1041. Professional Skill to Lead & Manage!!!

In a profession to lead and to manage is like the two sides of a same coin. There is a collegial relationship between those leading a workforce and those managing the work within it. While managers can certainly lead and leaders can certainly manage, the skills required to be excellent at either one of them is separate and distinct too.

Our epics Ramayana and Mahabharata provide ample examples where the epic heroes Shri Rama and Sri Krishna very well managed and led their team to fight Adharma. In both the epics the quintessence was victory of good over the evil. In Ramayana, Shri Rama led his army against Ravana who had abducted His wife Sitadevi. In the second epic Sri Krishna managed to help Pandavas regain their Kingdom from Kauravas.

Shri Rama as a leader took up the weapons and was the Apratima Yodha (unparalleled soldier) in the troupe. He led the Vanara Sena (army of monkeys) and had Lakshmana, Hanuman, Jambavan, Sugriva and Vibheeshana to assist Him to carry out the strategies. It was a team work with a leader and the army was happy to follow the orders from its leader. Shri Rama set an example by taking on the enemy head on while He also had to tell the army what to do during the time of crisis. He had to think and consult to counter the strategies of the opponent group and set a flowchart to execute the plan. Ultimately all those skills paid off and finally the enemy was brought down and the war was won.

In Mahabharata it was not so, Sri Krishna had promised that He would not pick up any weapon. He was there in the battlefield only as a charioteer to Arjuna. He was not a leader in the war. In fact He drew the chariot wherever Arjuna asked Him to take it. Yet the war was won because of Sri Krishna.

The observations to be made in both the wars were that the type of army that was being led in the war. Shri Rama was leading an army of monkey not the regular soldiers who were trained in warfare. Obviously the army wanted someone to lead them and expected that leader to fight alongside them. Shri Rama a skilled warrior lead the monkey, He was emotionally involved with every one participating in the war. He gave precise roles and instruction, motivated the army to fight for His cause. Army too was reciprocating to the emotions of Shri Rama.      

Sri Krishna played the role of an instructor who made sure that the mind of Arjuna is not clogged with unwanted thoughts which induce superficial doubts. Sri Krishna advised Arjuna to see things from a different perspective. He had the best of the best archers, swordsmen, spearmen and mace-wielders to manage with. He just had to provide the strategic clarity and the members took the lead and fought for the team cause. Sri Krishna did not get emotionally involved in the war.

Now in this modern era of corporate, it is important to know beforehand if the members in the team you are handling are amateurs or experts in the field. If they are amateurs you lead them, if they are experts you just have to instruct them. Those who are unskilled have their blackboard clean and it is easy to write anything fresh on it. If the members in the team are experts there is no need to write over it just a bit of revision is sufficient.

The problem is with those members who are neither armatures nor experts, it will be a tough job to erase the existing data and reload the new one. Such a member needs the combination of both Shri Rama and Sri Krishna in one......Isn’t it???