’s  managers and modern workplaces. It has message and learnings for all and by incorporating these timeless lessons we can navigate work life balance and inspire positive change 

 

Read More

Contemporary Management Guru: The Bhagavad Gita

Lessons from the Bhagavad Gita: Ancient Wisdom for Modern Managers

 

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