Opinion | An Intense Leadership Lesson from Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras

LinkedIn is flooded with motivational quotes about leadership.

Everyone nods their head vigorously believing that the words are hugely important and make total sense. Some secretly harbour the notion that the leadership lesson they are reading about has been obvious to them from the very beginning. In any case, they definitely feel the need to be more “leaderish”.

But words alone are not enough to instill leadership qualities in you.

At a time when the treadmill of expectations is incredibly high, everyone is fighting for sunlight and wants to be acknowledged as a leader as soon as possible. They drive their minds into overdrive and punish their bodies and intellects. MBAs, certification programmes, motivational talks, team building, assessment centres… the list is long.

Cardiac arrests, obesity, hypertension, mental breakdowns — the modern leader, working under the impact of incorrect advice, suffers from all this. There is no question of smelling the roses. The quarterly target is far more important than personal common sense. Five minutes of meditation and half an hour of cardio, while listening to inspirational podcasts of great business success — that should do, says Mr Impatient Vice-President.

Pause.

The great text, Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, has many words of wisdom that could help you truly exemplify leadership instead of just talking about it. But it requires you to unlearn many closely held ideas.

Most of us actually search for meaning in our lives. Why am I here? What is the purpose of my life? Why am I inferior in some way? Why is she happy and why am I not?

The mind is plagued with these questions. This is just beneath the veneer of supposed leadership.

The concept of Karma is intuitively understood. Incidents, accidents, meetings, sorrow, joy – all are ascribed to Karma. What is the connection between this and leadership, you ask.

There are three principal types of karma:

1. Where the intent of an action is bad
2. Where the intent of an action is good
3. Where the intent could be a mixture of good and bad

Naturally, going by the popular impression of what leadership is all about, most leadership actions do indeed fall into one of these categories. We want results! We want action! Actions that yield results will get us bonuses. Actions that fail to yield results will result in bad consequences for you. And so, the treadmill moves faster and faster.

In all cases, we look for an intended result. Karma is created.

But the true Yogi does not have any intent in the sense that he is not tied to the result or the fruits of his action. He does what he believes he should and does not seek to gain from the result. Thus, the Leader-Yogi is driven by the need for action and deliberately does not look forward to the satisfaction of a met intention.

This seems impractical. But on the contrary, this is actually quite necessary. If the leader is bound to the results, he will seek to repeat them again and again. His mind now distorted, seeking fruits repeatedly, he hurtles towards a converging point of endless sorrow and dissatisfaction.

As Patanjali says, sorrow comes disguised as transient happiness. A very profound point. Then the mind and body slowly disintegrate, consumed by sorrow.

The pure recipe for leadership is, therefore, dispassion.

Specifically, “indifference to the results of knowledge is the highest form of dispassion.” The true leader-yogi exemplifies this by doing what is correct, with a sense of compassion, driven by the principle of ahimsa and truth. No longer bound to the results of his action, the karmic cycle is broken.

He finds true meaning when enveloped with a sense of equanimity, knowing that he was not driven by any motive.

Is this leadership paradigm practical?

You tell me.

Vasudev Murthy is the author of ‘Yoga Sutras Simplified’. Views expressed are personal.

Read all the Latest Opinions here