Holistic Leadership PDF

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Satinder Dhiman
Holistic Leadership
Satinder Dhiman
Holistic Leadership
A New Paradigm for Today’s Leaders
Satinder Dhiman
School of Business
Woodbury University
Burbank, California, USA
ISBN 978-1-137-55570-0 ISBN 978-1-137-55571-7 (eBook)

DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-55571-7
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016958193
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Acknowledgements
Our life is the sum of all that has touched us, all and everyone who has
made a difference in our lives. Life is a book that is virtually being writ-
ten as it unfolds, a symphony that is continually being played even as it is
composed, and a song that is unceasingly heard, ever so softly at times.
Writing a book is a synergistic endeavor. “A man will turn over half a
library to make one book,” observed Samuel Johnson. Every writer who
ever picks up the pen is forever indebted to all the kindred spirits who have
illumined the path before. S/he verily stands on the proverbial shoulders of
the giants. And when one has also been fortunate to have personally sat at
the feet of some great contemporary masters, one’s debt is hard to recount.
I am grateful to Peter Drucker for one of the most enlightening
encounters and for generously sharing his ripe wisdom and favorite stories;
to psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi for granting me the privilege of
two personal interviews full of insights and foresights; to Ron Heifetz of
Harvard’s JFK School of Public Policy for his wonderful dialogs on what
really matters in life and leadership; to Peter Senge, for his thoughts on
generative learning; to Chris Argyris for one of the most illuminating con-
versations about organizational defenses and fancy footwork; Bob Kegan
for his unique perspectives on immunity to change; Lee Bolman for his
self-effacing presence; Ellen Langer for her unique perspectives on mind-
ful creativity; and Max De Pree of Herman Miller for his sage recreations
of the art of leadership.
The original version of this book was revised. An erratum to this book can be
found at (DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-55571-7_12).
v
vi Acknowledgements
Life also provided the rare privilege of sitting at the feet of some of the
great contemporary Vedānta scholars-seers: Swami Dayananda Saraswati,
Swami Paramarthananda, Swami Brahmatmanandji Saraswati, and Swami
Narayan Prasad Muni. Their teachings and life examples continue to be a
beacon of inspiration and guidance on the path of Self-knowledge culmi-
nating in selfless service.
Interestingly, school and life keep different curricula: School gives us
the lessons first, and then the test; life gives us the test first, and then
the lessons. However, they seem to have one thing in common: Lessons
are optional; the tests are required! The lessons shared in this book are
taken largely from the “school of life.” They represent a happy amalgam
of search and research.
The concepts presented in this book are of universal import. That is,
they are applicable to all walks of life. The alchemy of transformation in life
is similar to that of leadership. Discipline, humility, and right attitude are
as critical in life as they are in leadership. Nobody has ever become a great
leader without first becoming a good human being.
In this sense at least, the lessons presented here are of holistic nature.
The journey of writing this book is undertaken by this author for the sole
purpose of gaining some clarity on his own part about the timeless art of life
and science of leadership. Rumi, the great Persian poet, said it so well: “You
are the only student you have; all others eventually leave.” It is submitted
as a humble offering in the spirit of sharing with the fellow travellers of
some lessons incidentally found along the way.1 The wisdom of leadership
is as old as hills. Peter F. Drucker once told this author that the person who
supervised the construction of pyramids in ancient Egypt probably knew
more about leadership than any CEO of a modern Fortune 500 company.2
After a lifetime study of history and its heroes, Will Durant, that great
lover of lovers of wisdom, offers the following refrain in his final testament
of wit, wisdom, and humility, entitled Fallen Leaves:
Please do not expect any new system of philosophy, nor any world-shaking
cogitations …. If you find anything original here it will be unintentional, and
probably regrettable. Knowledge grows, but wisdom, though it can improve
with years, does not progress with centuries. I cannot instruct Solomon.3
1
“Ours is to know and let know, not to argue and win.”—Narayana Guru.
2
Personal Communication, 1995, Claremont College, CA.
3
Will Durant, Fallen Leaves: Last Words on Life, Love, War, and God (New York: Simon &
Schuster, 2014), 10–11.
Acknowledgements vii
Spiritual search does not fill any coffers nor does it make one rich and
famous. If the spiritual quest is truly successful, we do not gain anything
except losing everything that is untrue and inessential. The author is
reminded of the wise words of a modern sage:
If you expect any benefits from your search, material, mental or spiritual,
you have missed the point. Truth gives no advantage. It gives no higher
status, no power over others; all you get is truth, and freedom from the false.4
The topic of leadership is vast and deep. I recognize that I have barely
scratched the proverbial surface, and humbly and gratefully acknowledge
my debt to all those who have blazed trails before me. My debt to my
teachers in life and spirit—who stoked the “search for the sacred” in my
soul—is too deep for words.
I am grateful to the Palgrave editorial team, especially Stacy Noto and
Marcus Ballenger, for their expert help, every step of the way. Special
thanks are also due to Ian Mitroff, Vemuri Ramesam, and Judi Neal for
their generous endorsement of my work. I am grateful to my dear friend,
Manoj Chandra Handa, whose creative inspiration is visible in many of
the figures in this book. Finally, I want to thank my wife, Shally, for her
support and for envisioning the creative book cover; and our three sons,
Rohit, Nitin, and Tarun, for their kind understanding and generous shar-
ing of time to enable me to work on this book.
Above all, my debt to our Common Creator is ineffable. We conclude
with a benedictory verse from the Bhagavad Gitā ̄ which many consider as
the essence of the entire text. In this seminal verse, addressing the Divine
within us all, Śri Kṛṣṇa, the universal God in human form, declares to
Arjuna, the warrior-prince:
I am the Universal Self seated in the heart of all beings; so, I alone am the
beginning, the middle, and also the end of all beings.—10.20
With folded hands and a deep bow, I offer this humble work at the lotus-
feet of Śri Kṛṣṇa, the Inner Guide, antaryāmin—the master creator of the
blessed Song Celestial, the compassionate Lord who transforms difficul-
ties on the path into pilgrim’s joy.
4
Maurice Frydman (tr.), I Am That: Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj (Durham, NC:
The Acorn Press, 1986), 313. [Emphasis added].
Contents
1 Introduction: On Becoming a Holistic Leader 1
2 Self-Motivation: Motivating the Whole Person 17
3 Self-Mastery: Mastering the “Me” in Leadership 43
4 Creativity and Flow: The Art of Mindful Creativity 65
5 Emotional & Multiple Intelligences: 10 Different

Ways of Being Smart 97
6 Appreciative Inquiry: Discovering the Best in People

and Organizations 133
7 Spiritual Leadership: A Superior Way to Be and Serve 155
8 Meaning & Purpose in Leadership: What Are You

Willing to Bet Your Life On? 181
ix
x Contents
9 Find Your Fulfillment: Winning Habits of Highly

Fulfilled Leaders 205
10 Being the Change: A Hero’s Journey and Legacy 241
11 Epilogue: From Position-Power to Self-Power—

Integrating the Lessons of Holistic Leadership 275
Erratum to: Holistic Leadership E1
Index 303
List of Figures
Fig. 1.1 Cycle of holistic leadership, Satinder Dhiman (2016) 8

Fig. 1.2 Holistic leadership framework, Satinder Dhiman (2016) 9
Fig. 2.1 Adapted from Abraham H. Maslow, “A Theory of Human
Motivation,” Psychological Review, 1943, Vol. 50 (4) 370–396 19
Fig. 4.1 Creativity, flow and mindfulness, Satinder Dhiman (2012) 93
Fig. 6.1 4 D model of appreciative inquiry 150
Fig. 9.1 Adapted from Seven Habits of Highly Fulfilled People
framework, Satinder Dhiman (2012/2014) 208
xi
CHAPTER 1
Introduction: On Becoming
a Holistic Leader
To lead one must follow. —LAO TZU
Introduction
We live in an interesting period of material progress and spiritual impov-
erishment. The sorry plight of the contemporary world is that we are
preoccupied with the relentless pursuit of changing everything in the
external world except ourselves. The unintended consequence of mis-
placed emphasis on the external has been the neglect of the inner work-
ings of the human spirit. Many believe that our most pressing task today
is the elevation and reformation of the inner spiritual life.1 Never before
in the history of humankind has there been a greater need for exemplary
leaders—leaders who are both good and great, leaders who can show us a
way out of our current moral morass and spiritual chaos. We need holistic
leaders and holistic systems that are able to integrate the spiritual and the
material perspectives in a dialectical manner.
The traditional forms of leadership and organizational structures are
proving inadequate to deal with changing reality that is complex, mul-
tidimensional, and virtual. We need new thinking, new structures, and
new metaphors of resonance to dance with the emergent reality. We can
1
D. Ikeda & A. Peccei, Before it is too late (Tokyo: Kodansha International LTD), 104.
© The Author(s) 2017 1

S. Dhiman, Holistic Leadership,
DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-55571-7_1
2 S. DHIMAN
no longer afford to view leadership as a position to wield authority or

power. Leadership signifies a complex moral relationship between peo-
ple, based on trust, mutuality, commitment, and a shared vision of the
good of the broader society.2 Holistic leadership splendidly fulfills all these
requirements.
Leadership has always been more challenging during difficult times. In
a world beset with rising international terrorism, economic uncertainties,
and flagrant violation of human values, many believe that leaders have lost
their moral bearings. The unique leadership challenges facing organiza-
tions throughout the world today call for an even greater renewed focus
on what constitutes “values-based, holistic leadership”. Bennis and Nanus
concur: “The need [for leadership] was never so great. A chronic crisis
of governance—that is, the pervasive incapacity of organizations to cope
with the expectations of their constituents is now an overwhelming fac-
tor worldwide.”3 The need for leaders who are authentic, principled, and
spiritually grounded is greater now than ever.
Leaders Have Lost Their Ethical Fitness

During the past few decades, many leadership scholars have turned their
probing scrutiny on humanity’s greatest leaders, both from the distant
past as well from the recent times. Many of the greatest leaders of human-
ity have not fared very well under such scrutiny, to say nothing of our
modern leaders.4 Unquestionably, in recent years the reputation of many
leaders has been tarnished as researchers and writers turn probing search-
lights on their character. Under these circumstances, everybody is search-
ing for the Holy Grail, the secret key, the silver bullet that will save the
world. As a result, many new approaches to leadership have been gaining
momentum in recent years. Holistic leadership is one such approach that
we will explore in this book.
Lehman Brothers to Fannie Mae, Enron to Worldcom, Bernie Madoff
to Martha Stewart, and so many other business scandals in the recent
decades have made us aware that business leaders have lost their True
2
See: Joanne B. Ciulla, “Leadership Ethics: Mapping the Territory,” in Ciulla, ed., Ethics,
The Heart of Leadership, (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2004, Second edition), 3–4.
3
Warren Bennis and Burt Nanus, Leaders: Strategies for Taking Charge (New York: Harper
Business, 1997), 2.
4
Ciulla, “Leadership Ethics: Mapping the Territory,” 3.
INTRODUCTION: ON BECOMING A HOLISTIC LEADER 3
North. Survey after survey has shown that employees’ trust in their leader-
ship is at its lowest ebb. Now more than ever, organizations need to pay
close attention to the impact the character of their leaders is having on the
rest of the workforce and consider how leaders can win back trust. Clearly,
we need a different breed of leaders—leaders who are centered in selfless-
service, and not self-centered.
This book takes it as axiomatic that the universe is not amoral: it has a
structural bias toward good. Although good and bad exist in the world,
good not only survives but triumphs in the long run. The life example
of such exemplary leaders as Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson
Mandela, Vaclav Havel, Mother Teresa, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Jean
Monnet show us that we can also achieve what great leaders have achieved,
if we are willing to put forth the necessary effort and cultivate the values
that such leaders embodied. We must first know, then do, and finally be
the change that we aspire to inspire in others. This knowing-doing-being
framework takes place in three distinct steps: learning, reflecting, and
transforming. Accordingly, if we want to bring about any change in the
world, we have to begin with ourselves. We need indeed to be the change
that we wish to see in the world.
Holistic Leadership: Forest Gets Lost

in Trees All Too Often
Over the centuries, man has lived largely in fragmentation, alienation, and
hostility prompted by the call of self-preservation and survival. And yet,
as human beings we are naturally drawn towards fullness, unity and har-
mony. We have always been seeking wholeness—at the physical, mental,
emotional, moral, and spiritual level. This goes on to show that quest
for wholeness is our primal need for living a meaningful and fulfilled life.
David Bohm, the renowned physicist of the twentieth century, traces the
close affinity of the words ‘health’ ‘hale’, and ‘whole’ as follows:
It is instructive to consider the word ‘health’ in English is based on an

Anglo-Saxon word ‘hale’ meaning ‘whole’: that is, to be healthy is to be
whole. Likewise the English ‘holy’ is based on the same root as ‘whole’. All
of this indicates that man has sensed always that wholeness or integrity is an
absolute necessity to make life worth living.5
5
David Bohm, Wholeness and the Implicate Order (London: Routledge, 2004), 3–4.
4 S. DHIMAN
Drawing upon the etymology of the English word ‘holy’, Bohm notes
its close relationship to similar words such as ‘whole’, ‘hale’, and, by
extension, to the word ‘holistic’. Wholeness is as much a means as it is an
end in making our life worth living.
According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the word holistic (/hōˈlistik/)
means:
1. of or relating to holism,
2. relating to or concerned with wholes or with complete systems
rather than with … parts.
Throughout this book the word “holistic” is used in a special sense.

It denotes a ‘w-holistic’ approach to the art and science of leadership.
Although their meaning is somewhat similar, it is by happenstance that
the English word ‘whole’ and the Greek word ‘holos’ ended up looking
similar, in two different languages.
Therefore, the meaning of the word ‘holistic’ in the context of holistic
leadership should be understood in the sense of being ‘whole’ or ‘integrated’;
that is, a personality that is committed to the harmonious development in all
its vital dimensions—physical, mental, emotional, moral, and spiritual. Above
all, we believe that for leadership to be truly impactful, it must honor the
spiritual dimension of leadership experience. Therefore, in the development
of holistic leadership paradigm in this book, a greater emphasis is placed on
the spiritual dimension anchored in strong core ethical values. After all, only
that which is whole, integrated, is holy. And spirituality does not cleanse the
ethically impure. Accordingly, the entire lifestyle of the leader has to be trans-
formed w-holistically to be conducive to an ethical and spiritual approach to
life. ‘W-holistic’ means that which is both ‘whole’ and ‘holy.’
Holistic leaders are drawn by a compelling inner calling. They look
within, transform themselves first and then immerse themselves in the
common good. They have a deep understanding of human systems. They
learn to master the language of transformation and help ordinary people
accomplish extraordinary things. In sum, holistic leaders are self-directed
and other-focused.
Why This Book?

The scholarship on leadership is vast and continues to grow by leaps
and bounds. Several new approaches have been developed recently that
cover the whole spectrum of leadership process—from transformational
leadership to servant leadership, including the emergent approaches

influenced by positive psychology,6 such as authentic leadership and
self-leadership. While the present book builds upon the myriad strands
of the growing leadership literature, it focuses more on the personal
development of a leader in a holistic manner. Very few leadership
approaches really explore the self, spirit, and service dimensions of lead-
ership process in an integral manner, much less their relationship to
professional excellence and optimal performance within contemporary
organizations.
This book aspires to fill an important need in that it makes a conscious
attempt to connect the self, spirit, and service aspects of leadership in a
holistic fashion. Given the current leadership crisis, the author believes
that there is a greater need for such leadership approach and the role mod-
els that embody it to illustrate such leadership. It is the synergistic energy
fashioned by the coming together of the self, spirit, and service that cre-
ates a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.
This book presents a holistic approach to the art and science of leader-
ship. Key leadership dispositions are presented in an integral manner start-
ing with self-motivation and culminating in self-transcendence marked by
leader’s contribution. This journey is denoted by the three S’s: Self, Spirit,
and Service, each signifying three overarching dimensions of holistic lead-
ership—Self-Leadership, Authentic Leadership, and Legacy Leadership.
Each leadership competency presents two sides—simultaneously repre-
senting the leader’s and the follower’s perspective. Therefore, when self-
motivation is discussed, it pertains to leader’s own motivation as well as to
the motivation of those who are led.
The book focuses on 4 L’s of leadership: Learning, living, loving, and
leaving a legacy. The quest for effective leadership starts with self-awareness
and self-mastery, progresses with living authentically one’s core values and
culminates in leaving a legacy by fulfilling life’s purpose through selfless
service for the greater good. The book offers a unique perspective on
self-leadership which is defined as leading from one’s highest authentic self.
Leadership is approached as an expression (and as an extension) of who
we are. Exemplary leaders recognize that the most important challenges
confronting organizations and society at large are so profound and perva-
sive that they can only be resolved at the fundamental level of the human
spirit—at the level of one’s authentic self.
6
B. J. Avolio and W. L. Gardner, “Authentic Leadership Development: Getting to the
Root of Positive Forms of Leadership,” Leadership Quarterly, 16 (2005): 315–338.
6 S. DHIMAN
Holistic leadership is voyage of inner discovery which begins with self-

knowledge that serves as a prelude to leading from within. This journey
begins with knowing oneself and culminates in living one’s deepest values
at the personal, team, and organizational level. We believe that effective
leaders holistically engage the body, mind, heart, soul and spirit of those
whom they lead. The punctilious reader will notice the natural affinity of
the word ‘holistic’ with the word ‘spiritual’. In essence, only that which is
whole and integrated can be truly called holy and spiritual. Only those lead-
ers who touch people’s lives profoundly and deeply—at the level of human
spirit—are able to make an abiding difference in their lives. The chapters of
this book are fashioned around this theme.
Preparation for This Book Project

During the course of his ongoing research on personal and professional
excellence, this author has had the opportunity of meeting and/or com-
municating with some remarkable luminaries such as Peter Drucker,
Howard Gardner, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Ron Heifetz, Peter Senge,
Bob Kegan, Barbara Kellerman, Julius Shulman, Chris Argyris, Carol
Gilligan, Lee Bolman, James O’Toole, Ellen Langer, Max De Pree, Joel
Barker, K. Anders Ericsson and Noel Tichy. Life also provided the rare
privilege of sitting at the feet of Swami Dayananda Saraswati, Swami
Paramarthananda, Swami Brahmatmanandji Saraswati and Swami Narayan
Prasad Muni. Throughout the book I will draw upon their wisdom to
illumine various facets of holistic leadership.
In planning for the development of Holistic Leadership framework,
the author has consulted diverse conceptual guides and constructs and
have examined the works of Maslow, Herzberg, McClelland (motiva-
tion research); Gardner and Seligman (multiple intelligence and signa-
ture strengths); Goleman, Mayer, and Salovey (emotional intelligence);
Zohar and Wigglesworth (spiritual intelligence); Simonton and Ericsson
(markers of greatness, expertise, competence, and deliberate prac-
tice), Csikszentmihalyi (flow and creativity), Burns, De Pree, George,
Greenleaf (authentic, transforming leadership paradigm), Frankl, Covey,
Senge, and Manz (self-leadership); Adi Shankaracharya, Dayananda,
Paramarthananda, Sri Ramana Maharshi, Sri Aurobindo (Advaita Vedānta
and Universalism); as well as the life-work of Gandhi, King, Mandela, and
Teresa (lived wisdom icons). From these authors and portraits, I believe
I have synthesised the disparate fields of emotional intelligence, multiple

intelligence, optimal performance, authentic, transformational leader-
ship, appreciative inquiry, motivation and creativity, cognitive psychol-
ogy, moral philosophy, and wisdom traditions of the world.
I realize that this is a daring thesis, but I have seen the need for such an
undertaking. Since the problems facing leaders today are multifaceted, the
book presents a pertinent framework for developing leaders in a holistic
fashion.
The journey of holistic leadership starts with the development of the
leader as a person. Warren Bennis, who has authored and coauthored
some 30 books on leadership and has been hailed as the “The ‘Dean’ of
Leadership Gurus,”7 contends that to become a leader, a person first has
to develop as an individual. Peter Senge concurs and regards self-mastery
as the key aspect of growing as a leader.8 According to Bennis, the real
task of becoming a leader boils down to becoming an authentic individual
first: “At bottom, becoming a leader is synonymous with becoming your-
self. It’s precisely that simple, and it’s also that difficult.”9 Gandhi once
said, “Our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world
as being able to remake ourselves.”10 It is only through internalizing self-
knowledge that leaders are able to truly “remake” themselves and fulfill
their mission.
The following two figures present the cycle and the framework of holis-
tic leadership:
7
See: Rob Asghar, “The ‘Dean’ of Leadership Gurus Passes At 89,” Forbes (August 1,
2014), accessed February 10, 2015, http://www.forbes.com/sites/robasghar/2014/08/01/
the-dean-of-leadership-gurus-passesat-89/. Also see: Jena McGregor, “Remembering leader-
ship sage Warren Bennis,” Washington Post (August 4, 2014), accessed February 10, 2015,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-leadership/wp/2014/08/04/
remembering-leadership-sage-warren-bennis/.
8
Peter M. Senge, The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization
(New York: Doubleday, Revised and updated edition, 2006). See chapter 8: Personal
Mastery, pp. 129–162.
Peter M. Senge, C. Otto Scharmer, and Joseph Jaworski, Presence: Human Purpose and the
Field of the Future (New York: Crown Books, 2008), 92.
9
Warren Bennis, On Becoming a Leader (New York: Basic Books, 2009, Fourth Edition),
xxxvii.
10
Eknath Easwaran, The Compassionate Universe: The Power of the Individual to Heal the
Environment (California: Nilgiri Press, 1989), 20 (emphasis added).
8 S. DHIMAN
Fig. 1.1 Cycle of holistic leadership, Satinder Dhiman (2016)

Source: Conceptual cycle of leadership, Manoj Chandra Handa (2015); personal
communication, September 18, 2015
Three Integral Circles of Holistic Leadership

Figures 1.1 and 1.2 present three integral circles of holistic leadership
signifying three defining dimensions—Self (nurturing), Spirit (align-
ing), and Service (contributing) and three corresponding leadership
types—Self-leadership, Authentic Leadership, and Legacy Leadership.
Each leadership type has three dimensions. Self leadership represents
the preparation phase on the path of holistic leadership and comprises
Fig. 1.2 Holistic leadership framework, Satinder Dhiman (2016)

Source: Conceptual framework of leadership, Manoj Chandra Handa (2015);
personal communication, September 7, 2015
self-
motivation, self-mastery and self-creativity. Authentic leadership
comprises self-awareness informed by internalized moral perspective
expressed as unity and purity in thought, speech and action. It signifies
harnessing the spirit through emotional intelligence and appreciative
inquiry guided by a strong moral compass. Service leadership presents
the quest for meaning and fulfillment through selfless service culminat-
ing in a leader’s enduring legacy.
At every level, the various dimensions of holistic leadership are pre-
sented in a dialectical manner, highlighting their contrast at one level
while at the same time underscoring their creative harmony based on syn-
thesis. Throughout, leadership presents a contrast between the self and
the other, each claiming its veritable supremacy. The holistic leadership
paradigm recognizes and builds on this inherent dialecticism and seeks its
resolution in the subordination of the good of the self for the good of oth-
ers. This is the keynote of the book and should not be lost sight of at any
time. It is only when we act for the good of others that we truly redeem
our existence both at the personal and professional level.
10 S. DHIMAN
Chapter Schema of the Book
The core nine chapters of this book may be approached as three dynamic
concentric circles that focus on personal development, professional excel-
lence, and fulfilling life’s purpose, encased within an introduction and an
epilogue.
As a prelude to holistic leadership, this introductory chapter furnishes
the gestalt in terms of the why, what and how of this book. It provides
holistic leadership cycle and framework guided by its three constituent
dimensions: self, spirit and service. It presents an overview of the chapter
schema and the layout of the book.
Chapter 2, titled Self-Motivation, explores the role of self-motivation
for leading oneself as well others. It begins with an appraisal of Maslow’s
hierarchy of needs and Herzberg’s two-factor theory. In critiquing their
work, it focuses on the art of realizing one’s total potential as well as
the role of intrinsic and extrinsic motivators. Next, it explores the self-
determination theory (SDT) and its discussion of basic human needs and
life goals. Within the framework of SDT, it further develops the topic of
intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. The chapter concludes with a review of
the findings of positive psychology regarding self-motivation and optimal
performance and its implication for workplace motivation.
Chapter 3, entitled Self-Mastery, develops the theme of self-mastery
as the foundation for achievement in any endeavor including leadership.
Before we can effectively lead others, we must first learn to manage our-
selves effectively. This chapter discusses the role of self-discipline, self-
effort, self-will, and self-perseverance in fostering self-development for
preparing us for life and leadership. Without self-discipline one cannot
attain success in any field, whether it is science, sports, music or any other
domain. The key focus of the chapter is the harmonious development of
a leader’s personality in all its essential dimensions—psychological, intel-
lectual, emotional, moral, and spiritual. It draws upon the key lessons of
personal mastery as presented in the Bhagavad Gītā, the most important
paradigmic spiritual text of Hindus. Focusing especially on psychological
and emotional aspects, the theme of self-mastery is developed as integra-
tion of personality. The chapter also references the Aristotelian theory of
the golden mean as the desirable middle between two extremes—one of
excess and the other of deficiency. As an added feature, the chapter reviews
research on expert performance (the making of champions) to inform the
quest for self-mastery.
Chapter 4, titled Creativity and Flow, focuses on the role of creativ-

ity and flow in life and leadership. Now more than ever organizations
must innovate in order to survive and succeed. Some of the world’s most
iconic companies are embracing creativity as a way of life. Leaders are
increasingly expected to nurture an environment of collaborative innova-
tion. Treating creativity as a form of competence that can be nurtured, it
reviews some of the mounting research that shows that creativity is very
much a science. After defining the creative process as person, process, and
product-based, it provides a brief overview of the experience of flow as
observed in the behavior of creative individuals and the anatomy of mind-
ful creativity. It explores the relationship between mindfulness as a creative
process and the concept of flow, suggesting that the meditative practice
of mindfulness at once contributes to the successful attainment of both of
these experiences. It concludes with reviewing the benefits of mindfulness,
creativity, and flow.
Chapter 5, titled Emotional and Multiple Intelligences, explores the
role of emotional intelligence and multiple intelligences, including spiri-
tual intelligence, in enhancing the effectiveness of a holistic leader. By
harnessing rational, emotional, inter/intra personal, and spiritual intel-
ligences, leaders can recognize and nurture the myriad gifts that people
bring to work. Emotional intelligence is defined as one’s ability to accu-
rately identify, appraise, discern and discriminate among emotions in one-
self and others, understand emotions, assimilate emotions in thought, and
to regulate both positive and negative emotions in oneself and others.11
The chapter also explores role of empathy in leadership success. Empathy
involves identifying, subjectively, with the emotion of another and experi-
encing concern for that emotion.12
The concept of multiple intelligences, propounded by Howard Gardner,
explores various additional forms of intelligence to account for excellence
in music, language, sports, and the like. It challenges the conventional view
of intelligence that focuses on language and mathematical intelligence.
11
Mayer, J., Caruso, D., & Salovey, P. (2000). Emotional intelligence meets traditional
standards for an intelligence. Intelligence, 27(4), 267–298. See also: Salovey, P., & Mayer,
J. D. (1990). Emotional intelligence. Imagination, Cognition, and Personality, 9, 185–211.
Goleman, D. (2001). An EI-based theory of performance. In Cary Cherniss & Daniel
Goleman (Eds.), The Emotionally Intelligent Workplace (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass),
27–44.
12
Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence: Why It can Matter more than IQ (New York:
Bantam Books).
12 S. DHIMAN
The chapter takes the view that both emotional intelligence and multiple
intelligence are amenable to conscious development and their understanding
can contribute to the development of a holistic leader. This chapter con-
cludes with a review of spiritual intelligence and its role in holistic leadership.
Chapter 6, titled Appreciative Inquiry, builds on the premise that success
in leadership lies in linking the untapped energies of a living system to an
organization’s change agenda. It explores the role of Appreciative Inquiry
(AI) in holistic leadership. Just as Michaelangelo was able to sense the historic
figure of David in a slab of marble, Appreciative Inquiry is the art of seeing
the mighty oak in the acorn. It is a strength-based, affirmative approach
to effect change in social systems. It aspires to build organizations on the
assumption of what is right with them instead of focussing on what is wrong
with them. AI has been variously described as an ‘affirmative approach to
change’, a ‘culmination of Maslow’s vision of positive human potential’ and
a ‘new yoga of inquiry’. It is based on the premise that ‘human systems grow
and change in the direction in which they ask questions’. If an organization
inquires into problems, it will keep finding problems; if an organization seeks
to appreciate what is best in itself and its people, it will discover more and
more that is good. It can then use these discoveries to envision and create a
new future where the best naturally becomes the norm.
Chapter 7, titled Spiritual Leadership, focuses on the moral and spiri-
tual dimensions of holistic leadership. Spiritual leadership is not dependent
on your title and one does not have to be at the top level of an organiza-
tion to practice authentic leadership. It depends upon the self-power and
not the position-power. This chapter explores authentic leadership and
servant leadership as primary expressions of spiritual leadership. Authentic
leadership is about being true to yourself. Authentic leaders are altruis-
tic, honest, trustworthy, and principled decision-makers who care about
the well-being of their followers and the needs of the broader society.
Authenticity is defined as the unity and purity of one’s thoughts, words,
and deeds. Servant leadership represents a shift from followers serving
leaders to leaders serving followers. Since leadership is an expression of
who we are, in discovering, living and sharing our deepest values lies the
fulfillment of our life and leadership.
Chapter 8, titled Meaning and Purpose in Leadership, explores how
holistic leaders seek and live their highest meaning and purpose. Finding
a profound meaning in all we do lends a certain spiritual sanctity to our
toils that goes deeper than life’s material ploys. Without work, said Albert
Camus, life rottens. But when the work is soul-less, it stifles and dies.
Pursuing meaningful work provides an abiding purpose to our life and

redeems our existence through our contribution. It is the quest for mean-
ing that keeps the battle of life going in the face of the inevitable. If mean-
ing is about discovering one’s unique gifts, purpose is about sharing those
gifts for the good of others. Leaders positively seek meaning and help
others find meaning as well. Before one becomes a leader, the focus is on
discovering and living the personal meaning. After one becomes a leader,
the focus is on helping others discover and live meaning in their lives. This
chapter reviews the work of Victor Frankl and Michael Ray in illustrating
how leaders find transcendent meaning in all they do.
Chapter 9, titled Find Your Fulfillment, explores the art and science of
discovering fulfillment in life and leadership. Fulfillment is not a place we
go to; it is a place we all come from. The image of the path or the journey
could be misleading for all paths are paths away from home. The vir-
tual journey of fulfillment is from here to here. A fulfilled life is marked by
some key attributes. Love, joy, and compassion are marks of being awake.
Hatred, greed, and anger are marks of being asleep. In order to live a ful-
filled life—one brimming with Joy, Peace, Harmony and Love—you must
resonate yourself with precisely these qualities. Real fulfillment is about
transforming our search for success into a discovery of profound meaning
and significance for life and leadership. This transition to “significance,”
which is nurtured from within, is not about “acquiring” anything new;
it is a matter of “re-discovering” what we already have. Significance is
defined in terms of finding one’s real place and purpose in life and in terms
of one’s contribution to the common good.
This chapter presents seven habits of highly fulfilled leaders to mark the
transition from success to significance. These habits of head and heart are:
Pure motivation; Gratitude; Generosity; Harmlessness; Selfless-service;
Acceptance; Mindfulness.
Chapter 10, titled Being Change, explores the leadership journey and
enduring legacy of Mahatma Gandhi, the quintessential holistic leader.
Legacy leadership is a natural consequence of being a holistic leader. Holistic
leaders set in motion certain key processes that continue to fructify long
after they have passed on. It is their steadfastness and selflessness that bring
enduring change and leave their footprints on the sand of time. We all need
heroes who can awaken us to the best in people and who can inspire us to
be what we know we can be. Given the current leadership crisis, there is a
greater need for the role models that embody and illustrate value-based,
holistic leadership. From the pages of recent history, Gandhi emerges as a
14 S. DHIMAN
grand strategist and exemplary leader with a keen understanding of human

nature. His life and leadership embody the synergistic influence fashioned
by the coming together of the self, spirit, and service—the three founda-
tional dimensions of holistic leadership.
The concluding chapter, titled From Position-Power to Self-Power, sums up
various dimensions of holistic leadership. It integrates the lessons of holistic
leadership around important themes. As an added bonus, it broaches the sub-
ject of self-leadership. Self-leadership is not about leading others. It is about
mastering oneself. Self-leadership fosters the holistic development of a leader’s
personality in all its dimensions: physical–psychological, emotional, intellec-
tual, and spiritual. When as leaders we are in touch with our deeper, truer
authentic self, we are also able to connect with the authentic self of others.
Self-leadership is built on the understanding that everybody has two
most basic needs. The first is the need to express oneself. Leadership
is the art of self-expression and your leadership style is an extension of
who you are. The second need we all have is the need to surpass our-
selves. Every human being has these needs. They are not always very
well-articulated, but they are there behind all our strivings and pursuits.
Everyone wants to self-express and everyone wants to surpass oneself.
Self-leadership accomplishes both in one stroke. Self-leadership is the art
of inspiring excellence in oneself and others by enabling people to express
and surpass themselves.
Concluding Remarks
Holistic leadership is a voyage of inner discovery that begins with knowing
oneself and culminates in living one’s deepest values at the personal, team,
and organizational level. Effective leaders holistically engage the body,
mind, heart, soul and spirit of those whom they lead. The quest for holistic
leadership starts with self-awareness and self-mastery, progresses with living
authentically one’s core values, and culminates in leaving a legacy by fulfill-
ing life’s purpose through selfless service for the greater good. Guided by
self-knowledge, holistic leaders express their total, authentic self in all that
they do and surpass themselves by serving for the good of others.
The path to holistic leadership is marked by the following steps: To lead
others one must first lead one’s self. To lead one’s self, one must first know
oneself. To know oneself, one must first “be” oneself. To be oneself is the
first and last step on the path to a leader’s journey. The image of the path
or the journey could be misleading for all paths are paths away from home.
It is not a journey; it is a home-coming.
I conclude with a splendid quote by Anthony de Mello that captures
the spirit of the foregoing—that is, the journey called self-discovery is a
journey of no journey—of recognition, from here to here:
The spiritual quest is a journey without distance.

You travel from where you are right now
To where you have always been.
From Ignorance to recognition.13
On Becoming A Holistic Leader: Reflection

Questions
1. Do you agree that the contemporary business leaders have lost their
True North? Explain why the need for leaders who are authentic, prin-
cipled, and spiritually grounded is greater now than ever.
2. Why traditional forms of leadership and organizational structures are
proving inadequate to deal with emerging reality that is complex, mul-
tidimensional, and virtual?
3. Explain why an integral leadership approach is needed to address the
multifaceted issues faced by contemporary organizations and leaders.
4. Explain the inter-relationship between the words “whole”, “inte-

grated” and “holy” with reference to holistic leadership.
5. Do you agree that we need holistic leaders and holistic systems that are
able to integrate the spiritual and the material perspectives in a dialecti-
cal manner?
6. Explain how holistic leadership fosters a leader’s harmonious develop-
ment in all its vital dimensions—physical, mental, emotional, moral,
and spiritual.
7. Explain how the journey of holistic leadership is not really a journey
but a home-coming—a re-cognition and a re-discovery of who we
truly are.
13
As quoted in Larry Chang, ed., Wisdom for the Soul: Five Millennia of Prescriptions for
Spiritual Healing (Washington, DC: Gnosophia Publishers, 2006), 436.
CHAPTER 2
Self-Motivation: Motivating
the Whole Person
“The story of the human race is the story of men and women selling
themselves short.”
—ABRAHAM MASLOW
Introduction
In the opening quote, Abraham Maslow, who has been hailed as the
prophet of human potential, laments about the great loss of unrealized
human potential. After all, our playing small does not help the universe.
No wonder he devoted his entire life to exploring the mainsprings of
human motivation lest humanity continues to sell itself short. Discussions
of motivation often begin with long-existing theorists like Maslow (1954),
Herzberg (1974), and McGregor (1985). Their theories have stood the
test of time and are valuable lenses through which to view motivation.
However, the field of motivation research is burgeoning.1 This chapter
begins with a review of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and Herzberg’s two-
factor theory. In critiquing their work, it focuses on the art of realizing
one’s total potential as well as the role of intrinsic and extrinsic motivators.
Next, it reviews lessons from goal-setting theory.
Michael Kroth, “Maslow—Move Aside! A Heuristical Motivation Model for Leaders in

1
Career and Technical Education,” Journal of Industrial Teacher Education, 44 (2), (2007):
5–36.

DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-55571-7_2
18 S. DHIMAN
Within the framework of Self-determination theory (SDT), it further

explores the topic of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. The chapter con-
cludes with holistic leadership lessons of self-motivation and their implica-
tion for workplace motivation.
What is Motivation?
In everyday usage, the term motivation often describes why a person does
something. According to the Webster Collegiate Dictionary, the word
motivation comes from Latin word movere, or motum, which means ‘to
move’. According to Nevid, “The term motivation refers to factors that
activate, direct, and sustain goal-directed behavior. … Motives are the
‘whys’ of behavior—the needs or wants that drive behavior and explain
what we do. We don’t actually observe a motive; rather, we infer that one
exists based on the behavior we observe.”2
Motivation is what energizes, directs, and sustains behavior and includes
will, instincts and drives. It signifies the motives for people’s actions, desires,
and needs. A motive is an impulse that propels a person to act. Motivation
is an internal process that causes a person move toward a goal. It involves
the biological, emotional, social and cognitive forces that trigger behavior.
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
American psychologist Abraham Maslow (1908–1970) was one of the

founders of humanistic psychology and is often best recognized for devel-
oping the theory of human motivation known as Maslow’s Hierarchy of
Needs. In his 1943 paper “A Theory of Human Motivation,”3 Maslow pro-
posed a hierarchical structure, often depicted as a pyramid, for what moti-
vates human behavior. He developed his theory further in his 1954 book,
Motivation and Personality.4 He studied exemplary people such as Albert
Einstein, Jane Addams, Eleanor Roosevelt, Frederick Douglass, Martin
Buber, and Albert Schweitzer rather than mentally ill or neurotic people,
writing that “the study of crippled, stunted, immature, and unhealthy
specimens can yield only a cripple psychology and a cripple philosophy.”5
2
Jeffry S. Nevid, Psychology: Concepts and Applications, 4th edition (Belmont, CA:
Wadworth, 2013), 288.
3
Abraham H. Maslow, “A Theory of Human Motivation,” Psychological Review, Vol. 50 (4),
1943: 370–396.
4
Abraham H. Maslow, Motivation and Personality (New York, NY: Harper, 1954).
5
Ibid., 234.
SELF-MOTIVATION: MOTIVATING THE WHOLE PERSON 19
Though many have suggested improvisations of his theory, it continues to

be the benchmark standard because of its strong intuitive logic. In Maslow’s
scheme, the needs are sequenced as follows, from the most urgent to the
most advanced (Fig. 2.1):
1. Physiological Needs
2. Safety Needs
3. Belonging Needs
4. Self-esteem
5. Self-actualization
Commenting on the hierarchical nature of needs, Maslow observes:
It is quite true that man lives by bread alone—when there is no bread.

But what happens to man’s desires when there is plenty of bread and
when his belly is chronically filled? At once other (and “higher”) needs
emerge and these, rather than physiological hungers, dominate the
organism. And when these in turn are satisfied, again new (and still
“higher”) needs emerge and so on. This is what we mean by saying
that the basic human needs are organized into a hierarchy of relative
prepotency.
A peculiar characteristic of the human organism when it is dominated
by a certain need is that the whole philosophy of the future tends also to
change. For our chronically and extremely hungry man, … life itself tends to
Fig. 2.1 Adapted from Abraham H. Maslow, “A Theory of Human Motivation,”

Psychological Review, 1943, Vol. 50 (4) 370–396.
20 S. DHIMAN
be defined in terms of eating. Anything else will be defined as unimportant.

Freedom, love, community feeling, respect, philosophy, may all be waved
aside as fripperies that are useless since they fail to fill the stomach. All that
has been said of the physiological needs is equally true of the safety needs.6
In the short space of two paragraphs, Maslow presents the essence of his
understanding about the hierarchical nature of human needs. His basic
premise is that unfulfilled physiological needs are felt at first with cer-
tain urgency and importance to the exclusion of all other types of needs.
And once we have fulfilled them, they give way to the next level needs.
The first set of needs in this hierarchical order is survival. Physiological
needs refer to needs such as food, water, and sleep. Safety needs refer
to the need for shelter and protection from danger (securing our stuff).
Belonging needs denote the need to belong to a group and the need to
love and be loved. Self-esteem needs refer to the need to feel good about
oneself, one’s ability and contribution. The top of the pyramid is the need
for self-actualization, which is about fulfilling one’s potential and highest
purpose.
The four lower levels are grouped together as “D” or “deficiency
needs”, while the Self-actualization needs are termed as “B” or “being
needs” or “growth needs.” These needs include our notions of morality,
creativity, spontaneity, and capacity to live up to our “true potential”. The
basic premise is that the higher needs in this hierarchy only come into
focus once all the lower needs are mostly or entirely satisfied. The idea is
that only the unsatisfied need motivates and that lower needs, like food,
water, and shelter, capture our attention until they are met. Thereafter,
“higher” needs, referred to as “self-actualization”, take over. However,
the deficiency needs are also important for securing a basic measure of
happiness. As Dan Gilbert, a Harvard psychologist and the author of
Stumbling upon Happiness, tell us with his characteristic humor:
Psychologists and economists now know that although the very rich are no
happier than the merely rich, for the other 99 percent of us, happiness is greatly
enhanced by a few quaint assets, like shelter, sustenance and security. Those
who think the material is immaterial have probably never stood in a breadline.7
6
Abraham H. Maslow, “A Theory of Human Motivation,” 375, 374.
7
Dan Gilbert, “What We Don’t Know Makes Us Nervous”, The New York Times, May 21,
2009. Entry retrieved on January 14, 2016 from http://www.randomhouse.com/kvpa/
gilbert/blog/. Also see: Dan Gilbert, Stumbling upon Happiness (New York: Vintage Books,
2005).
The deficiency needs are important until they are met. After that, the mind
starts pining for other needs. All a drowning person cares and prays for is a
boat; once such a person is in the boat, the sun starts hurting all of a sud-
den! Perhaps wisdom lies in not asking for anything more if we have been
granted our boat, at least not until we reach the shore safely.
What Holds Us Back from Achieving True Greatness?

Why do these possibilities, present in all, actualize themselves in only a
few? Maslow wrestled with this question all his life. One of the reasons
that blocks growth, he thought, is the “fear of one’s own greatness” or
“running away from one’s own best talents”. Maslow believed that “it is
certainly possible for most of us to be greater than we are in actuality. We
all have unused potentialities or not fully developed ones.”8 In order to
demonstrate this, Maslow used to ask his students:
Which of you in this class hopes to write the great American novel, or to be
a senator, or Governor, or President? Who wants to be the Secretary General
of the United Nations? Or a great composer? Who aspires to be a saint,
like Schweitzer, perhaps? Who among you will be a great leader? Generally,
everybody starts giggling, blushing, and squirming until I ask, ‘If not you,
then who else?’9
In the same way, in order to push his students to higher levels of aspira-
tion, Maslow would often ask, “What great book are you now secretly
planning to write?”10 The greatest benefactors of humanity are not those
who provide for our wherewithal; but those who prod us to become what
we are destined to be. They somehow know that the destiny of a piece of
charcoal is to become the precious diamond one day. They are able to see
the mighty oak in our acorn.
This theme was eloquently presented by Nelson Mandela in his 1994
inaugural speech, as follows:
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that
we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light not our darkness that
most frightens us. We ask ourselves, “Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous,
8
Abraham H. Maslow, The Farther Reaches of Human Nature (New York: Harper & Row,
1971), 34.
9
Ibid., 34–35.
10
Ibid., 35.
22 S. DHIMAN
t alented, and fabulous?” Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of
God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There is nothing enlight-
ened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not
just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we
unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liber-
ated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.11
Marianne Williamson in this soul-uplifting quote points out that our

greatest glory lies in manifesting our most fabulous and most brilliant
destiny. This is how nature wills it for all of us, equally and universally.
Maslow believed that the fulfillment of B-Values is another aspect of self-
actualization and a harbinger of personal responsibility and social harmony:
If we were to accept as a major educational goal the awakening and fulfill-

ment of B-Values, we would have a different flowering of a new kind of civi-
lization. People would be stronger, healthier, and would take their own lives
into their hands to a greater extent. With increased personal responsibility
for one’s personal life, and with a rational set of values to guide one’s choos-
ing, people would begin to actively change the society in which they lived.
The movement towards psychological health is also the movement toward
spiritual peace and social harmony.12
Two things become evident by understanding Maslow’s vision as depicted

in the foregoing quote: first, realizing our B-Needs herald the coming of
a new kind of civilization where people will be healthier, more vital, and
resonant. Secondly, such growth will usher a movement towards greater
moral and spiritual peace, harmony and abundance.
The Master Key: Become a Part of Something

Important!
The easiest way to feel needed is to become a part of something important,
something larger, something greater. Then at once you become respon-
sible: “At once, it matters if you die, or if you are sick, or if you can’t work,
etc. Then you must take care of yourself, you must respect yourself, you
11
Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in
Miracles (New York: HarperCollins, 1992), 190–191.
12
Maslow, Farther Reaches of Human Nature, 188.
have to get plenty of rest, not smoke or drink too much, etc. […] This
is an important medicine for self-esteem: Become a part of something
important.”13 Holistic leaders utilize this important insight by convincing
their team members that they are part of something larger, grander and
that their contribution can help make a difference in the world.
According to Maslow, all self-actualizing people have a cause they
believe in, a calling, a vocation to which they are devoted. When they say,
“my work”, they mean their “mission” in life. Self-actualizing people are,
without one single exception, involved in a cause outside their own skin,
in something outside of themselves.14 Life’s highest meaning and purpose
can only be realized in our relationship to all life, outside the precincts of
our skin-encapsulated ego, as Alan Watts once put it. Maslow further clari-
fies the link between self-actualization and happiness:
This business of self-actualization via a commitment to an important job and

to worthwhile work could also be said, then, to be the path to human hap-
piness … happiness is an epiphenomenon, a by-product, something not to
be sought directly but an indirect reward or virtue …. The only happy people
I know are the ones who are working well at something they consider important
… this was universal truth for all my self-actualizing subjects. They were
metamotivated by metaneeds (B-Values) expressed in their devotion to,
dedication to, and identification with some great and important job. This
was true for every single case.15
Just having an important task is not enough: the self-actualizing per-

son must also do it well. Second-rate work is not a good path to self-
actualization. Self-actualization means working to do well the thing that
one wants to do. One must strive to be the very best in whatever one
undertakes. Maslow considered this striving ‘to be the best one is capable
of becoming’ to be the sine qua non of human happiness: “If you delib-
erately plan to be less than you are capable of being, then I warn you that
you will be deeply unhappy for the rest of your life. You will be evading your
own capacities, your own possibilities.”16 It is true that cultivation of one’s
capacities requires hard work, dedication, discipline, training, practice,
and often postponement of pleasure. This understanding is in keeping
13
Abraham H. Maslow, Maslow on Management (New York: McGraw Hill, 1998), 10–11.
14
Maslow, Farther Reaches of Human Nature, 42.
15
Maslow, Maslow on Management, 8–9(italics added).
16
Maslow, Farther Reaches of Human Nature, 35. (italics added).
24 S. DHIMAN
with the Greek ideal that defines happiness as the ‘exercise of human facul-
ties along the lines of excellence’, for mediocrity is no path to fulfillment.
In Buddhist literature, great emphasis is laid on choosing the right kind
of work. One of the eight components of righteous living in Buddhism is
called right livelihood—the kind of livelihood that fosters self-fulfillment,
inner peace, and contentment. It is difficult to conceive of a feeling of sat-
isfaction or self-pride, says Maslow if one were “working in some chewing
gum factory, or a phony advertising agency, or in some factory that turned
out shoddy furniture. Real achievement means inevitably a worthy and vir-
tuous task. To do some idiotic job very well is certainly not real achievement
… what is not worth doing is not worth doing well.”17 By extension, what is
worth doing is worth doing well. Excellence, which Aristotle believed to
be quality of human soul, is not optional when it comes to fulfillment.
The Bhagavad Gītā defines yoga as the excellence in action (yogah. karmasu
kauśalam: Gītā 2.50). There is nothing uplifting about mediocrity.
Behaviors Leading to Self-Actualization
Self-actualizing people tend to focus on problems outside of themselves,

have a clear sense of what is true what is phony, are spontaneous and
creative and are not bound too strictly by social conventions.
—MASLOW
In the above quote, Maslow continues with the theme of meaning and
purpose which self-actualizing people seek outside of themselves. They
have good understanding of what is real and what is sham, and live a life
of enlightened self-responsibility, relatively free from the strictures of the
society. Elsewhere Maslow has stated: “Self-actualizing people enjoy life
in general and practically all its aspects, while most other people enjoy
only stray moments of triumph …”18 What does self-actualization mean in
terms of actual behavior? What are the hallmarks of self-actualizing peo-
ple? How can one become a self-actualizing person? Maslow answers these
questions by describing eight ways in which one self-actualizes:
1. Going at things “whole hog”: Self-actualization means experiencing

fully, vividly, selflessly, with full concentration and total absorption.
Maslow, Maslow on Management, 16.

17
Abraham H. Maslow, Towards a Psychology of Being, 3rd ed. (New York, NY: John Wiley
18
& Sons, 1999), 37.

2. Making Growth Choices: To make a growth choice instead of the fear

choice a dozen times a day is to move a dozen times a day towards
self-actualization.
3. Letting the self emerge: By “listening to their impulse voices”, self-
actualizing people let the self emerge.
4. Taking Responsibility: Each time one acts honestly or takes responsi-
bility, one is actualizing the self.
5. Listening to one’s own self: One cannot choose wisely for a life unless
one dares to listen to oneself, one’s own self, at each moment of life.
To be courageous rather than afraid is another version of the same
thing.
6. Working to become first-rate: Self-actualization means going through
an arduous and demanding period of preparation in order to realize
one’s possibilities. To become a second-rate physician is not a good
path to self-actualization. One wants to be first-rate or as good as
one can be.
7. Creating conditions for Peak Experiences: Peak experiences are tran-
sient moments of self-actualization. They cannot be bought, nor can
they be sought. By making growth choices, by being honest and
taking responsibility, by listening to their inner voices, and by self-
lessly working at a cause greater than themselves, self-actualizing
people create conditions so that such experiences are more likely to
occur.
8. Having the courage to drop one’s defenses: It means identifying
defenses and finding the courage to give them up. It is painful
because defenses are mechanisms against something that is unpleas-
ant. This requires self-knowledge and courage.19
It must be noted that self-actualization, according to Maslow, is

not a matter of one great moment. Rather, it is a matter of degree, or
little victories accumulated one by one over time. In other words, for
Maslow, self-actualization is like a marathon and not like a sprint. It
requires concerted effort, patience, and perseverance to self-actualize.
The alchemy of charcoal becoming a diamond requires persistence and
patience for we are told that the finest timber comes from the slowest-
growing trees.
19
Abraham H. Maslow, Farther Reaches of Human Nature, 43–51.
26 S. DHIMAN
Self-Actualization, Peak Experience and B-Values
As a prophet of human potential, Maslow believed the realization of one’s

total potential variously described as self-actualization or self-realization
to be the ultimate goal of all humankind. In his later research, however,
Maslow (1971) enlarged the list of basic needs to include a still higher cat-
egory of needs, called “metaneeds”. He called the ultimate values sought
by self-actualizing people as Being-Values or B-Values. These values were
mentioned again and again by self-actualizing people or by other people
to describe their peak experience. Such experiences comprise the follow-
ing attributes: wholeness, perfection, completion, justice, aliveness, rich-
ness, simplicity, beauty, goodness, uniqueness, effortlessness, playfulness,
truth, honesty, self-sufficiency, and meaningfulness.
Maslow Reconsidered
Later in his life, Maslow reclassified needs into D-Needs and B-Needs, with
their correlates as deficiency motivation and growth motivation. The physio-
logical, security, belonging, and esteemed needs may be termed as Deficiency
Needs (D-Needs) since they are activated by deficiency. Self-actualization
needs and the B-Needs may be called Growth Needs since they represent
not so much of a deficiency as an unfolding of all those “wonderful possibili-
ties” that lie deep within each human being, waiting to express themselves.
Towards the end of his life, Maslow went beyond “self-actualization”. He
considered self-transcendence to be the highest need and greatest aspiration
and recognized self-transcendence as a step beyond self-actualization.
In the state of self-transcendence, a person seeks to further a cause
beyond the self and to experience a communion beyond the geographical
boundaries of the self through peak experience. This may involve service
to others, devotion to an ideal (e.g., truth, art) or a cause (e.g., social
justice, environmentalism, the pursuit of science, a religious faith), and/or
a desire to be united with what is perceived as transcendent or divine. The
self only finds its true actualization in giving itself to some higher purpose
outside itself, in altruism and spirituality.20 It is a well-known fact that
20
See: Mark E. Koltko-Rivera, “Rediscovering the Later Version of Maslow’s Hierarchy of
Needs: Self-Transcendence and Opportunities for Theory, Research, and Unification”, in:
Review of General Psychology, Vol. 10, No. 4, (2006): 302–317. Retrieved Jan. 14, 2016:
http://academic.udayton.edu/jackbauer/Readings%20595/Koltko-Rivera%2006%20
trans%20self-act%20copy.pdf. Also see: Robert A. Emmons, The Psychology of Ultimate
Concerns: Motivation and Spirituality in Personality (New York: Guilford Press, 1999).
towards the end of his life, Maslow discovered Taoism, the philosophy of
let be attitude.
Maslow describes a self-transcending human being as follows:
The fully developed (and very fortunate) human being working under the
best conditions tends to be motivated by values which transcend his self.
They are not selfish anymore in the old sense of that term. Beauty is not
within one’s skin nor is justice or order. One can hardly class these desires
as selfish in the sense that my desire for food might be. My satisfaction with
achieving or allowing justice is not within my own skin.… It is equally out-
side and inside: therefore, it has transcended the geographical limitations of
the self.21
Maslow regards the self-transcending human being as the most fortunate

one since such a person has freed himself or herself from the shackles of a
self-limiting relative self. Such an individual has liberated himself from the
most fundamental human disability: self-centeredness. Now, s/he is able to
find fulfillment in living the higher values of beauty, truth and justice.
In his most-perceptive assessment of Maslow’s later work, Mark
E. Koltko-Rivera contends that the conventional description of Abraham
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is not accurate as a description of Maslow’s later
thought. In presenting a revised version that includes self-transcendence
as the highest value, he concludes:
It is time to change the textbook accounts of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

Inclusion of self-transcendence at the top of the needs hierarchy is a more
accurate reflection of Maslow’s theory. … Incorporating self-transcendence
into Maslow’s theory can help psychology develop a better grasp of how
different people and cultures construe the meaning of life. Considering the
construct of self-transcendence can help us better understand the moti-
vational underpinnings of both altruism and religious violence, as well as
human wisdom.22
Maslow was undoubtedly one of the greatest psychologists of modern

times. His theory, albeit in its general outline, has an intuitive logic and
popular appeal. However, recent research has pointed out some limita-
tions to the theory. For example, the actual hierarchy of needs may not
21
Abraham H. Maslow, “The farther reaches of human nature”. Journal of Transpersonal
Psychology, 1(1), (1969): 3–4.
22
Mark E. Koltko-Rivera, “Rediscovering the Later Version of Maslow’s Hierarchy of
Needs: Self-Transcendence and Opportunities for Theory, Research, and Unification,” 313.
28 S. DHIMAN
always conform to Maslow’s classification. Similarly, need hierarchy may

not always transfer very well to other cultures.23 Be that as it may, Maslow
stands tall as a prophet of human potential and his pioneer conception
of self-actualization and self-transcendence as human values has secured
him a permanent place among the immortals in the field of humanistic
psychology. It is one of the towering contributions of Maslow that posi-
tive psychology has come to be recognized as a viable field of research and
exploration. It will not be an exaggeration to say that the germ of most of
the key tenets of positive psychology lies in the writings of Maslow.
Frederick Herzberg’s Two-Factor Theory

An alternative approach to understanding the psychology of motivation
is presented by Frederick Herzberg in the form of two-factor motivation-
hygiene theory, as reported in his Harvard Business Review article orig-
inally published in 1968.24 The theory was initially developed from an
examination of events in the lives of 203 engineers and accountants:
“Briefly, we asked our respondents to describe periods in their lives when
they were exceedingly happy and unhappy with their jobs. Each respon-
dent gave as many ‘sequences of events’ as he could that met certain cri-
teria.” Later it was corroborated through 16 other investigations, using
a wider variety of populations.25 The findings of these explorations were
revealing and counter-intuitive in terms of how people responded to the
questions of happiness or unhappiness at work.
Herzberg discovered that the factors leading to job satisfaction
(and motivation) are “separate and distinct from those that lead to job
dissatisfaction.”26 The findings revealed that certain characteristics of a job
are consistently related to job satisfaction, while different factors are asso-
ciated with job dissatisfaction. According to Herzberg, “The opposite of
job satisfaction is not job dissatisfaction but, rather, no job satisfaction; and
similarly, the opposite of job dissatisfaction is not job satisfaction, but no
23
See: Nancy Adler, International Dimension of Organizational Behavior (Cincinnati,
OH: Southwestern Publishing, 2007). Geert Hofstede, Culture’s Consequences: Comparing
Values, Behaviors, Institutions and Organizations Across Nations (Newbury Park, CA: Sage,
2nd edition, 2003).
24
Frederick Herzberg, “One More Time: How Do You Motivate Employees?” Best of
HBR, Harvard Business Review (January 2003): 87–96.
25
Ibid., 90.
26
Ibid., 91.
job dissatisfaction.”27 Herzberg identified two sets of factors: environmen-

tal factors (context of the job) and growth or motivator factors (content
of the job). The hygiene factors pertain to characteristics that influence job
dissatisfaction, such as working conditions, supervisors, pay and security,
and company policies. The second set of factors called motivators increase
satisfaction and commitment and include elements such as the work itself,
achievement, recognition, responsibility, advancement and growth oppor-
tunities. Put differently, hygiene factors are extrinsic while motivators are
intrinsic. Extrinsic motivation comes from outside a person—whether it is
in the form of a carrot or a stick. Intrinsic motivation refers to a person’s
internal desire to do something.
Although it is necessary to have the hygiene factors in place, the true
motivation comes from such growth factors as the meaningfulness and
challenge of the work itself, responsibility, and opportunities for advance-
ment. Developed in the 1950s and 1960s, Herzberg’s theory is still rel-
evant in its understanding of the key factors of job satisfaction. To enhance
further the value of two-factor theory, Herzberg recommended job enrich-
ment as a continuous management function.
This theory is also not without its detractors. One common criticism of
the theory is that it assumes a strong correlation between job satisfaction
and productivity. Although Herzberg himself did not use the word pro-
ductivity in his aforementioned HBR article, the theory’s implicit assump-
tion that happy and satisfied workers produce more might not be true.
Some critics also point out that part of the reason why the accountants
and engineers felt so positive about the motivators or growth factors was
because their basic needs were already satisfied. Nevertheless, the theory
does provide an important framework in terms of intrinsic and extrinsic
motivation. The real motivation for performing great tasks can only lie
within a person. You cannot expect a great art performance just by offer-
ing better pay or working conditions. The greater the complexity of the
task, the higher the value of intrinsic motivation.
Intrinsic motivation is vitally linked to creativity. We are at our creative
best when we do what we intrinsically love and love what we do, says
Teresa Amabile, an expert of creativity from Harvard:
Maintaining your own creativity in your work depends on maintaining your

intrinsic motivation. This means two things. You should do what you love,
Ibid.
27
30 S. DHIMAN
and you should love what you do. The first is a matter of finding work that
matches well with your expertise, your creative thinking skills, and your
strongest intrinsic motivations. The second is a matter of finding a work
environment that will allow you to retain that intrinsic motivational focus,
while supporting your exploration of new ideas.28
Amabile provides a succinct summary of the need and importance of

maintaining a high level of intrinsic motivation at work in one sentence:
do what you love and love what you do. Doing what we love involves
finding work that is in accord with our expertise. And loving what we do
entails finding a supportive work environment that honors our exploration
of novel ideas and ventures.
Goal-Setting and Human Motivation

The tragedy of life does not lie in not reaching your goals. The tragedy lies in
having no goals to reach.29
—Robert H. Smith
This quote, even as the opening quote in this chapter, reveals the danger
of not reaching our highest potential, either because of having no goals or
aiming low. When we have no goals to strive for, we drift aimlessly and our
life loses its meaning. And when we aim low, we shortchange ourselves by
settling for less than what we can be. In either case, it represents a poten-
tial loss to the universe in terms of wasted talent and unrealized potential.
Analyzing nearly 400 studies, Edwin Locke and Gary Latham developed
goal setting theory in 1990 which has been rated as # 1 in importance
among 73 management theories.30 According to these authors, “Goal
setting theory is a theory that explains what causes some people perform
better on work-related tasks than others.”31 This theory begins with the
premise that life is a process of goal-produced action and goals affect action.
Goals are a cornerstone of the human motivational endeavor. Psychologists
28
Teresa Amabile, Motivating Creativity in Organizations: On Doing What You Love and
Loving What You Do, California Management Review, 40 (I) Fall 1997, 55 (emphasis
added).
29
Cited in Edwin A. Locke and Gary P. Latham, New Developments in Goal Setting and
Task Performance (London: Routledge, 2012), 3.
30
Ibid., xiv.
31
Locke and Latham, New Developments in Goal Setting and Task Performance, 3.
have studied extensively the way in which goals affect task performance
since they serve as self-regulation measures as well a reference point for
performance. Extensive survey of the psychology literature on goals has
shown that “the regulation of motivation by goal setting is a remarkably
robust phenomenon.”32 Goals serve as a cornerstone of human behavior
and work as self-direction mechanisms. Having well-directed goals explains
why some people perform better at work than others.
Just Trying to Do Our Best is Not Enough!

Contrary to the popular myth, telling someone, or yourself, to just “do
your best” is not a great motivator. It might appear to be encouraging. In
reality, however, it is like allowing others or oneself to be mediocre. It has
been observed that the best way to kill motivation is to expect and accept
mediocre performance from others.
Locke and Latham report two core findings from their review of nearly
400 empirical studies that led to the development of goal-setting theory
in 1990:
1. There is a linear relationship between the degree of goal-difficulty

and performance.
2. Specific, difficult goals lead to higher performance than no goals as
well as vague, abstract goals such as “do your best.”33
The research shows that ‘do-your-best’ goals lead to low perfor-

mance.34 This may seem counter-intuitive at first. After all, this is what
we are told at school and in most other life situations. And it seems fair
too. How does it lead to low performance one may wonder? Locke and
Latham explain: “The problem with a do-best goal is ambiguity as to
what constitutes performance effectiveness. It is defined subjectively. A
specific, high goal eliminates ambiguity as to what constitutes high effec-
tive performance. It orients an individual’s attention and effort toward
32
Bandura in his foreword to Edwin A. Locke and Gary P. Latham, A Theory of Goal
Setting & Task Performance (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1990), xii.
33
Locke and Latham, New Developments in Goal Setting and Task Performance, 5.
34
Edwin A. Locke and Gary P. Latham, A Theory of Goal Setting & Task Performance
(Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1990). Edwin A. Locke and Gary P. Latham, “Work
Motivation and Satisfaction: Light at the End of the Tunnel,” Psychological Science, 1(4), (1990):
240–246.
32 S. DHIMAN
goal-relevant activities and away from those that are deemed to be irrel-
evant. In addition it activates the knowledge and skills a person possesses
that are necessary to attain the goal. Finally, a specific, high goal also
leads people to work longer at a task than a vague or easy goal.”35 The
key seems to be having clear, specific goals that result in effective per-
formance than vague and ambiguous “do-your-best” goals that lead to
diffused efforts.
Evidence from more than 1000 studies conducted by researchers across
the globe shows that goals that not only spell out exactly what needs to
be accomplished, but that also set the bar for achievement high, result
in far superior performance than simply trying to ‘“do your best’. It is
because more difficult goals cause you, often unconsciously, to increase
your effort, focus and commitment to the goal, persist longer, and make
better use of the most effective strategies.36 This is, then, the alchemy
behind high performance: when we strive to reach for stretch goals, they
also stretch our ability to reach them.
In their review of the large body of empirical research carried out by
psychologists, Locke and Latham further state that “goals serve as the
inflection point or reference standard for satisfaction versus dissatisfaction
[…] For any given trial, exceeding the goal provides increasing satisfac-
tion as the positive discrepancy grows, and not reaching the goal cre-
ates increasing dissatisfaction as the negative discrepancy grows.”37 This
research underscores conventional wisdom: nothing succeeds like success.
Every success at stretch goals strengthens our resolve to stretch more and
leads to greater satisfaction and vice versa.
After analyzing the process of self-regulation through self-set goals,
Alexander Koch and Julia Nafziger highlight the limits of self-regulation
through goal-setting and conclude that
People have the capacity to set goals for themselves that remain meaning-
ful over time—a fact that is well documented in the psychology literature.
What our model shows is that such goals help some people to engage in self-
regulation. However, there are limits to self-regulation even if an individual
35
Locke and Latham, New Developments in Goal Setting and Task Performance, 5–6.
36
Heidi Grant Halvorson, “The 3 Biggest Myths About Motivation That Won’t Go
Away,” Psychology Today (June 2011).
37
Edwin A. Locke and Gary P. Latham, “Building a Practically Useful Theory of Goal
Setting and Task Motivation,” American Psychologist (2002), 57(9), 709–710.
can commit to his goal: Because goals are painful self-disciplining devices,
the individual may rationally choose not to set a tough goal for himself and
rather give up on self-regulation.38
Can people set too tough goals for themselves? Studies show that we do
not have to worry about this: the challenge in setting high goals acts as a
self-regulating mechanism for the most part to prevent such a phenom-
enon from happening too often.
The Unfulfilled Promise of Self-Esteem

Recently, in media and other popular self-help literature, we see a lot of
attention being paid to maintaining what is called “healthy self-esteem”. The
popular view is that feeling good about oneself brings about a variety of
benefits. Educators talk about boosting students’ self-esteem and parents try
very hard to help their children feel better about themselves. However, many
question the hype about the need for boosting self-esteem and feel that it
over-promises and under-delivers.39 Skeptics aver that claims about the value
of self-esteem are based on wishful thinking and not on hard data. What does
research say (or not say) about self-esteem’s relation to achievement? First
let’s define our terms. Self-esteem is defined in relation to how we evaluate
ourselves and our characteristics, especially good qualities. According to the
Stanley Coopersmith, self-esteem refers to “personal judgment of worthi-
ness that is expressed in the attitudes the individual holds toward himself.”40
Simply put, Self-esteem is about how worthy we think we are.
Does it really pay to have high self-esteem? Morris Rosenberg, a lead-
ing figure in the self-esteem field, and his colleagues wrote in 1989 that
“global self-esteem appears to have little or no effect in enhancing aca-
demic performance.”41 Having done a thorough review of the literature
38
Alexander Koch and Julia Nafziger, “Self-Regulation through Goal Setting,” A
Discussion Paper No. 3893, published by The Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn
(December 2008). Retrieved January 16, 2016: http://ftp.iza.org/dp3893.pdf.
39
See: Roy F. Baumeister, ed., Self-Esteem: The Puzzle of Low Self-Regard (New York:
Plenum, 1993).
40
Stanley Coopersmith, The Antecedents of Self-Esteem (San Francisco: W.H. Freeman,
1967), 5.
41
Morris Rosenberg, Carmi Schooler, and Carrie Schoenbach, “Self-Esteem and
Adolescent Problems: Modeling Reciprocal Effects,” American Sociological Review, vol. 54,
1989, pp. 1004–18.
34 S. DHIMAN
on self-esteem, Roy F. Baumeister concluded his commentary as fol-

lows: “After all these years, I’m sorry to say, my recommendation is this:
Forget about self-esteem and concentrate more on self-control and self-
discipline.”42 Trying harder and sustained will power leads to better per-
formance. In fact, research shows that attaining and maintaining a high
sense of self-esteem leads to a host of psychological disorders: narcissism,
self-absorption, self-righteous anger, and so on.43 Not only self-esteem
does not deliver, it has a number of unintended consequences as well. As
a society, have we gone overboard about esteeming the self-esteem a bit
too much? While this might be true, research does show that there are few
areas where self-esteem confers some benefits.
According to Baumeister, failure of self-control is implicated in most
of the problems that plague us. He avers that despite the enthusiastic
embrace of self-esteem, we found that it conferred only two benefits. It
feels good and it supports initiative.44 In all fairness, he recounts that there
are a few areas where higher self-esteem seemed to bring some benefits:
For instance, people with high self-esteem are generally happier and less
depressed than others, though we can’t quite prove that high self-esteem
prevents depression or causes happiness. Young women with high self-
esteem seem less susceptible to eating disorders. In some studies (though
not all), people with high self-esteem bounce back from misfortune and
trauma faster than others.45
Paresky cites research indicating that there are at least three things one can
do to improve performance where self-esteem has failed to deliver: effort,
will power, and self-compassion.46 It is clear that betting on one’s effort
and will power is a much surer route to achievement than waiting for one’s
self-esteem to fructify. And self-compassion helps too.
42
Roy F. Baumeister, “The Lowdown on High Self-Esteem Thinking you’re hot stuff isn’t
the promised cure-all.” Los Angeles Times, January 25, 2005. Retrieved November 2, 2015:
http://articles.latimes.com/2005/jan/25/opinion/oe-baumeister25.
43
Kristin Neff, Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself (New York:
William Morrow Paperbacks; reprint edition, 2015). For a good summary of the key ideas in
the book, see Kristin Neff, Why Self-Compassion Trumps Self-Esteem: http://greatergood.
berkeley.edu/article/item/try_selfcompassion.
44
Roy F. Baumeister, “The Lowdown on High Self-Esteem.”
45
Ibid.
46
Pamela Paresky, The Gift of Self-Esteem: The promises that “Self-Esteem” made but couldn’t
keep, Psychology Today, Oct. 25, 2015. Retrieved November 1, 2015: https://www.psychology-
today.com/blog/happiness-and-the-pursuit-leadership/201510/the-gift-self-esteem.
Self-Compassion Trumps Self-Esteem

In 1990, a group of Western scientists and Buddhist teachers met
the Dalai Lama during a conference in Dharamshala, India. Sharon
Salzburg, a renowned Buddhist teacher, asked the Dalai Lama about
how they might help their students deal with the feelings of self-hatred,
shame, and worthlessness. The Dalai Lama was genuinely surprised to
hear this and could not believe that someone might in fact hate them-
selves! Could lack of self-compassion be purely a Western phenomenon?
Research by Kristin Neff points out that self-hatred is not unique to
Western society.47 And this partially explains the reason behind Sharon
Salzburg’s question.
In a recent study, it was noted that self-compassion is associated with
happiness, optimism, peace of mind, wisdom, curiosity and emotional
intelligence. Researchers further noted that, “Self-compassion predicted
more stable feelings of self-worth than self-esteem and was less contingent
on particular outcomes.”48 Simply put, self-compassion is about being
kind to yourself. With self-compassion, we extend ourselves the same kind-
ness we would extend to a close friend. Neff explains that self-compassion
is neither self-pity nor self-indulgence.49 It is about being realistic about
one’s self-worth.
In a recent study, Kristin Neff and Ross Vonk investigated the benefits
of self-compassion versus self-esteem with more than three thousand peo-
ple from various walks of life. They found that self-compassion predicted
more stable feelings of self-worth than self-esteem and was less contingent
on outside factors like social approval, success in competitions, or feeling
attractive. A really striking finding of the study was that people with high self-
esteem were much more narcissistic than those with low self-esteem. Authors
of this study also found that people who invest their self-worth in feeling
superior and infallible tend to get angry and defensive when their status is
threatened. People who compassionately accept their imperfection, how-
ever, no longer need to engage in such unhealthy behaviors to protect
their egos. Results from these two studies suggest that self-compassion
47
Christopher K. Germer, The Mindful Path to Self-Compassion: Freeing Yourself from
Destructive Thoughts and Emotions (New York: Guildford Publications, 2009), 141.
48
Kristin D. Neff and Ross Vonk, Self-Compassion Versus Global Self-Esteem: Two
Different Ways of Relating to Oneself, Journal of Personality, 77 (1), (2009): 23–50.
49
See Neff, What Self-Compassion is not. Retrieved March 16, 2016: http://self-compas-
sion.org/what-self-compassion-is-not-2/.
36 S. DHIMAN
might be a useful alternative to global self-esteem when considering what

constitutes a healthy self-stance.50
According to Neff, self-compassion entails treating oneself with kind-
ness, recognizing one’s shared humanity, and being mindful when consid-
ering negative aspects of oneself.51 On her website, Neff explains the three
elements of self-compassion as follows52:
1. Self-Kindness: Self-compassion entails being warm and under-

standing toward ourselves when we suffer, fail, or feel inadequate,
rather than ignoring our pain or flagellating ourselves with
self-criticism.
2. Common Humanity: Self-compassion involves recognizing that
suffering and personal inadequacy is part of the shared human expe-
rience—something that we all go through rather than being some-
thing that happens to “me” alone.
3. Mindfulness: Self-compassion also requires taking a balanced
approach to our negative emotions so that feelings are neither sup-
pressed nor exaggerated.
Thus, “by tapping into our inner wellsprings of kindness, acknowledg-

ing the shared nature of our imperfect human condition, we can start
to feel more secure, accepted, and alive.”53 Neff’s findings are of far-
reaching consequences in terms of workplace engagement and fulfillment.
Self-compassion avoids the two extremes of self-pity or self-indulgence
and helps develop healthy self-stance. One feels more secure within, free
from seeking outside approval compulsively. Yet, one is always available to
extend the same compassion toward others readily whenever needed. This
brings greater harmony in personal and workplace interactions.
50
Neff and Vonk, (2009). See also Neff, Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind
to Yourself (New York: William Morrow Paperbacks; reprint edition, 2015).
51
Neff, Self-Compassion, Self-Esteem, and Well-Being, Social and Personality Psychology
Compass 5/1 (2011): 1–12.
52
Neff, The three elements of self-compassion. Retrieved March 15, 2016: http://self-
compassion.org/the-three-elements-of-self-compassion-2/.See also Neff, Self-Compassion:
The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself (New York: William Morrow Paperbacks; reprint
edition, 2015).
53
Neff, Why Self-Compassion Trumps Self-Esteem. Retrieved March 16, 2016: http://
greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/try_selfcompassion.
Self-Determination Theory (SDT)54

Self-determination theory (hereafter, SDT) postulates that people have
three inherent psychological needs—the need for competence, related-
ness and autonomy. The proponents of SDT maintain that these needs
are not learned but are an inherent aspect of human nature and thus
operate across gender, culture, and time. The need for competence rep-
resents the urge to master the environment. The need for relatedness
concerns our universal propensity to be connected to and care for other
people. Autonomy involves acting with a sense of volition and having
the freedom of choice.55 The understanding about the threefold need
for mastery, autonomy, and relatedness can aid greatly in work design
and job-enrichment resulting in greater productivity and overall success
in the workplace.
Marylène Gagné & Edward L. Deci further explain that SDT defines
needs differently:
SDT defines needs as universal necessities, as the nutriments that are essen-
tial for optimal human development and integrity. According to this defini-
tion, something is a need only to the extent that its satisfaction promotes
psychological health and its thwarting undermines psychological health.
Using this definition, the needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness
are considered important for all individuals, so SDT research focuses not on
the consequences of the strength of those needs for different individuals,
but rather on the consequences of the extent to which individuals are able
to satisfy the needs within social environments.56
It is well established that use of salient extrinsic rewards to motivate work

behavior can be deleterious to intrinsic motivation and can thus have
negative consequences for psychological adjustment, performance in
54
E. L. Deci & M. Vansteenkiste, Self-determination theory and basic need satisfac-
tion: Understanding human development in positive psychology. Ricerche di Psichologia,
2004, 27, 17–34. See also: Deci, E. L., & R. M. Ryan (2000). The “what” and “why”
of goal pursuits: Human needs and the self-determination of behavior. Psychological
Inquiry, 11, 227–268. Ryan & Deci (2000). Self-determination theory and the facilita-
tion of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being. American Psychologist,
55, 68–78.
55
Ibid.
56
Marylène Gagné & Edward L. Deci, Self-determination theory and work motivation.
Journal of Organizational Behavior, 26.4 (Jun 2005): 331–362.
38 S. DHIMAN
interesting and personally-important activities, and citizenship behavior.

However, research also clarifies ways in which tangible rewards can be
used so as not to be detrimental to intrinsic motivation. Furthermore, self-
determination theory has detailed the processes through which extrinsic
motivation can become autonomous, and research suggests that intrin-
sic motivation (based on interest) and autonomous extrinsic motivation
(based on importance) are both related to performance, satisfaction, trust,
and well-being in the workplace.57 Leaders can use both extrinsic and
intrinsic motivators in tandem to optimize performance in the workplace
and to improve employee engagement.
Deci and Vansteenkiste provide three philosophical assumptions which
undergird both the self-determination theory and positive psychology:
1. Human beings are inherently proactive and they have the potential
to master both the inner forces (viz., their drives and emotions) and
external (i.e., environmental) forces they encounter rather than
being positively controlled by these forces.
2. Human beings, as self-organizing systems, have inherent tendency
towards growth, development, and integrated functioning.
3. Although activity and optimal development are inherent to the
human organism, these do not happen automatically.58
For people to actualize their inherent talent, they require self-motivation

and a supportive social environment. Ryan and Deci suggest a dialectical
relation between active organism and social environment.59 Thus, whether
people’s potentials will be actualized or their vulnerabilities will dominate
will depend upon social conditions besides their self-motivation. Drawing
upon their review of the work of other psychologists before them, Ryan
and Deci have explicitly asserted that human beings are motivated by three
fundamental psychological needs: for autonomy, competence, and related-
ness: first, to feel autonomous or self-determining—“to experience one’s
actions as emanating from the self”; second, to have a sense of oneself as
competent and effective; and third, to be related to others and to be part
57
Gagné & Deci (2005): 352.
58
Deci & Vansteenkiste (2004): 17–34.
59
Ryan and Deci, Self-Determination Theory, Encyclopedia of Quality of Life and Well-
Being Research, 5755–60. Springer Netherlands.
of a social world.60 These findings have far-reaching implications for basic

needs and life goals—both extrinsic and intrinsic.
Basic Needs and Life Goals

At the core of SDT theory are two types of goals that propel people to
action—intrinsic and extrinsic. There is a difference between extrinsic and
intrinsic motivation; and research shows that intrinsic motivators are more
powerful. Intrinsic motivation refers to engagement in an activity with no
reason other than the enjoyment and satisfaction of engagement itself.
Examples of intrinsic motivation would include enjoyment of work itself,
sense of achievement, and personal growth. Whereas, extrinsic motiva-
tion refers to engagement in activities that provide for the attainment of
external rewards such as money, accolades, social approval, and a sense of
worthiness.
If you use monetary rewards to get people to perform a certain way,
those rewards may have the opposite effect in the long run, especially
when the extrinsic rewards are withdrawn. The benefits of intrinsic moti-
vation to learning and development are well documented in research lit-
erature. Studies suggest that engagement out of intrinsic motivation leads
to enhanced comprehension, creativity, cognitive adaptability, achieve-
ment, and long-term well-being. By comparison, engagement out of
extrinsic motivation may end once the external motivator is withdrawn.
However extrinsic motivation is preferable to having no motivation at all.
Sometimes we are required to engage in tasks that we are not motivated
to do—something that we have to do. Extrinsic motivators can be handy
in motivating people in these tasks.61 Intrinsic motivators help us in doing
what we love to do; extrinsic motivators help us to learn to love what we
have to do.
Built around intrinsic motivation, Dan Pink calls it the new operat-
ing system for our businesses. It revolves around three elements: auton-
omy, mastery and purpose. Autonomy: the urge to direct our own lives.
60
Ryan and Deci, “Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation,
social development, and well-being.” American Psychologist, 2000, 55, 68–78. Also see: Deci
and Ryan, Intrinsic Motivation and Self-Determination in Human Behavior (New York:
Plenum, 1985).
61
Carol Sansone and Judith M. Harackiewicz (Eds.), Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation:
The Search for Optimal Motivation and Performance (San Diego, CA: Academic Press, 2000),
257–307.
40 S. DHIMAN
Mastery: the desire to get better and better at something that matters.
Purpose: the yearning to do what we do in the service of something larger
than ourselves.62 The issue of intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation is complex
since their effects interrelate. It is not a matter of simple choice in terms of
the superiority of intrinsic motivators to extrinsic in all situations. There
are effective extrinsic motivators as well as counter-productive extrinsic
factors. Leaders have to choose carefully both the intrinsic and extrinsic
motivators so that they can complement each other in achieving optimum
workplace engagement and fulfillment.
Concluding Thoughts
Motivation is what energizes, directs, and sustains human behavior in all
its endeavors. It is the galvanizing force of all that is vital and meaning-
ful in life. Underscoring the importance of intrinsic motivation, recent
research has confirmed that along with autonomy and mastery, a sense
of contribution to a larger purpose constitutes a critical component of all
meaningful work. It is morally and spiritually uplifting when we feel part
of something important, something larger, and something greater and
when we know that our contribution helps make a difference in the world.
To be motivating, the work itself needs to be meaningful, valuable,
engaging, and purposeful. This leads to true fulfillment. Self-actualizing
individuals are well aware that the real motivation for great performance
tasks can only lie within a person. You cannot expect excellent work just by
offering better pay or working conditions. New motivation research shows
that money is a motivator mainly for basic, repetitive and rudimentary
tasks. The work that requires greater complexity needs deeper, intrinsic
rewards.
Research also shows that self-esteem can become an ego trap. It is over-
rated in terms of its value in human persistence and excellence. While hav-
ing a healthy self-esteem is beneficial, the process of trying to increase it
can paradoxically have the exact opposite effect. It is better to concen-
trate more on self-control and self-discipline than self-esteem. Self-esteem
62
Dan Pink, The Puzzle of Motivation. TED Global, 2009. Transcript retrieved January
17, 2016: http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation/transcript?language=en.
See also: Daniel H. Pink, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us (New York:
Riverhead Books, 2011).
over-promises but under-delivers. Self-discipline under-promises and over-

delivers. What we need is not more self-esteem but more self-insight and
self-compassion. And working for the well-being of others may actually be
the best way to boost our own self-esteem.
I conclude this chapter with a quote attributable to the Buddha in
which he highlights the value of self-compassion63:
You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more
deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person
is not to be found anywhere. You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire
universe deserve your love and affection.
The Buddha seems to be advocating unconditional compassion toward

oneself in this quote. Loving-kindness toward oneself is natural and under-
standable. However, upon a little reflection, it becomes evident that the
Buddha is really pointing out the need to extend loving-kindness toward
others: since everyone’s loves himself or herself the most, we should be
kind to everyone. In sum, self-compassion is not where the process ends—
it’s the beginning!
Self-Motivation: Reflection Questions

1. Maslow postulated that human needs are organized into a hierarchy
of relative prepotency, progressing from deficiency-needs to being-
needs. Can a person rise up to the self-actualization level without
having first secured the basic survival needs?
2. Explain how exemplary leaders take it as their major goal the awak-
ening and fulfillment of higher order needs of themselves and
others.
63
Like many quotes attributable to the Buddha, these are also not his exact words. The
original seems to be from a collection called Udana of Pali canon, as follows: “Searching all
directions with one’s awareness, one finds no one dearer than oneself. In the same way, others
are fiercely dear to themselves. So, one should not hurt others if one loves oneself.” (Bhikkhu
Thanissaro’s translation) Retrieved April 7, 2016: http://fakebuddhaquotes.com/you-your-
self-as-much-as-anybody-in-the-entire-universe-deserve-your-love-and-affection/. A varia-
tion on this theme is also found in the Buddhist manual of meditation, Visuddhimagga—the
Path of Purification: “Just as I want to be happy, and dread pain, as I want to live and not die,
so do other beings, too.” As is clear from these quotes, self-compassion is not excluded; it is
just that it is not the end of the Buddhist practice of loving-kindness.
42 S. DHIMAN
3. Can a person discover true fulfillment by working at something that

such a person does not consider worthwhile, even if it pays well?
What are the three key motivators for tasks involving increasing
complexity?
4. Is self-actualization a matter of one great aha moment? Or rather, it
is a matter of degree, or little victories accumulated one by one over
time? Briefly explain.
5. Do you think that the self only finds its true actualization in giving
itself to some higher purpose outside itself, in altruism and spiritual-
ity? To be motivating, does the work itself need to be meaningful,
valuable, engaging, or relevant?
6. Studies show that ‘do-your-best’ goals lead to low performance.
What is the alchemy behind the research that difficult goals lead to
higher performance?
7. What effect does self-esteem have in enhancing academic perfor-
mance? Do you agree with research that shows that it is better to
concentrate more on self-control and self-discipline than
self-esteem?
CHAPTER 3
Self-Mastery: Mastering the “Me”

in Leadership
Start by doing what’s necessary;

then do what’s possible;
and suddenly you are doing the impossible.
—ST. FRANCIS of ASSISI
Introduction
The opening quote by St. Francis of Assisi underscores the importance of
self-effort, an important ingredient of self-mastery. In the development of
holistic leadership, the value of self-mastery can hardly be over-emphasized.
This chapter builds on self-motivation and develops the theme of self-
mastery as the foundation for achievement in any endeavor including lead-
ership. It is a well-established fact that without self-discipline one cannot
attain success in any field, whether it is science, sports, music or any other
endeavor. Focusing especially on psychological and emotional aspects, this
chapter approaches self-mastery as integration of human personality.
In one sense, this chapter operationalizes the findings of self-motiva-
tion as presented in the previous chapter. Accordingly, this chapter dis-
cusses the role of self-discipline, self-effort, self-will, and self-perseverance
in fostering self-development and in preparing us for life and leadership.
It draws upon the key lessons of personal mastery as presented in the
Bhagavad Gītā, the most important paradigmatic spiritual text of Hindus.
Its message is universal in scope and rational in its approach. It has been

DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-55571-7_3
44 S. DHIMAN
rightly observed that the Gītā is “catholic in its message, comprehensive in

its outlook, and concrete in its suggestions.”1 The chapter also references
Aristotelian theory of the golden mean as the desirable middle ground
between two extremes—one of excess and the other of deficiency. As an
added feature, the chapter will review research on expert performance (the
making of champions) to inform the quest for self-mastery.
Personal mastery, or ‘private victory’ as it is sometimes called, has lately
received great attention in management literature. In his celebrated work,
Fifth Discipline: The Art and the Practice of Learning Organization, Peter
Senge devotes a full chapter to the topic of personal mastery.2 Senge consid-
ers personal mastery as the most elusive of the disciplines. In Senge’s concep-
tion, personal mastery mainly has to do with self-awareness and inner-work.
Senge describes it as “learning to expand our personal capacity to create the
results that we most desire.”3 In the similar vein, Stephen Covey, author of
a popular book titled 7 Habits of Highly Effective People,4 groups together
the first three of the seven habits and refers to them as the ‘private victory’.
Covey opines that private victories precede public wins. Before we can effec-
tively lead others, we must first learn to manage ourselves effectively.
The key focus of the chapter is the harmonious development of a leader’s
personality in all its essential dimensions—physical, psychological, intellec-
tual, emotional, moral, and spiritual. At its bare minimum, self-mastery
involves taking good care of our physical body through regular exercise
and balanced diet. We feed our body two to three times a day; likewise, we
need to nourish our mind with good intellectual diet that includes reading
and writing. We have to be careful about what ideas we feed our mind,
since mind matters the most and we become what we think. Goethe, the
great German poet, advised that “One ought, every day at least, to hear a
little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to
speak a few reasonable words.”5 Emotional health includes managing our
emotions of anger and anxiety through awareness and inner calmness.
1
P. Nagaraja Rao, Introduction to Vedanta (Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1966), 102.
2
Peter M. Senge, The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization
(New York: Doubleday, Revised and updated edition, 2006), 129–161.
3
Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook: Strategies and Tools for Building a Learning
Organization (New York: Crown Business, 1994), 6.
4
Stephen Covey, Seven Habits of Highly Fulfilled People: Powerful Lessons in Personal
Change, rev., ed. (New York: Free Press, 2004).
5
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Wilhelm Meister’s Lehrjahre (Apprenticeship) (1786–1830),
Bk. V, Ch. 1.
SELF-MASTERY: MASTERING THE “ME” IN LEADERSHIP 45
However, it is important to bear in mind that self-discipline is not about

suppressing one’s instinctual desires or proclivities. It is about moderating
them within reasonable bounds. As psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
reminds us:
Repression is not the way to virtue. When people restrain themselves out
of fear, their lives are by necessity diminished. Only through freely chosen
discipline can life be enjoyed and still kept within the bounds of reason. If
a person learns to control his instinctual desires, not because he has to, but
because he wants to, he can enjoy himself without becoming addicted.6
Mainly, self-mastery constitutes two steps—(1) Understanding the psy-

chological constituents of human personality, and (2) Overcoming disem-
powering psychological tendencies such as excessive desire, attachment,
pride, greed, anger, and jealousy. The Gītā provides precise instructions on
understanding our psychological make-up and overcoming these unwhole-
some tendencies and much more. In the following sections, we elaborate
on its teachings and note their relevance to holistic leadership.
The GĪTĀ and Self-Mastery:

The Life Worth Leading
Warren Bennis, a preeminent leadership scholar, has observed, “Leaders
are people who do the right thing; managers are people who do things
right.”7 While this may be a bit of an oversimplification—since both leaders
and managers need to do things right as well as do the right thing—doing the
right thing remains the perennial leadership challenge. But doing the right
thing presupposes knowledge of what the right thing is in the first place.
This is exactly the point where the Gītā begins. What is the utmost right thing
to do in any given situation? Surely, the answer to this enigmatic question
holds the key to many a management conundrum. By helping us focus on
the highest good in all we do, the Gītā unfolds as an extended ode to the
attainment of the ultimate good (niśreyas)—the knowledge of our one-
ness with the Ultimate Reality.
6
Cited in Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (New York,
NY: Harper and Row, 1990), 115 (italics in original).
7
Warren Bennis, An Invented Life: Reflections on Leadership and Change (New York:
Perseus Books Group, 1994), 78.
46 S. DHIMAN
Mind: Our Greatest Friend and Foe
The Gītā presents an inside-out leadership development approach based

on self-knowledge and self-mastery, the two main qualities of authentic
self-leadership. Senge, one of the key management thinkers of our time,
has quoted the Gītā in two of his celebrated books, The Fifth Discipline
and Presence.8 Although traditionally interpreted as a religious-spiritual
text, the Gītā encompasses great practical life lessons for modern times.
Its message fosters the holistic development of human personality in
all its dimensions (physical–psychological, emotional, intellectual, and
spiritual) by providing guidance on the three essential spiritual prac-
tices: ‘ training the mind’, ‘transforming the passions’, and ‘guarding
the heart’.9 The Gītā unfolds as an infallible guide for those higher-order
individuals who externally live a life of full engagement with the world,
while internally always remaining steadfastly anchored in the wisdom of
their Higher Self.
The Gītā reminds us that an unruly mind is our greatest foe, and a
stable mind our greatest friend. It places great emphasis on self-restraint
and mental discipline. It is common knowledge that mental strength and
determination are the keys to leadership success; leaders who are mentally
weak and wayward cannot achieve a durable and consistent organizational
vision or mission. The outcome of an unrestrained mind is a life given to
selfish desire, anger, and greed. Buddhist psychology also warns of three
mental traps or unwholesome tendencies of mind: greed, hatred, and
ignorance. If our attention emanates from any of these three unwhole-
some roots, then it is not appropriate and will not give us the knowledge
of reality as it truly is. A leader’s first job is to have an accurate knowledge
of the current reality.
If leadership is an extension of who we are, then leaders first need to
manage themselves before they can aspire to lead others. Underscoring
8
See Peter M. Senge, The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization
(New York: Doubleday, Revised and updated edition, 2006), 76. Peter M. Senge, C. Otto
Scharmer, and Joseph Jaworski, Presence: Human Purpose and the Field of the Future (New
York: Crown Books, 2008), 92.
9
In his fine preface to The Essential Gandhi (New York: Vintage Books, 2002), Eknath
Easwaran calls these three practices ‘the essence of the spiritual life’. These conform to the
threefold disciplines enunciated in various Indian wisdom texts—the path of knowledge
(jñāna yoga), the path of action (the Bhagavad Gītā and karma yoga), and the path of devo-
tion (bhakti yoga).
the importance of self-leadership, the Bhagavad Gītā further stresses

that, when facing a crisis, leaders must elevate themselves by self-effort
(uddharedātmanātmānaṃ: 6.5).10 This requires a deep understanding of
the workings of the mind. For those who have conquered their mind,
the mind is the best of friends, but for those who have failed to control
their mind, the mind will be their greatest enemy (ātmaivahyātmanoband
hurātmaivaripurātmanaḥ: 6.5). Without self-victory (ātma, self, jayaha,
mastery) one cannot attain success in any field. Essentially, it points out
that an un-mastered self is the biggest enemy of the individual; in fact,
Kṛṣṇa goes one step further, it is not the greatest enemy but it is the only
enemy!
An unrestrained and untrained mind is very weak and unstable and can-
not carry out any task, let alone lead. Arjuna tells Śrī Kṛṣṇa that the mind
is unsteady, restless, and yet very powerful, and as difficult to control as
the wind. Śrī Kṛṣṇa agrees that the mind is not easy to control; however,
he says that it is possible to control the mind by constant practice and
detachment or dispassion (abhyāsena … vairāgyeṇaca: 6.35).
Holistic leaders need to employ their intellect effectively to direct
their mind. In this regard, another Indian wisdom text, Kaṭhopaniṣad
1.3.3–4, likens the human body to a chariot (rathakalpanā) to describe
the position of the individual self (ātmā) vis-à-vis the senses (indriya),
mind (manas), and intellect (buddhi). The mind represents the reins and
the five senses are the horses. The objects perceived by the senses chart
the chariot’s path. The intellect is the driver and the self, as the passenger,
acts as the enjoyer or sufferer in the association of the mind and senses.11
Whereas an ordinary leader is constantly driven by a wayward mind and
unruly desires prompted by sense objects, a wise leader uses the power of
intelligence to distinguish between what is pleasant (preyas) and what is
right (śreyas).
10
All verses from the Gītā are quoted in the in ‘chapter, verse number’ order: For example
6.5 means chapter six, verse five. All translations are the author’s unless otherwise stated. All
Sanskrit verses are presented according to the International Alphabet of Sanskrit
Transliteration (IAST) convention that uses diacritical marks. The most often used mark is a
short horizontal bar over a letter which denotes a long sound.
11
The chariot metaphor occurs during mantras three and four in chapter one, section
three of Kaṭhopaniṣad, an Upaniṣad which has a few verses in common with the Bhagavad
Gītā. Plato also uses the chariot allegory in his dialog Phaedrus to explain the journey of the
human soul toward enlightenment.
48 S. DHIMAN
Curbing Desire, Anger and Greed

All wisdom traditions of the world are in agreement that self-centered
desire is the source of all sorrow and evil. The Gītā calls desire, anger and
greed the triple gates of hell, which bring about one’s downfall (trivid
haṃnarakasyedaṃdvāraṃnāśanamātmanah: 16.21). It makes clear that
(unsatisfied) desire is the cause of greed as well as anger. The Gītā says
that to control anger we first need to pay attention to its root cause. Anger
arises when someone stands in the way of our desired object—that is,
anger ensues from (unfulfilled) desire. And attachment to things, ideas,
and opinions lies at the root of desire. Therefore, to control anger, we
should first guard and calm our mind. If our mind remains in a state of
calm then no negative emotions can provoke it. The easiest way to be
peaceful in mind is to let our mind rest content within its own inner sanc-
tuary rather than constantly hankering after the worldly objects outside.
The Gītā categorically states:
śaknotīhaivayaḥsoḍhuṃprākśarīravimokṣaṇāt/
kāmakrodhodbhavaṃvegaṃsayuktaḥsasukhīnaraḥ// 5.23
Only those who are able to withstand the impulses of lust and anger arising
in the body are integrated (yuktaḥ) and live in joy.
The reason the Gītā lays so much importance on curtailing one’s desires is
because all evil proceeds from self-centered desires. A person who is selfish
cannot serve others; in fact, such a person becomes a bane to the society.
Therefore, according to the Gītā, a leader must first conquer desire if he or
she is to serve others. The three traps (excessive desire, anger, and greed)
are present in every dysfunctional organization, manifested to the highest
degree in its leaders. Elsewhere in the Gītā, Śrī Kṛṣṇa explains that attach-
ment breeds desire, and from desire (unfulfilled) ensues anger; anger
clouds judgment, and when judgment is beclouded, reasoning power is
lost; and with the loss of reasoning, one falls from one’s status as a human
being (2.62–63).
A leader should, therefore, manage his anger well and should not let
anger gain control over him. Mastering the emotion of anger is a not
an easy task, as many sages past and present have reminded us. Aristotle
expressed it deftly: “Anybody can become angry, that is easy; but to be
angry with the right person, and to the right degree, and at the right time,
for the right purpose, and in the right way, that is not within everybody’s
power and is not easy.”12 A most practical method for controlling anger
and other negative emotions is expressed by the acronym F.I.R, denoting
the first letters of the words frequency, intensity, and recovery. We should
try to first reduce the frequency of the occurrence of these negative emo-
tions, then curb their intensity, and finally reduce their recovery period.13
Life Marked By Sacrifice, Charity and Austerity
The Gītā (18.5) mandates a threefold act of sacrifice (yajña), charity

(dānaṃ), and austerity (tapas) and considers these as the ‘purifiers of the
wise’. ‘Yajña’ literally means a sacrifice or an offering. The highest form
of offering is living a life of sincerity—a life led by being good and doing
good. A sincere life is characterized by doing what we love and loving
what we have to do. ‘Dānaṃ’ means charity and denotes much more than
writing a check to a favorite cause or organization. At the deepest level,
it means the gift of ‘expressed love’. ‘Tapas’ means austerity or discipline.
The Gītā talks about several kinds of discipline. The most important is ‘vāk
tapas’— ‘discipline of speech’.
There are five such disciplines of speech that the Gītā recommends:
anudvegakaraṃvākyaṃsatyaṃpriyahitaṃcayat/
svādhyāyābhyasanaṃcaivavānmayaṃ tapa ucyate// 17.15
That speech which causes no mental anguish (disturbance) to anyone, which
is truthful, agreeable, and beneficial, as well as the practice of study of the
sacred books is considered to be the discipline of speech.
It is said that the Greek philosopher Socrates used to recommend a triple

test for the discipline of speech: “before you speak, let your words pass
through three gates: 1. Is it true; 2. Is it necessary; and 3. Is it kind?”
According to the Gītā (6.32) that person “is considered best who
judges happiness and sorrow in all beings, by the same standard as he
would apply to himself.”14 Holistic leaders apply this golden rule in all
12
Quoted in Edith M. Leonard, Lillian E. Miles, and Catherine S. Van der Kar, The Child:
At Home and School (New York: American Book Co., 1944), 203.
13
The F.I.R strategy of controlling anger was shared by Swami Paramarthananda in one of
his discourses on the Gītā.
14
See Swami Gambhīrānanda, trans., Bhagavad Gītā with the Commentary of Śaṅkarācārya
(Calcutta: Advaita Ashrama, 1984), 302.
50 S. DHIMAN
spheres of their life. This is the key to their moral self-mastery. The Gītā
states that the wise leaders act to set an example to the masses; so that
the unwary do not go astray (3.26); they work for the unification of the
world at large (lokasaṃgraham: 3.20, 3.25); for the welfare of all beings
(sarvabhūtahite: 5.25); and for the purification of the self (ātmaśuddhaye:
5.11). These four goals together furnish a touchstone for leadership suc-
cess in any setting.
The Gītā and Subduing the Imposter Ego

One of the key dimensions of personal mastery is understanding (and sub-
duing) the workings of the imposter ego. Misplaced ego has dire personal
and professional consequences: it is the greatest enemy of workplace amity
and harmony. Most psychological and emotional stress is caused by our
excessive self-centeredness. Understanding the workings of the imposter
ego and thereby rendering it ineffective is the first step on the path of
wisdom. In chapter 13 of the Bhagavad Gītā, where Śrī Kṛṣṇa begins
to describe the marks or means of true knowledge, we see ‘absence of
self-pride” (13.7) listed as the very first mark. In the next verse (13.8),
Śrī Kṛṣṇa again states: ‘and absence of egotism also’ (ahaṁkāra’evaca).
Note the word ‘also’ after the word ‘egotism’. Of the 20 marks of true
knowledge listed in verses 13.7–11, the word ‘also’ is appended only to
egotism/self-pride (ahaṁkāra). Something to take serious note of and
ponder over deeply!
As long as one harbors a sense of distinction/superiority, regardless
of the reason—justified or unjustified—one will labor in vain, not much
unlike the ox that turns the oil-press going back and forth. When God is
all there is, where is the need for entertaining any feelings of distinction or
superiority—no matter what the justification may be? Those who are truly
awakened become aware of the fact that ‘God is all there is’”—and that
God includes all, even the ones who may not be as exalted as oneself, in
one’s estimation! This knowledge fosters amity, understanding, and har-
mony in all settings and removes the conflict inherent in the ‘game of
one-up-ness’ that plagues most human interaction.
This feeling of false pride springs from a mistaken sense of inadequacy
about oneself and leads to a false projection of superiority and need for
constant seeking of external validation. The proper resolution of this prob-
lem is found in understanding oneself, through self-inquiry and contem-
plation, to be the full and complete Self (ātman). Such knowledge enables
one to act in the world with a deep sense of inner peace and fulfillment.
This is what is meant by being ātmavān (2.45), possessing the real Self, or
being unitively self-possessed.
According to the Gītā, no action is genuine unless it is performed in the
full wakefulness of Self-knowledge. Self-knowledge transforms our moti-
vation and liberates us from the narrow confines of self-centered action to
the freedom of serving others. Through this rediscovery of our intrinsic
freedom, we are also able to experience the calm bliss of the fullness of
our true Self and intuit the harmonious oneness of all existence. When
the false divisions and distinctions based on our narrow personal likes and
dislikes disappear, we are able to extend our benevolence without prefer-
ence or prejudice in all directions, and our existence benefits the whole
universe. Our very existence then becomes an offering to the Supreme, a
celebration of the Whole. And our feet get firmly planted on the path that
leads to peace, happiness, and liberation.
Personal Mastery According to the GĪTĀ
In the last 18 verses (2.55–2.72) of chapter two, the Gītā presents the
highest ideal of personal mastery through the conception of a sage stead-
fast in wisdom of the higher Self. Let us first look closely at these magnifi-
cent verses in order to understand their true import for Self-knowledge
and Self-realization. In these verses the marks of a sage established in wis-
dom of the Self (sthitaprajña) are described as follows:
When one completely casts off all selfish desires of the mind, finding con-
tentment by the Self in the Self alone; neither agitated by sorrow nor han-
kering after the sense pleasures; free from lust, fear, and anger; free from
attachment; neither elated by good fortune nor depressed by bad; with
senses subdued and mind ever absorbed in the Divine within—such a per-
son is truly wise.15
In this part of the description of the traits of a person of steady wisdom

we notice three main things: freedom from self-centered desire (and the
resultant anger, greed, and attachment: the triple gates of hell), an attitude
of equanimity, and absorption in the wisdom of the Self or Divine. Then
15
Eknath Easwaran, cited in Louis Fischer, Ed., The Essential Gandhi (New York: Vintage
Books, 2002), xvi.
52 S. DHIMAN
the Gītā goes on to explain the psychology of anger and the glory of a
person who has gone beyond self-interest and egotism:
Brooding on sense objects leads to attachment; from attachment comes

desire; and from (unfulfilled) desire ensues anger. Anger clouds judgment
and leads to loss of reason; and loss of reason brings utter ruin. … One who
has given up all desires and moves about free from longing, without self-
interest and egotism, such a person attains peace. Attaining this state even at
the time of death, one passes from death to immortality.16
It is important to note that the description of a person steady in wisdom

starts and ends with casting off all the selfish desires of the mind. The
Yogavāsiṣṭha Mahāramāyaṇa also states succinctly: “Wisdom proceeds
from the curtailing of desires.”17
There are at least four places where the characteristics of an ideal sage
are presented in the Gītā from different perspectives: 2.55–72; 12.13–20;
14.21–27; and 18.49–56 (in addition, we also find reaffirmation of the
same theme in selected verses of two other chapters: 13.7–11 and 16.1–3).
For example, chapter 12 (verses 13–20) describes the marks of a devotee
(bhakta); these have a striking similarity to the qualities of a person who
has transcended the sway of three modes of material nature, triguṇātīta
(14.21–27), which in turn bear a great similarity to the characteristics of a
person steadfast in wisdom (sthitaprajña) as described in chapter 2 (verses
55–72) as follows:
That person is dear to me who is free from ill-will, friendly and compas-
sionate; free from the sense of “I” and “mine”; equanimous in joy and sor-
row, forgiving, ever-content, firm in faith with his mind ever united with
16
Adapted from Eknath Easwaran, trans., The Bhagavad Gītā (New York: Vintage Spiritual
Classics, 2000), 68–69; Franklin Edgerton, trans., The Bhagavad Gītā (New York: Harper &
Row Publishers, 1964), 15–17; S. Radhākrishnan, The Bhagavad Gītā: With an Introductory
Essay, Sanskrit Text, English Translation, and Notes (London: George Allen and Unwin,
1958), 296–299; and Satinder Dhiman, trans., Sahaja-Gītā: The Essential Gītā [Selection
and Compilation, Rajendra Kumar Dhawan]. Based on Paramśraddheya Swāmījī Shrī
Rāmsukhdāsjī Mahārāj’s commentary on Śrīmad Bhagavad Gītā, entitled Sādhaka-Sañjivanī
(Gorakhpur, India: Gita Prakāshan, 2013), 125.
17
Vihari-Lala Mitra, trans., Vālmīki’s Yoga-vāsiṣṭha-mahārāmāyaṇa. Online edition,
retrieved January 25, 2016, http://www.wisdomlib.org/hinduism/book/yoga-vasistha-
volume-2-part-ii/d/doc118202.html.
Me; who has subdued his mind, senses, and body; and has surrendered heart
and mind to Me. … Not agitating the world, nor agitated by it, above the
sway of delight, envy, desire, and fear; who regards equally friend and foe,
praise and blame, pain and pleasure, free from selfish attachments; quiet,
ever-content, in harmony everywhere, firm in faith—such a person is dear
to Me.18
What is noteworthy in the above-quoted verses is that almost all of these

qualities of an ideal sage more or less focus on emotional maturity—the
ability to manage emotional disturbances and reactions calmly. Cultivating
these qualities is important for everyone, in both personal and profes-
sional arenas. For example, being friendly and compassionate and free
from malice (adveṣṭāsarvabhūtānāṃmaitraḥkaruṇa: 12.13), being free
from attachment, fear, and anger (vītarāgabhayakrodhaḥ: 2.56, 4.10), and
neither being a source of annoyance to fellow-beings nor feeling vexed
with them (yasmānnodvijatelokolokānnodvijatecayaḥ: 12.15)—all these
are signs of emotional stability which is the key to harmony in personal
and professional relationships.
This is a tall order of personal qualities for any leader to cultivate and
requires years and years of unswerving dedication, commitment, and per-
severance. These qualities represent the highest level of emotional matu-
rity, self-awareness, self-discipline, equanimity, and detachment and may
appear to be unattainable by any leader according to modern standards.
Herein lies the uniqueness of holistic leaders. They act as a “witness” of
high moral leadership without whom the limits of higher human possibili-
ties would neither be known nor sustained.
It is important to understand that the key to life’s fulfillment according
to the Gītā lies in Self-realization through Self-knowledge. Self-realization
is the means as well as the end. And all the keys to Self-realization are pre-
sented at the very beginning of the Gītā (2.55):
When one, finding contentment by the Self in the Self alone, completely
casts off all selfish desires of the mind; such a person is truly wise.19
Easwaran, cited in Fischer, The Essential Gandhi, xvii (author’s adaptation).

18
Adapted from Eknath Easwaran, trans., The Bhagavad Gītā, 67; S. Radhākrishnan, The
19
Bhagavad Gītā, 123; Satinder Dhiman, trans., Sahaja-Gītā, 36–38; and Swami
Gambhīrānanda, trans., Bhagavad Gītā with the Commentary of Śaṅkarācārya (Calcutta:
Advaita Ashrama, 1984), 101–104.
54 S. DHIMAN
The net result of cultivating these qualities is peace, fulfillment and real
happiness. This is the desideratum and the summum bonum of all human
aspiration and quest.
The Gītā and Passion for Excellence
Greek thinkers of yore have defined happiness as the exercise of human

faculties along the lines of excellence. In the same manner, the Bhagavad
Gītā defines Yoga as skillfulness, dexterity or excellence in action (yogaḥ
karmasu kauśalam: 2.50). Does that mean that skillfulness in any action
is yoga? The Gītā clarifies that only that state of mastery leads to yoga, a
higher communion, which is not opposed to dharma, the moral order. A
sniper’s or thief’s skillfulness, for example, will not qualify as yoga since it
is does not spring from wholesome intention.
It is common to experience a feeling of soaring spirit when we are
doing excellent work. The converse is also true. It has been observed that
the best way to kill human motivation is to expect and accept mediocre
performance from others. Expecting less than excellent work is the great-
est disservice we can do to ourselves and to others. We owe excellence
to ourselves, as much as we owe it to the society. No mere ideology, this
passion for excellence has far-reaching implications for holistic leaders and
for workplace performance. Nobody comes to work to put in a shoddy
performance. Everyone is looking for creative self-expression. And when
we create opportunities for meaningful self-expression, we help build a
workplace where people act with self-fulfillment and not merely work for
it. Creating such a liberating work environment is the real job of a holistic
leader.
Aristotle’s Theory of the Golden Mean

and Personal Mastery
According to Aristotle, good moral behavior is the desirable mean

between two extremes—one of excess and the other of deficiency. The
key to acting morally lies in finding a moderate position between those
two extremes. For example, courage is a virtue, but if taken to excess it
would appear as recklessness, and, in deficiency, as cowardice. In his work
titled Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle explains the development of virtues
essential for achieving the ultimate goal, happiness. It must be noted that
the golden mean is not the exact arithmetical mean; it depends on the
situation. There is no universal middle that would apply to every situation.

Different degrees may be needed for different situations.
There are three pillars to Aristotle’s theory of the golden mean: First,
there is a sort of equilibrium that the good person is in. Equilibrium is the
right feelings at the right time about the right things, toward the right
people, for the right end, and in the right way. The second pillar states
that the mean we should strive for is relative to us. Aristotle’s golden mean
is not a one-size-fits-all strategy. The third pillar is that each virtue falls
between two vices. The virtue lies in the golden mean which is not the
exact middle of two vices. Knowing what is exactly appropriate in a given
situation requires prolonged moral training. Aristotle believed that proper
participation in each of these three pillars is necessary for a person to lead
a virtuous and therefore happy life.20
Aristotle defines a happy life in terms of a good life: To say that some-
body is happy is the very same thing as saying that one is living a life worth
living. Aristotle uses the Greek concept of eudaimonia to express fully
his views on what he considers to be a life well lived. His definition of
eudaimonia can be roughly stated as the exercise of human faculties along
the lines of excellence, in a life affording them full expression. According to
Aristotle, the good life is identical with eudaimonia, which is defined as
living and faring well and is denoted by the “activity of the soul exhibiting
the highest and most complete excellence in a complete life …. The key
terms are ‘action’, ‘excellence’, and ‘reason’.”21
Excellence, according to Aristotle, is not an innate gift; it is achieved
through repeated practice until it becomes a habit, a settled disposition,
for we are what we repeatedly do. In a posthumously published manu-
script titled Heroes of History, Durant captures the essence of Aristotle’s
view of happiness succinctly: “The goal of conduct is happiness, but the
secret of happiness is virtue, and the best virtue is intelligence—a careful
consideration of the reality, the goals and the means; usually, ‘virtue’ is a
golden mean between the extremes.”22
It must be noted that happiness is not mere pleasure, although a happy
person feels pleasure. Experience and observation dictate that sensuous
20
Golden Mean (philosophy), New World Encyclopedia. Retrieved January 21, 2016:
http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Golden_mean_(philosophy).
21
J.O. Urmson, Aristotle’s Ethics (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 2001), 11, 17–18, 20.
22
Will Durant, Heroes of History: A Brief History of Civilization from Ancient Times to the
Dawn of the Modern Age (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2001), 105.
56 S. DHIMAN
gratification is not an abiding route to happiness. Human apparatus is

doomed, so to speak, ab initio, by the operation of what is called the law
of diminishing marginal utility; that is, as we consume more and more
units of a specific commodity, the utility of the successive units diminishes.
This applies equally to all our experiences directed at consuming pleasures.
Durant further clarifies:
Surely sense pleasure is not the way: that road is a circle: as Socrates phrased
the coarser Epicurean idea, we scratch that we may itch, and itch that we
may scratch …. No, happiness must be a pleasure of mind, and we may trust
it only when it comes from the pursuit or the capture of truth.23
Therefore, for Aristotle, happiness is the “virtuous activity of the soul in

accordance with reason”. Aristotle employs the word hexis24 (from Latin
habitus) in a very special sense, denoting ‘moral habituation’ or a dynami-
cally ‘active state of moral virtue’. Urmson clarifies that, in Aristotle’s view,
“the wise man who wishes for the best life will accept the requirements
of morality.”25 Aristotle further clarifies that, to be happy, we should seek
what is good for us in the long run for we cannot become happy by liv-
ing for the pleasures of the moment. Aristotle includes among the main
constituents of happiness such things as health and wealth, knowledge and
friendship, good fortune, and a good moral character. For him, a life lived
in accordance with excellence in moral and intellectual virtue constitutes
the essence of a happy life: “He is happy who lives in accordance with com-
plete virtue and is sufficiently equipped with external goods, not for some
chance period but throughout a complete life …. A good life is one that has
been lived by making morally virtuous choices or decisions.”26 Morality is the
basis of self-mastery and the touchstone of holistic leadership.
As Epictetus eloquently puts it, happy is the man who, in the course of
a lifetime, has satisfied all his desires, provided he desires nothing amiss.
And not desiring anything amiss requires wisdom. Life, said Aristotle, is a
gift of nature. Beautiful living is a gift of wisdom.
23
Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy: The Lives and the Opinions of the Great Philosophers
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1962/1933), 76.
24
W.D. Ross rendered hexis as a state of character. See David Ross, translation of Aristotle’s
Nicomachean Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980).
25
J.O. Urmson, Aristotle’s Ethics, 2.
26
Mortimer Adler, Arsitotle for Everybody: Difficult Thought Made Easy (New York: Bantam
Books, 1980). Emphasis added.
What Makes Champions? The Truth About Expert

Performance
There is a Japanese saying, “Polish one sword for ten years”. This means
devoting ten years single-mindedly cultivating and honing one’s abilities.
Patience is important, for something that is hastily constructed is just as
quickly destroyed.
What does it take to become a world-class expert in any given field? Is
it some innate talent that passeth training? Or is it deliberate practice by
way of time on task that does the trick? Is it just any repetitive practice that
takes one to the expert status or a certain kind of practice that promises
success? Because if any practice leads to expertise, kids playing video games
would emerge as world-class experts, for by the time they reach the end
of their teen years, they have accumulated several thousand hours in the
sport. Does practice make perfect or permanent?
Can 10,000 hours of practice really turn anyone into an expert at any-
thing? The widely publicized theory highlighted in a 1993 psychology
paper by Ericsson et al.27 and popularized by Malcolm Gladwell’s book
Outliers28 and Geoff Colvin’s book, Talent Is Overrated,29 says that any-
one can master a skill with 10,000 hours of deliberate practice. K. Anders
Ericsson et al. in their 1993 paper titled The Role of Deliberate Practice in
the Acquisition of Expert Performance reviewed evidence on “conditions
for optimal learning and improvement of performance.”30 This seminal
paper explains expert performance as the end result of individuals’ pro-
longed efforts to improve performance while negotiating motivational
and external constraints.
In most domains of expertise, individuals begin in their childhood a
regimen of effortful activities (deliberate practice) designed to optimize
improvement. Ericsson et al. believe that by focusing on the highly rep-
licable skills of exceptional performers (e.g., professional musicians) one
27
K. Anders Ericsson, Ralf Th. Krampe and Clemens Tesch-Romer, The role of deliberate
practice in the acquisition of expert performance. Psychological Review, 1993, 100(3),
363–406.
28
Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers: The Story of Success (New York: Little, Brown and Company,
2008).
29
Geoff Colvin, Talent Is Overrated (New York: Portfolio, 2010).
30
K. Anders Ericsson, Ralf Th. Krampe, and Clemens Tesch-Romer, The role of deliberate
practice in the acquisition of expert performance, Psychological Review, 1993, 100 (3),
363–406, 367.
58 S. DHIMAN
can identify high (expert) levels of performance. These authors conclude

that many characteristics once believed to reflect innate talent are actually
the result of intense practice extended for a minimum of 10 years.31 It is to
be noted that the authors are stating the minimum of 10 years and not an
average of ten years; due to difference in individual capacities it may take
longer than 10 years to attain high level of expertise in a particular field.
Recently, the theory has been challenged that the magical number of
10,000 hours or 10 years of practice makes you an expert.32 Though very
important, practice alone won’t make you Yo Yo Ma: “No one disputes
that practice is important”, says psychologist David Zachary Hambrick of
Michigan State University in East Lansing. “Through practice, people get
better. The question is whether that is all there is to it.”33 Are there other
factors that enter into the expert performance equation? What role, if any,
genes play in achieving elite performance?
On the other side of the spectrum, we have the contrarian exploration
of great athletic feats in David Epstein’s The Sports Gene: Inside the Science
of Extraordinary Athletic Performance34 which looks at the genetic asso-
ciations to winning in sports. Has science really discovered the winning
gene? Ericsson agrees with Tucker’s and Collins’ claim about the current
failure ‘to discover a candidate gene that can be conclusively linked to
performance.’ However, it will be incorrect to misconstrue this failure “as
evidence that genetics play only a minimal, or even no role, in the attain-
ment of elite performance” says Ericsson.35 In an editorial to the British
31
K. Anders Ericsson, Ralf Th. Krampe, and Clemens Tesch-Romer, The role of deliberate
practice in the acquisition of expert performance, Psychological Review, 100, 363–406. See
also K. Anders Ericsson, Neil Charness, Paul J. Feltovich, & Robert R. Hoffman (Eds.), The
Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance (Cambridge Handbooks in
Psychology (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2006).
32
Shaunacy Ferro, “Scientists Debunk The Myth That 10,000 Hours Of Practice Makes
You An Expert,” Fast Company, March 12, 2014. Retrieved November 8, 2015: http://
www.fastcodesign.com/3027564/asides/scientists-debunk-the-myth-that-10000-
hours-of-practice-makes-you-an-expert.
33
Cited in Dan Vergano, Are Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 Hours of Practice Really All You
Need? National Geographic, March 12, 2014. Emphasis added. Retrieved November 8, 2015:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/03/140310-gladwell-
expertise-practice-debate-intelligence/.
34
David Epstein, The Sports Gene: Inside the Science of Extraordinary Athletic Performance
(New York: Current, 2014).
35
K. Anders Ericsson, Training history, deliberate practise and elite sports performance: an
analysis in response to Tucker and Collins review—what makes champions? British Journal of
Sports Medicine, 2012. Retrieved November 8, 2015: http://bjsm.bmj.com/content/
early/2012/10/29/bjsports-2012-091767.extract.
Journal of Sports Medicine, Ericsson comments about the popularized but

simplistic view of their work circulated on the internet, which suggests
that anyone who has accumulated a sufficient number of hours of practice
in a given domain will automatically become an expert and a champion.
The truth is far from it.
A study published in May 2013 in the journal Intelligence by Hambrick
and colleagues suggested that practice explains only about a third of suc-
cess among musicians and chess masters. To be precise, they concluded
that practice accounted for only 30 percent of success in music and 34
percent in chess. They also found wide variability in the hours of prac-
tice. Chess grand masters had put in from 832 to 24,284 hours of work,
although the average was around 10,530 hours. Musicians’ efforts ranged
from 10,000 to 30,000 hours.36 It should be noted that the 10,000-hour
rule of thumb is not about mechanical practice though. One needs smart
practice. As Ericsson explained to Daniel Goleman, “You do not get ben-
efits from mechanical repetition, but by adjusting your execution over and
over to get closer to your goal.”37
Ericsson notes that Gladwell’s book Outliers mistakes the average of
10,000 hours that experts took to master a skill described in his research
with the total they required. Practice is important but it is perhaps not
the only thing. Quite a number of studies suggest that aside from practice
hours, individual differences—ranging from socioeconomics to coaching
to I.Q.—help explain expert success. However, there is a downside to
viewing talent as inborn. If talent is viewed as innate and not the result of
practice, Ericsson rightly fears, disadvantaged children will be cut off from
opportunities in education and sports.
Excellence is a complex, multifaceted issue and the jury is still out
on the respective roles of natural endowment and deliberate practice in
human performance. Perhaps it is both practice and genes that make
champions. How much of each, no one can really say. Genes perhaps
make practice enjoyable and practice likewise makes it easier to actual-
ize genes’ promise. One thing is clear though: when it comes to human
beings, the only definite thing one can say is that nothing definite can be
said about them. The perennial debate over nature vs. nurture continues.
Perhaps the best thing is to be born as a genius. The next best thing is
to work at it!
36
Cited in Dan Vergano, Are Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 Hours of Practice Really All
You Need?
37
Cited in Daniel Goleman, Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence, p. 163.
60 S. DHIMAN
Rinsing Your Cheese: Anatomy of Super-Discipline
“Only super-efforts count.”—G.I. Gurdjieff
Gurdjieff, one of the most influential spiritual teachers of the twentieth

century, used to say that in the realm of personal transformation, only
super-efforts count. His observation is equally applicable to achievement
in other fields also, including sports. Widely considered to be one of the
most difficult one-day sporting events in the world, an Ironman Triathlon
format consists of a 2.4-mile (3.86 km) swim, a 112-mile (180.25 km)
bicycle ride and a marathon 26.2-mile (42.2 km) run, raced in that order
and without a break within a strict time limit of 17 hours. The word “tri-
athlon” is of Greek origin from τρεῖς or treis (“three”) and ἆθλος or athlos
(“sport”).38
Dave Scott is a U.S. triathlete and the first six-time Ironman Triathlon
Hawaii Champion (1980, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1986, and 1987).39 During
peak training times, his highly regimented routine included cycling 75
miles, swimming 5000 meters and running up to 20 miles every single
day. In order to win six world championships, Dave Scott followed a
highly strict training routine and continued to refine and make tweaks to
it to achieve optimal performance.40 Scott’s demanding training regimen
constituted what experts call “smart practice.”
He was continually searching for a series of small marginal gains which
would combine to produce a larger impact on his performance. It is
reported that in his bid for super-discipline, Dave Scott took his train-
ing regimen a few notches higher and use to rinse his cottage cheese with
water to get extra fat off. Obviously a man who burned at least 5000 calo-
ries a day in training had no problem with some extra fat. However, he
believed that this was one in a series of other small steps that he believed
would make him just that much better and enable him to reach his peak
performance.
38
Jeff Matlow, Tiredathlon. USA Triathlon Life, Winter 2011, 101.
39
Jimmy Watson, Ironman Dave Scott knows what will be on his tombstone, The Times,
August 2, 2015. Retrieved November 24, 2015: http://www.shreveporttimes.com/story/
sports/2015/07/31/ironman-dave-scott-knows–tombstone/30933751/.
40
See: Jim Collins, Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap … And Others Don’t
(San Francisco: Harper Business, 2001), 127–128.
What is even more remarkable is that, while training for triathlons,

Dave Scott followed a strict vegetarian diet.41
This is then the anatomy of super-discipline: hone your core compe-
tencies with the fervor of an athlete, train incessantly like a (peaceful)
warrior, and continue to look for small marginal gains to achieve optimal
performance. This is the master key to triumph in any endeavor—in the
personal as well as professional realm. Regarding his legacy, Dave Scott is
steadfast: “I’m always introduced as ‘Dave Scott, six-time Ironman world
champion,’” Dave Scott told The Times recently. “I’ll probably have that
tattooed on my gravestone.”42
Concluding Thoughts
The road to self-transformation is long and hard and is beset with chal-
lenges at every step. It has been compared with walking on a razor’s edge.
It is because the flesh and the spirit follow different tracks and more often
than not are at fierce conflict with each other. Even if the spirit is will-
ing, often the flesh remains weak and weary. The preparation on the path
begins with taming the flesh and making it a willing participant on the
journey to self-transformation. To bring the flesh along, so to speak, and
to make the body willing, the seeker has to follow certain disciplines by
way of preparation on the path. This preparation involves removing the
roadblocks obstructing the path and transmuting baser passions of flesh
into higher aspiration of spirit. It involves a long preparation and one-
pointedness of aim.
Personal mastery involves three related aspects of self-discipline—the
ability to resist temptations, the ability to tolerate delay of gratification,
and the imposing of strict standards of accomplishment upon oneself. The
road to self-transformation is paved with self-discipline and self-restraint.
Essentially, it entails the conservation of energy so that it can be re-chan-
nelled into the harnessing of self-awareness. Such self-discipline is the hall-
mark of every effective leader’s pedagogy of transformation of character.
41
See: Dave Scott (triathlete) entry on Wikipedia. Retrieved November 24, 2015: https://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Scott_(triathlete).
42
Jimmy Watson, Ironman Dave Scott knows what will be on his tombstone, The Times,
August 2, 2015. Retrieved November 24, 2015: http://www.shreveporttimes.com/story/
sports/2015/07/31/ironman-dave-scott-knows–tombstone/30933751/.
62 S. DHIMAN
Self-discipline may seem to be a high price in the beginning, but it is well

worth paying for what one becomes at the end.
Excellence, according to Aristotle, is not an innate gift; it is a conscious
attainment achieved through repeated practice until it becomes a settled
disposition, for we are what we repeatedly do. As we learned earlier in
this chapter, what we need is not mere mechanical repetition but smart
practice. Gurdjieff, the famous Russian mystic, used to say that one has to
consciously work upon oneself. It requires heavy-lifting at the soul-level.
One has to put one’s whole being into it. Self-mastery is not meant for
the faint-hearted.
The last sentence of the Ethics of Spinoza reads, “Sed omnia praeclara-
tam difficilia quam rara sunt”—But everything great is just as difficult
to realize as it is rare to find.43 The gods are willing to give us what we
want, but not for free. They love to see us toil and sweat. Why should it
be otherwise?
Self-Mastery: Reflection Questions

1. It is has been rightly observed that before one can lead others, one
must first learn to manage oneself effectively. Briefly discuss the
importance of personal-mastery in the development of holistic
leadership.
2. According to Aristotle, good moral behavior is the desirable mean
between two extremes—one of excess and the other of deficiency. Is
there a universal middle—“Golden Mean”—that would apply to
every situation? Or does it depend upon a given situation?
3. The three traps (excessive desire, anger, and greed) are present in
every dysfunctional organization, manifested to the highest degree
in its leaders. Explain briefly how leaders can overcome self-centered
desire which has greed at its base and anger at its peak.
4. Does self-mastery or excellence in action leading to yoga (according
to the Gītā) presuppose an active state of moral virtue? Will a snip-
er’s or thief’s skillfulness qualify as self-mastery or yoga?
5. This chapter underscored the importance of high moral ground in
life and leadership. Do you think that on the path of personal
43
See Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy: The Lives and the Opinions of the Great
Philosophers (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1962/1933), 189. Durant renders it as: ‘But
all excellent things are as difficult as they are rare’.
astery, morality acts as a necessary prelude to spirituality? Can one

m
become a great leader without ethical and spiritual foundation?
6. Briefly discuss the role of emotional maturity in personal mastery.
Explain how emotional stability fosters harmony in personal and
professional relationships.
7. Do people have innate talent or is expertise actually the result of
intense deliberate practice extended over a long period of time?
What role, if any, do genes, socioeconomics, or coaching play in
explaining expert success?
CHAPTER 4
Creativity and Flow: The Art of Mindful

Creativity
People make a mistake who think that my art has come easily to me.
Nobody has devoted so much time and thought to composition as I. There
is not a famous master whose music I have not studied over and over.
—Attributed to MOZART1
Introduction
It is generally believed that creativity is a sort of mystical power that is the
province of a chosen few who are born with some special gift. It is often
assumed that these individuals are endowed with innate talent that easily
allows them to accomplish feats of creative outburst as a stroke of genius
during moments of inspiration. The opening observation attributed to
Mozart regarding his methods of composition should put all such avow-
als to rest. Even when one may have been born as a genius, it still pays
indeed to work at it. If it had been true for Mozart, how much more so
for all of us!
We know that all children are innately creative; why, then, does their
creativity wane as the years progress? It has been observed that children
enter schools as question marks; they leave schools as periods. Every child,
said Pablo Picasso, is an artist; the trouble is staying artist when you grow
1
Robert Northcott, Genetic Traits and Causal Explanation. In Kathryn S. Plaisance and
Thomas Reydon, Eds., Philosophy of Behavioral Biology (New York: Springer, 2012), 78.

DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-55571-7_4
66 S. DHIMAN
up.2 In one of his most popular and provocative Ted talks, creativity expert,
Sir Ken Robinson, opines that schools systematically undermine creativity.
He challenges the way we’re educating our children and advocates the
cultivation of creativity as a form of intelligence since “creativity now is
as important in education as literacy, and we should treat it with the same
status.”3 Treating creativity as a competency has far-reaching implications
for our education system and workplace, albeit preventing us from grow-
ing out of creativity.
This chapter will review some of the mounting research—both at the
qualitative and quantitative level—that shows that creativity is very much
a science. Some of the world’s most iconic companies are embracing cre-
ativity as a way of life. Leaders are increasingly expected to nurture an
environment of collaborative innovation. Now more than ever organiza-
tions must innovate in order to survive and succeed. In a recent survey
of 1500 CEOs from 60 countries in 33 industries by IBM’s Institute for
Business Value, creativity was named the single most important attribute
for success in leading a large corporation in the future.4 Accordingly, to
stay competitive, leaders must cultivate the motivation for creativity by
fostering an environment of workplace engagement, encouragement and
commitment.
This chapter focuses on the role of creativity and flow in life and leader-
ship. It garners the view that it is leaders’ job to foster creativity. It explores
the relationship between mindfulness as a creative process and the concept
of flow, suggesting that the meditative practice of mindfulness contributes
to the successful attainment of both of these experiences. It utilizes the
Buddhist construct of mindfulness as a framework to approach the works
of Langer, a Harvard psychologist, and Csikszentmihalyi, who popular-
ized the concept of flow. Over the years, this author has had the honor of
interviewing Csikszentmihalyi and Langer. He has also participated in two
2
Quoted in Laurence J. Peter, Peter’s Quotations: Ideas for Our Time (New York: Bantam
Books, 1979), 25.
3
Sir Ken Robinson, Do Schools Kill Creativity? Ted Talk. February 2006. Transcript
retrieved February 15, 2016: https://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_
creativity/transcript?language=en. Also see Ken Robinson, Out of our Minds: Learning to be
Creative (New York: Capstone, 2011).
4
Quoted in “A Bias against ‘Quirky’? Why Creative People Can Lose Out on Leadership
Positions.” Leadership entry: Knowledge @ Wharton. Retrieved February 18, 2016: http://
knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/a-bias-against-quirky-why-creative-people-can-lose-out-on-
leadership-positions/.
CREATIVITY AND FLOW: THE ART OF MINDFUL CREATIVITY 67
extended mindfulness meditation retreats. This has brought added clar-

ity to the theoretical constructs and greater conviction to their practical
application.
Mindfulness and Flow
How does mindfulness contribute to creativity and the experience of flow?

For Langer, total engagement and immersion in everything done is the
key to mindful creativity, which is very similar to Csikszentmihalyi’s con-
cept of flow as a state of effortless concentration and rapt enjoyment in an
activity in which one loses any sense of space, time, and self. Both of these
experiences, namely, mindfulness as a cognitive state and being in a state
of flow, are characterized by energized engagement with the activity at
hand with all of one’s mind and attention, which is not dissimilar to how
Theravada Buddhism understands and employs mindfulness.
Thus, by using three different lenses in this chapter, we try to under-
stand the process of mindful creativity5 and the psychology of optimum
experience. After defining creativity, the chapter provides a brief overview
of the experience of flow as observed in the behavior of creative individu-
als and the anatomy of mindful creativity. The chapter continues with a
discussion of the contribution that mindfulness, as practiced within the
framework of Theravada Buddhism, can make to enrich both paradigms.
It concludes with benefits of mindfulness, creativity, and flow.
In the context of developing mindful creativity, Langer indicated that
“creativity is not a blessing some special few are born with or receive
from above. Our creative nature is an integral part of our daily lives,
expressed through our culture, our language, and even our most mun-
dane activities.”6 In a similar vein, research conducted by psychologist
Csikszentmihalyi on optimal experience has shown how such creative
moments occur through intentional effort and do not just happen by
chance: “The best moments usually occur when a person’s body or mind
is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something dif-
ficult or worthwhile.”7 Because heightened awareness is a common factor
5
This term was mentioned during the interview by Dr. Langer: Ellen Langer, Personal
Communication, Unpublished Transcripts, April 15, 2009.
6
Ellen Langer, On Becoming an Artist: Reinventing Yourself Through Mindful Creativity
(New York: Ballantine Books, 2005), 4.
7
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (New York: Harper
and Row, 1990), 3.
68 S. DHIMAN
between both of these states, that is, mindful creativity and optimal per-
formance, it may be surmised that the Buddhist meditative practice of
mindfulness can facilitate Langer’s state of cognitive mindfulness as well as
Csikszentmihalyi’s psychology of flow.
Defining Creativity and Innovation
Writers and researchers tend to be highly creative when it comes to defin-

ing creativity. After several decades of research on creativity, there is hardly
a commonly agreed upon definition of creativity.8 There are basically three
approaches to defining creativity: person-focused approach, process-focused
approach, and product-focused approach. Creativity is often associated with
arts and expressed in terms of individual gifts of artistic originality. This
approach conjures up the image of a Mozart, a da Vinci, a van Gogh or a
Pablo Picasso. The process approach to creativity focuses on the process
of discovery leading to novel ideas and applications. However, the asso-
ciations made between creativity and artistic originality often lead to con-
fusion about the appropriate place of creativity in business organizations.9
Teresa Amabile, who has spent forty years researching creativity at Stanford,
Brandeis, and Harvard, notes that, “in business, originality isn’t enough. To
be creative, an idea must also be appropriate—useful and actionable.”10 This
view is in line with the conclusion drawn from the scientific research into
creativity, according to which “there is a general agreement that creativity
involves the production of novel, useful products.”11 This view is highly
relevant to translating creativity into innovation in the business arena.
Creativity is the art of noticing novel ideas. Ellen Langer, a preeminent
researcher in the field of creativity, once told this writer that creativity lies
in becoming a “first-rate noticer.”12 The basic condition for a creative act
8
See Teresa M. Amabile and Mukti Khaire, Creativity and the Role of the Leader, Harvard
Business Review, October 2008, 86, (10), 101–109. Teresa M. Amabile, A Model of
Creativity and Innovation in Organizations, Research in Organizational Behavior, 1988, Vol.
10, 123–167. Teresa Amabile, How to Kill Creativity, Harvard Business Review, 76, no. 5
(September–October 1998): 76–87.
9
Teresa Amabile, “How to Kill Creativity,” Harvard Business Review, 76, no. 5
(September–October 1998): 76–87.
10
Ibid., 77.
11
Michael Mumford, Where have we been, where are we going? Taking stock in creativity
research. Creativity Research Journal, 2003, 15, 110.
12
Dr. Ellen Langer, personal communication, April 5, 2009. Unpublished Interview
Transcripts.
is to combine known elements into new combinations or perspectives that

have never before been considered.13 Creativity is simply the production
of novel, appropriate ideas in any realm of human activity, from science, to
the arts, to education, to business, to everyday life.14 In other words, the
product-based approach to creativity focuses on “novelty that is useful”.
According to Amabile, “Creativity is the production of novel and useful
ideas by an individual or small group of individuals working together.”15
Likewise, innovation is the successful implementation of creative ideas
within an organization. Another Harvard expert, Rosabeth Moss Kanter,
defines innovation as the “process of generation, acceptance, and imple-
mentation of new ideas, processes, products, or services.”16 If creativity
is about discovering what is novel and useful, innovation is about imple-
menting it and bringing it to fruition.
Where is Creativity?
“Where does creativity reside?” Does it reside within the brain or mind of
a single creative individual? In the introduction to the tenth anniversary
edition of his classic Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences,
Howard Gardner defines creativity in pragmatic terms paralleling his defi-
nition of multiple intelligences. He explains creativity mainly in terms of
innovation, stating that “specifically, the creative individual is one who
regularly solves problems or fashions products within a domain, and
whose work is considered both novel and acceptable by knowledgeable
members of a field.”17
Using his methodological framework of seven types of intelligence,
Gardner analyzes seven of the “great creators” from the early part of last
century, all of whom were contemporaries. Each one of these creators
exemplified one of the seven intelligences: Sigmund Freud (scholastic),
13
Donald C. Pelz and F. M. Andrews, Scientists in Organizations: Productive Climates for
Research and Development (Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 1976).
14
Teresa Amabile, “Motivating Creativity in Organizations: On Doing What You Love
and Loving What You Do”, California Management Review, 40 (I), (Fall 1997): 39–58.
15
Teresa M. Amabile, “A Model of Creativity and Innovation in Organizations”, Research
in Organizational Behavior, Vol. 10, (1988): 126.
16
Rosabeth Moth Kanter, The Change Masters: Innovations for Productivity in the American
Corporation (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983), 20.
17
Howard Gardner, Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences (New York: Basic
Books, 2011), xxxvi.
70 S. DHIMAN
Albert Einstein (logical), Pablo Picasso (spatial), Igor Stravinsky (musical),

T. S. Eliot (linguistic), Martha Graham (bodily), and Mahatma Gandhi
(political). Gardner believes that a single variety of creativity is a myth
and analyzes all aspects of the lives of each of these seven individuals from
developmental and social/environmental interaction perspectives to guide
his exploration.18 This expansive view of creativity is in line with Gardner’s
view of multiple intelligences and augurs well in bringing the promise of
creativity within the scope of a common person.
Howard Gardner conceptualizes creativity in terms of the trio of intelli-
gence, domain, and field. He suggests that creativity should not be thought
of as inhering principally in the brain, the mind, or the personality of a
single individual. Rather, creativity should be thought of as emerging from
the interactions of the three nodes: the individual with his or her own
profile of competencies and values; the domains available for study and
mastery within a culture; and the judgments rendered by the field that is
deemed competent within a culture.19
Can Creativity Be Taught?

We are all gifted; some have not opened their presents yet.
Many believe that creativity is the province of exceptional artists—the

Mozarts and Beethovens of the universe. Still there are others who think
that creative geniuses are born with some sort of creative gene. They
believe you either have it or do not have it. Can creativity be taught?
“Yes”, says Wharton marketing professor, Rom Schrift, who believes that
creativity is “like a muscle. If you train yourself, and there are different
methods for doing this, you can become more creative. There are indi-
vidual differences in people, but I would argue that it is also something
that can be developed, and therefore, taught.”20
Are the gains of creativity distributed equally? Perhaps not. Yet, any-
one can learn to be creative if s/he puts his/her mind to it and if there is
18
Howard Gardner, Creating Minds: An Anatomy of Creativity Seen Through the Eyes of
Freud, Einstein, Picasso, Stravinsky, Eliot, Graham, and Gandhi (New York, NY: Basic
Books, 1993).
19
Gardner, Frames of Mind, xxxvi.
20
Rom Schrift quoted in “Can Creativity be Taught?” Management entry:
Knowledge @ Wharton. Retrieved February 19, 2016: http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.
edu/article/can-creativity-be-taught/.
right environment that supports creativity. Wharton marketing professor

Jerry (Yoram) Wind who has taught a course in creativity at Wharton
for years, clarifies that “in any population, basically the distribution of
creativity follows the normal curve. At the absolute extreme you have
Einstein and Picasso, and you don’t have to teach them—they are the
geniuses. Nearly everyone else in the distribution, and the type of people
you would deal with at leading universities and companies, can learn
creativity.”21
Can one tap into the fund of creativity at will or does one have to wait
for the inspiration? “Inspiration” argues photorealist painter and photog-
rapher, Chuck Close, “is for amateurs—the rest of us just show up and get
to work.”22 This showing up and getting to work works for creativity as
well, for genius, we are told, is 99 percent perspiration and only 1 percent
inspiration. Of course, the best thing is to be born as a genius. The next
best thing perhaps is to work at it!
Which Business Practices Foster Creativity

One doesn’t manage creativity. One manages for creativity.23
According to Teresa Amabile, “Creativity is a function of three compo-

nents: expertise, creative-thinking skills, and motivation.”24 She believes
managers can proactively influence these components through workplace
practices and conditions. What managerial practices affect creativity? To
answer this question, Amabile draws upon two decades of research study-
ing dozens of companies and hundreds of individuals and identifies key
managerial practices that fall into six general categories: challenge, free-
dom, resources, work-group features, supervisory encouragement, and
21
Ibid.
22
Ibid.
23
Teresa M. Amabile and Mukti Khaire, “Creativity and the Role of the Leader,” Harvard
Business Review, 86, (10), (October 2008):101–109. Teresa M. Amabile, “A Model of
Creativity and Innovation in Organizations,” Research in Organizational Behavior, Vol. 10,
(1988): 123–167.
24
Teresa Amabile, “Motivating Creativity in Organizations: On Doing What You Love
and Loving What You Do,” California Management Review, 40 (I) (Fall 1997): 43; Teresa
Amabile, “How to Kill Creativity,” Harvard Business Review, 76, no. 5 (September–October
1998), 76. Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Frontiers of Management (Boston, Mass.: Harvard
Business School Press, 1997).
72 S. DHIMAN
organizational support. Each one of these practices is linked with fostering

intrinsic motivation.
Business practices fostering creativity range from giving employees
“think time” to encouraging divergent thinking and risk-taking. Think
time means giving employees free time to explore ideas regarding what
may be called “unofficial activities” that may or may not pay off, at least
initially. For example, at 3M, every engineer gets an hour of unstructured
time each day to do what they like, from working on a side project to
pursuing a hobby. Google is well known for its “20 % exploration time”,
which gives its employees a day a week to break from their daily routine
and follow their passions.
The real challenge is about matching individuals skills of the people with
the right assignments that follow their passions and stimulate their creativ-
ity. Freedom denotes providing people autonomy to choose the means to
achieve the ends. Resources signify allocating proper time, money, and
appropriate physical space to foster creativity. Next comes designing work
teams that are diverse, self-directed, and empowered. Finally, organiza-
tional support and supervisory encouragement go a long way in fostering
creativity.25
An excellent example of a supportive environment that fosters a healthy
creative process is IDEO, the preeminent design consulting firm. At
IDEO, creativity starts with brainstorming sessions called “deep dive” and
is then shepherded through a more nuanced, structured route where peo-
ple are assigned specific parts. This process can be termed as interplay of
chaos and focus. “The stereotype is that creativity just has to be unleashed,
and it’s not true. It has to be tightly managed. You have to know how to
foster it.”26
Let us take a closer look at some of the values that IDEO fosters to
bring creativity to fruition.
25
See Teresa M. Amabile, Creativity in Context: Update to the Social Psychology of Creativity
(Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1996). Teresa M. Amabile, Robert Burnside, and Stanley
S. Gryskiewicz, User’s Manual for KEYS: Assessing the Climate for Creativity (Greensboro,
NC: Center for Creative Leadership, 1998).
26
Jennifer Mueller as quoted in “Can Creativity be Taught?”
Secret of Design Thinking: The 7 Values that

Drive IDEO
IDEO, the innovative company that pioneered human-centered “design
thinking”, does not have many rules but there are some cultural values
that they religiously take to heart. These values may sound simple but
embody some profound truths about human motivation and creativity.
The company presents these truths in a small booklet entitled The Little
Book of IDEO, as follows:
1. Be Optimistic: Believing that something is so will somehow make

it so.
2. Collaborate: The most powerful asset we have in our arsenal is the
word “we”.
3. Embrace Ambiguity: Get comfortable with un-comfortableness.
4. Learn from Failure: Ask for forgiveness, not permission.
5. Make others Successful: Going out of your way to help others succeed
is the secret sauce.
6. Take Ownership: The unwritten social contract here: individual own-
ership supports collective responsibility. Own that.
7. Talk Less, Do More: Nothing is bigger buzz-kill than over intellectu-
alization. Design is about rolling up your sleeves and making
things.27
Even among this sparse listing of values, IDEO puts proactively “mak-
ing others successful” at the center of their design thinking and calls it
the mother-lode of all its values. For them, servant-hood and design
go together. This might seem counter-intuitive for a group of creative
sorts. After all, we do not think of creativity as a collaborative sport.
But this “citizenship behavior” is a norm at IDEO. Teresa Amabile and
her colleagues note that “help-seeking and help-giving culture is behind
the firm’s success”. Based on their two years’ research at IDEO, these
authors discovered the following guidelines to building a help-friendly
27
The Little Book of IDEO: Values from Tim Brown. Retrieved February 7, 2016: http://
designthinking.ideo.com/?p=1282.
74 S. DHIMAN
organization that leaders of other organizations could learn and apply to

similar effect:28
1. Be very clear that helpfulness produces better outcomes than inter-

nal competition.
2. Model that conviction in your own help-giving and help-seeking.
3. Make yourself accessible.
4. Respect the helper by using the help.
5. Consider regularly assigning one or two helpers to project teams.
6. Include helping as part of job descriptions.
We notice that the sum total of all these suggestions is to operationalize

IDEO’s core creed of “going out of your way to help others succeed”. This
helps create what is often referred to as the “multiplier effect” which equally
benefits both the helpers and the helped, for “a rising tide lifts all boats”.
Myths of Creativity
Myths of creativity abound. David Burkus in his book, The Myths of
Creativity: The Truth about How Innovative Companies and People
Generate Great Ideas, debunks 10 common myths of creativity—and sug-
gests how to overcome them. Burkus opines that under the right condi-
tions, anyone can learn to be creative and it pays organizations to support
the creative processes. These myths are as follows:29
. The Eureka Myth (creative ideas arrive in a flash of inspiration)

1
2. The Breed Myth (creative people are different, perhaps

genetically)
3. The Originality Myth (creative ideas are always new)
4. The Expert Myth (the more you know, the more creative you can be)
5. The Incentive Myth (prizes and payments encourage creativity)
6. The Lone Creator Myth (creativity is a solitary pursuit)
7. The Brainstorming Myth (creative ideas come from brainstorming)
8. The Cohesive Myth (creative teams always agree)
28
Teresa Amabile, Colin M. Fisher, and Julianna Pillemer, IDEO’s Culture of Helping
Harvard Business Review, January–February 2014.
29
David Burkus, The Myths of Creativity: The Truth About How Innovative Companies and
People Generate Great Ideas (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2014), 11–14.
. The Constraints Myth (creativity requires complete freedom)

9
10. The Mousetrap Myth (creative ideas are always welcomed by orga-
nizations and by society at large)
Let’s take a closer look at some of these myths. The eureka myth is
the misconception that creative ideas flash in a spontaneous moment of
inspiration. Nothing can be further from the truth. Research shows that
creative ideas materialize after significant investment of hard work and
concerted thinking. Creativity is a process that occurs in a series of steps
involving generation, acceptance, and implementation of new ideas. For
example, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi studied the creative process of 91 pre-
eminent creative individuals and found that almost all of the people he
studied shared a progressive creative process consisting of 5 stages: prepa-
ration, incubation, insight, evaluation, and elaboration.30
The lone creative genius myth brings to mind high-profile creatives such
as Da Vincis, Michelangelos, Mozarts, and Picassos. We know today that
this is not true at all. Many famous creatives appeared to work alone,
but in reality had the support of a team. Michelangelo for example had
a group of artists to help him as he painted the Sistine Chapel. Likewise,
Thomas Edison was helped by a group of scientists and engineers called
“the Muckers”. Researchers note that music and performance arts may
be somewhat of an exception where child prodigies emerge much more
quickly. For most other endeavors, creativity is much more an outcome of
long concerted effort and team work.31
In the similar vein, Weisberg discusses the process of “ordinary think-
ing” and how it “underlies even the greatest examples of creativity”.
He also challenges the “genius approach” to the study of creativity and
especially critiques the role of intuition, insight, and the unconscious in
the creative process. He analyzes the concept of the creative personality
and concludes that the role of the personality has been greatly oversim-
plified and overemphasized in creativity literature; in real life, it is much
more nuanced and complex. Weisberg presents an impressive amount of
evidence supporting the “ordinary thinking” position using historical
case studies by analyzing the inventive experiences of “genius” creators
30
See Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and
Invention (New York: Harper Perennial; Reprint edition, 2013), 79–83.
31
See Charles Murray, Human Accomplishment: The Pursuit of Excellence in the Arts and
Sciences (New York: Harper Collins, 2003).
76 S. DHIMAN
in order to show the preponderance of “ordinary thinking” in even the

most well-known examples of creative achievement. What is the recipe for
genius? According to Weisberg, it entails three components: intellect, i.e.,
high I.Q.; motivation/determination, i.e., staying focused; and immer-
sion in field, i.e., being very well-informed on the topic and working in it
for at least a decade. As we can see, being smart is only one part of being
a genius. Without the other two, one doesn’t have a chance at attaining
great levels of creative achievement.32
The expert myth is the belief that the more you know, the more creative
you become. On the face of it, this seems quite logical. The rationale is
that in order to be truly creative, one must master a field or a domain.
Creativity often requires some level of expertise, but expertise and creativ-
ity are nonetheless very different things. Someone can know a great deal
about something and yet show little creativity in that domain.33 However,
research into the lives of creative people shows that in some cases “exper-
tise can actually hinder [the] creative ability of individuals. … As expertise
grows, creativity sometimes diminishes. Sometimes the best insights come
from those outside a particular field,…”34 There is a good reason for this.
When we are too heavily invested in a task, we may tend to overlook the
obvious.
In his book entitled They All Laughed … From Light Bulbs to Lasers, Ira
Flatow debunks several widely held misconceptions, including the notion
that Thomas Edison tried carbon as a lamp filament in the light bulb ser-
endipitously (incidentally, no fewer than 13 inventors had tried carbon fil-
aments in their light bulbs over the previous 34 years). For example, many
famous inventions were first received with ridicule: When Remington
introduced the first typewriter, people saw no practical use for it. Such is
the process of invention which is full of struggles, serendipity, and dead-
ends that are usually necessary to achieve something significant. This is
what Edison was trying to communicate with his famous quote about the
making of genius: “Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent
32
See Robert W. Weisberg, Creativity: Beyond the Myth of Genius, 2nd edition (New York,
NY: W. H. Freeman & Co., 1993); See also Weisberg, Creativity: Genius and Other Myths.
(New York: W. H. Freeman & Co., 1986).
33
John Baer, The Importance of Domain-Specific Expertise in Creativity, Roeper Review,
2015, 37, 165–178. Retrieved February 20, 2016: http://users.rider.edu/~baer/
ExpertiseCreativity.pdf.
34
David Burkus, The Myths of Creativity, 67–68.
perspiration,”35 Flatow tells us in his book that Ben Franklin’s kite was
never struck by lightning—literally deflating the myth of the lightning
bolt of inspiration; the story of Ben Franklin and the kite was just that—a
story. The microwave oven came about because a chocolate bar melted
in someone’s pocket.36 Creatively inventive people discover extraordinary
things by paying close attention to the ordinary occurrences of daily life.
Creativity is all about observation and absorption. Mindfulness helps both.
Experiencing Flow: The Psychology of Optimal

Experience
The mystique of rock climbing is climbing; you get to the top of a rock glad
it’s over but really wish it would go on forever. The justification of climbing is
climbing, like the justification of poetry is writing; you don’t conquer anything
except things in yourself …. The act of writing justifies poetry. Climbing is the
same: recognizing that you are a flow. The purpose of the flow is to keep on flow-
ing, not looking for a peak or utopia but staying in the flow. It is not a moving
up but a continuous flowing; you move up to keep the flow going. There is no pos-
sible reason for climbing except the climbing itself; it is a self-communication.37
We provide this long opening quote from Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi to

demonstrate the diversity of life experiences that may trigger flow. The
quote also shows that once operative, flow has its own self-propelling logic
of reinforcement: Being in the flow helps us to be in the flow even more.
Flow has been described as an optimal state of consciousness in which we
feel and perform our best—the art and science of being alive to profound
possibilities. During the 1970s, while leading the University of Chicago’s
psychology department, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi conducted one of the
largest psychological studies ever by asking people in various settings all
over the world about the times in their life when they felt their best and
performed their best. He started out with expert-level performers—sur-
geons, musicians, dancers, rock climbers, and chess players—then moved
into more regular folks: Italian farmers, Navajo sheep herders, elderly
35
Spoken statement (c. 1903); published in Harper’s Monthly (September 1932).
36
Ira Flatow, They All Laughed … From Light Bulbs to Lasers: The Fascinating Stories
Behind the Great Inventions That Have Changed Our Lives (New York, NY: Harper Perennial,
1992).
37
Cited in Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (New York,
NY: Harper and Row, 1990), 54.
78 S. DHIMAN
Korean woman, Chicago assembly line workers, and Japanese teenage

motorcycle gang members. And no matter where in the world he went
or what population he studied, when people felt their best and performed
their best, flow was the only constant commonality.38 The discoveries from
these studies profoundly changed the way we look at peak performance
and workplace engagement and fulfillment.
According to Csikszentmihalyi, flow refers to a state of total immersion,
effortless concentration, and rapt enjoyment in an activity in which one
loses any sense of space, time, and self. First proposed by Csikszentmihalyi,
flow is the mental state of operation in which the person is fully immersed
in what he or she is doing, characterized by a feeling of energized focus,
full involvement, and success in the process of the activity. It is marked by
a certain delightful effortlessness borne of complete identification with the
task at hand.
Flow & Happiness: Implications for Leaders
Why do leaders need to study the art and science of flow and happiness?
What is the link between flow and creativity? What is the link between hap-
piness at work and workplace success and well-being? We believe knowing
answers to these questions is vital for leaders today, given the fact that
majority of US workers are not engaged at work, as indicated by a series of
recent Gallup polls.39 As Steven Kotler put it: “Flow directly correlates to
happiness at work and happiness at work directly correlates to success.”40
Creativity triggers flow and flow strengthens creativity.
Studies show that there is direct link between happiness and business
outcomes. According to Shawn Achor, who has researched extensively in
38
See “Flow States: Answers To The Three Most Common Questions About Optimal
Performance,” Retrieved February 18, 2016: http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenkot-
ler/2014/02/09/flow-states-answers-to-the-three-most-common-questions-about-opti-
mal-performance/#5a396e953d1533fc83393d15.
39
Recent Gallup polls have indicated that 71 percent of US workers were “not engaged”,
or “actively disengaged” from their jobs. See Gallup Report: “70 % of US workers not
engaged at work.” State of the American Workplace. The report highlights findings from
Gallup’s ongoing study of the American workplace from 2010 through 2012. Also see, Amy
Adkins, “Majority of U.S. Employees Not Engaged Despite Gains in 2014.” Retrieved
February 19, 2016: http://www.gallup.com/services/178514/state-american-workplace.
aspx?g_source=position1&g_medium=related&g_campaign=tiles.
40
Steven Kotler, The Rise of Superman: Decoding the Science of Ultimate Human
Performance (New York: New Harvest, 2014 ), ix.
48 countries about the connection between employee happiness and suc-

cess, “A decade of research in the business world proves that happiness
raises nearly every business and educational outcome: raising sales by 37%,
productivity by 31%, and accuracy on tasks by 19%, as well as a myriad of
health and quality-of-life improvements.”41 Similarly, a 10 year study by
McKinsey found that top executives performed 5× better when in a flow
state. Creativity was increased by 7×.42 These findings have far-reaching
implications for workplace engagement, wellness, and success.
Underscoring the vital link between flow and mindfulness, Steven Kotler,
co-founder and director of research for the Flow Genome Project, says that
flow follows focus: “[Flow] is a state that can only show up in the now, in the
present tense … The easiest way to have flow and the people who are most
successful at it have built their lives around these triggers.”43 Quite simply,
these triggers are ways of bringing back our attention into the now; hence,
the close relationship between flow, creativity, and mindfulness.
What conditions aid in garnering a sense of flow? In his book, entitled
The Rise of Superman, Steven Kotler presents 17 triggers for flow—precon-
ditions that bring on more flow.44 These triggers fall into four categories:
environment, psychological, social, and creative. Environmental or exter-
nal flow triggers include: high consequences (sink or swim), rich environ-
ment (novelty, unpredictability, and complexity) and deep embodiment
(total physical awareness). Psychological flow triggers include: intensely
focused attention, clear goals, immediate feedback, and skill/challenge
ratio (finding the sweet spot where skills meet the challenge). The social
flow triggers include: serious concentration, shared clear goals, good com-
munication, equal participation, element of risk, familiarity, sense of con-
trol, close listening, and always saying yes. And the final flow trigger is
creativity which includes pattern recognition and the courage to bring
new ideas into the world.
41
See Shawn Achor, “Is happiness the secret of success?”, Special to CNN, March 19,
2012. Retrieved February 20, 2016: http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/19/opinion/
happiness-success-achor/.
42
See: 17 “Flow” Triggers That Will Increase Productivity—Tapping into Peak Human
Performance in Business—http://www.mymasterminder.com/blog/17-flow-triggers-will-
increase-productivity-tapping-peak-human-performance-business#sthash.kAVfM0Im.dpb.
43
Understanding Flow Triggers, with Steven Kotler. Transcript retrieved, February 20,
2016: http://bigthink.com/videos/understanding-flow-triggers-with-steven-kotler See
also: Kotler, “Flow States.”
44
Steven Kotler, The Rise of Superman, 98–135.
80 S. DHIMAN
Key Elements of Flow Experience

According to Csikszentmihalyi, flow represents a state of “intense emo-
tional involvement” in which the skills required to perform a particular
task match the challenges presented by the task.45 The experience of flow
is also described as being in the zone (athletes), ecstasy (mystics), and
aesthetic rapture (artists and musicians), and it involves being completely
immersed in an activity for its own sake. Ego disappears. Time flies. Your
whole being is involved, in rapt concentration, and you’re using your skills
to the utmost. There is no sense of time, place, or self.
Csikszentmihalyi has identified the following key elements accompany-
ing flow46:
1. A challenging activity that requires skills: Flow occurs when we are

performing tasks that are goal-directed, challenging and require the
investment of psychic energy. Ultimately, how enjoyable an activity
is depends upon the level of its complexity. If the task is too easy, it
tends to lead to boredom; if it is too difficult, it may lead to anxiety
and frustration. Flow occurs when the skill required to perform a
task and the challenge presented by the task are balanced evenly.
2. The merging of action and awareness: Flow occurs when our aware-
ness and action merge so completely that the activity becomes spon-
taneous; we stop being aware of ourselves being separate from the
actions we are performing.
3. Clear goals and immediate feedback: Flow occurs when a person has
a clear set of goals that require appropriate responses. Clear goals
and immediate feedback help our involvement with flow experiences
to occur naturally.
4. Concentration on the task at hand: Flow activities require a com-
plete focusing of attention at hand—thus leaving no room in the
mind for irrelevant information. “By learning to concentrate,” says
Csikszentmihalyi, “a person acquires control over psychic energy,
the basic fuel on which all thinking depends.”47
45
See Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, 3. Also see:
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life.
(New York: Basic Books, 1997), 7.
46
Csikszentmihalyi, Flow, 71–93.
47
Csikszentmihalyi, Finding Flow, 28.
5. The paradox of control: The flow experience is typically described as

involving a sense of control—or, more precisely, lacking the sense of
worry about losing control.
6. The loss of self-consciousness: During flow activities we become so
engrossed or immersed in the task at hand that we lose any con-
sciousness of self. When not preoccupied with our own selves we
actually have a chance to expand the concept of who we are.
7. Transformation of the sense of time: One of the most important fea-
tures of flow experience is that our sense of time is transformed: hours
seem to pass by in minutes—time flies, when we are having fun.
Csikszentmihalyi on the Behavior
of Creative People
Of all human activities, creativity comes closest to providing the fulfillment we

all hope to get in our lives. Call it full-blast living. Creativity is a central source
of meaning in our lives. Most of the things that are interesting, important, and
human are the result of creativity. What makes us different from apes—our
language, values, artistic expression, scientific understanding, and technol-
ogy—is the result of individual ingenuity that was recognized, rewarded, and
transmitted through learning.48
As the foregoing quote amply demonstrates, creativity, as transmitted

through learning, is one of the key qualities that distinguishes us from the
apes. It is the primary source of meaning in our lives and makes us truly and
vitally alive. What is distinctive about creative people? How do they behave
from moment-to-moment? Based upon 30 years of research on how cre-
ative people devise new ideas and new things, Csikszentmihalyi noted49:
Creative individuals are remarkable for their ability to adapt to almost any
situation and to make do with whatever is at hand to reach their goals. If
I had to express in one word what makes their personalities different from
others, it’s complexity. They show tendencies of thought and action that in
most people are segregated. They contain contradictory extremes; instead of
being an “individual”, each of them is a “multitude.”50
48
Csikszentmihalyi, Creativity: The Works and Lives of 91 Eminent People (New York, NY:
HarperCollins 1996), 1–2. See also Csikszentmihalyi, The creative personality. Psychology
Today. 1996: 36–40.
49
Csikszentmihalyi, “The creative personality,” Psychology Today, 1996, 36–40.
50
Ibid., 1.
82 S. DHIMAN
Csikszentmihalyi (1996) discusses the following 10 antithetical, seem-

ingly paradoxical traits of creative people in his book, Creativity: Flow and
the Psychology of Discovery and Invention:
1. Creative individuals have a great deal of physical energy, but they

are also often quiet and at rest.
2. Creative individuals tend to be smart, yet also naïve at the same
time.
3. A third paradoxical trait refers to the related combination of play-
fulness and discipline, or responsibility and irresponsibility.
4. Creative individuals alternate between imagination and fantasy at
one end, and a rooted sense of reality at the other.
5. Creative people seem to harbor opposite tendencies on the con-
tinuum between extroversion and introversion.
6. Creative individuals are also remarkably humble and proud at the
same time.
7. Creative individuals to a certain extent escape the rigid gender role
stereotyping.
8. Generally, creative people are thought to be rebellious and

independent.
9. Most creative persons are very passionate about their work, yet
they can be extremely objective about it as well.
10. Finally, the openness and sensitivity of creative individuals often
exposes them to suffering and pain yet also a great deal of
enjoyment.51
These are the paradoxical qualities of creative people, according to

Csikszentmihalyi: passionate yet objective, sensitive yet gleeful, imagi-
native yet realistic, playful yet disciplined. In the last chapter of his book
Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention, based
on interviews with 91 creative individuals, Csikszentmihalyi offered
some practical suggestions for enhancing creativity. The following are
tips that have special relevance from the standpoint of creativity and
mindfulness:
. Try to be surprised by something every day.

1
2. Try to surprise at least one person every day.
51
Csikszentmihalyi, The creative personality. Psychology Today, 1996, 58–73.
3. Write down each day what surprised you and how you surprised
others.
4. Wake up in the morning with a specific goal to look forward to.
5. When something strikes a spark of interest, follow it.
6. If you do anything well, it becomes enjoyable.
7. To keep enjoying something, you need to increase its complexity.
8. Make time for reflection and relaxation.
9. Find out what you like and what you hate about life.
10. Start doing more of what you love, less of what you hate.
11. Shift often from openness to closure.
12. Find a way to express what moves you.
13. Look at problems from as many viewpoints as possible.
14. Have as many different ideas as possible.
15. Try to produce unlikely ideas.52
One common factor of these tips is that they make flow within the
reach of everyone who wants to give it a chance. Doing something surpris-
ing, joyful, reflective and relaxing and being open to the new, different,
and unlikely ideas not only helps the flow experience; it also improves
workplace engagement and creativity. In the next section, we explore
Langer’s unique view about creativity. This view is important on several
counts: Langer defines creativity in terms of mindfulness—the art of notic-
ing new things; she approaches creativity in its most pragmatic terms; and
she highlights the fact that creative activities hold the key to living mean-
ingful, fulfilled lives.
Langer on Becoming an Artist

It is only when we’ve awakened that we realize how much of our lives we’ve
actually slept through.53
Many spiritual and wisdom traditions of the world declare that man
is asleep. The Bhagavad Gītā, the most important spiritual text of the
Hindus, speaks about the difference between day and night experiences
52
Mikhaly Csikszentmihalyi, Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention
(New York: HarperCollins, 1996), 347–370.
53
Ellen Langer, On Becoming an Artist: Reinventing Yourself through Mindful Creativity
(New York: Ballantine Books, 2005), 16.
84 S. DHIMAN
of wise and unwise by analogically likening the day to knowledge and the
night to ignorance (Gītā 2.69). Gurdjieff, one of the most influential spiri-
tual teachers of the twentieth century, regarded this psychological sleep
to be man’s chief feature and proposed that the goal of his system is to
awaken slumbering humanity—to wake man up from the hypnotic sleep of
life.54 As we come to know about the fact of our dreaming only upon wak-
ing up, even so, as Langer points out, it is only upon awakening that we
realize how much our lives have been spent in sheer sleep-walking.
Langer defines mindfulness as the “process of actively noticing new
things.”55 Mindfulness brings us in the present. Taking a highly prag-
matic view of creativity, Langer opines, “All it takes to become an artist
is to start doing the art.”56 She further avers that if we are mindfully
creative, “the circumstances of the moment will tell us what to do.”57
Through research and skillful logic, she demonstrated how people under-
value themselves and impede their creativity. Langer, who considered
mindful creativity as a necessary condition for mindful living, observes,
“The more we engage in our mindful activity, the closer we get to living
a mindful life. By living a life full of art, we may achieve an artful life.”58
Langer goes on to explain how mindful art helped her to organize ideas
for her book. She states, “It was like having a closed floor full of clothes
in need of hangers. My art provided a way to get the clothes off the floor,
so to speak.”59
54
For a clear summary of Gurdjieff’s teachings, please see P. D. Ouspensky, In the Search
of Miraculous, revised edition (New York: Harcourt Inc., 2001). See also Collin Wilson,
G.I. Gurdjieff: The War against Sleep (New York: Aeon Books, 2005). One of the most semi-
nal ideas of Gurdjieff’s system is that nature develops us up to a certain extent; after that we
must take our psychological evolution in our own hands to complete what nature could not
finish. He called it “creating” the soul and recommended a two-fold process of conscious
labor and intentional suffering to accomplish this process. He used to insist that one cannot
create one’s own immortal soul unless one “dies” to one’s outer life. This refrain is common
in all the wisdom traditions of the world. For the real to come, the unreal has to go. Gurdjieff
used to say that in this process of soul-creation, ordinary efforts do not matter; only super
efforts count!
55
Mindfulness in the Age of Complexity: Spotlight Interview with Ellen Langer by Alison
Beard. Harvard Business Review, March 14, 2014, 1–7.
56
Ibid., xv.
57
Ibid., 35.
58
Ibid., 229.
59
Ibid. 229–230.
According to Carson and Langer, “The goal of the mindful perspec-

tive is to increase cognitive flexibility and to thereby increase behav-
ioral flexibility and the ability to adapt to one’s current environment
in a meaningful manner. Empirical evidence spanning four decades
attests to the beneficial effects of a mindful vs. mindless perspective.”60
Mindfulness generates a more positive result, a better performance for
almost any activity.
Within the context of mindfulness, these researchers pointed out the
importance of authenticity, the tyranny of evaluation, the benefits of
mistakes, the mindlessness of social comparison, and the trap of rigid
categories. One of the simplest and most natural methods of reducing
self-evaluation is to assume a mindset of mindfulness rather than mind-
lessness.61 Langer shares her deep conviction that each person is capable
of achieving personal renaissance, the essence of which is “to learn to act
and engage with ourselves mindfully, creatively, actively, and happily.”62
Mindfulness serves as the basis for personal transformation. This has far-
reaching implications for leaders as well as followers, both in their personal
and professional realms.
For Langer, mindfulness and creativity are natural partners. In her
excellent book on creativity entitled On Becoming an Artist, she shares
insights on removing the roadblocks that stand in the way of our awaken-
ing and presents following insights on harnessing artistic creativity:
1. Life of Mindful Creativity. Our creative nature is an integral part of

our daily life and mindful creative activities hold the key to living
meaningful, fulfilled lives. Mindfulness, according to Langer, is “an
effortless, simple process that consists of drawing novel distinc-
tions or noticing new things …. It is seeing the similarities in things
thought different and the differences in things taken to be
similar.”63 Langer found out two ways in which people teach them-
selves to be mindless: (1) through repetition, certain activities
become second nature to us and we carry them out mindlessly, as
60
Shelley H. Carson & Ellen Langer, Mindfulness and Self-Acceptance. Journal of Rational-
Eomotive & Cognitive-Behavior Therapy, 2006, 24, 1, 29–43.
61
See Langer, Mindfulness (New York: Addison-Wesley, 1989).
62
Langer, On Becoming an Artist, 21.
63
Ibid., 5, 16.
86 S. DHIMAN
if on an auto-pilot. We just have to give up our fixed ways in which

we have learned to look at the world and develop a beginner’s
approach to life; and (2) using a single frame of reference.
2. Becoming Authentic. Langer’s research has shown that “when peo-
ple are coached to be more mindful in a situation, those around
them are likely to see them as more charismatic and more
genuine.”64 She quotes Henry Ward Beecher stating that “every
artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into
pictures.”65 Claude Monet spent his life producing “sincere art”.
Langer calls it “Mindful Art.”66
3. The Tyranny of Evaluation. According to Langer, tyranny of evalu-
ation is the “most important roadblock we need to overcome to
achieve personal renaissance. The most common reason we hesi-
tate when presented with an opportunity to express ourselves cre-
atively is our fear of other people’s negative opinions.”67 We need
to remind ourselves that evaluations are context-dependent, and
no one evaluation fits all contexts. One of the best ways mindful-
ness counters the tyranny of evaluation is to realize that “unques-
tioningly accepting single-minded evaluation of what we notice is
mindless.”68
4. The Mindfulness of Mistakes. Langer opines that mistakes encour-
age mindfulness. If we are attentive to our mistakes they help us
tune into the present and allow us to explore novel courses of
action. Langer points out that “Mistakes, like evaluations, are con-
text based. In one context, a mistake is an error, while in another it
can be a surprise advantage.”69 She reminds us that we should learn
from Robert Frost, the great American poet. When the poems that
he wrote did not work to his satisfaction, he called them
“exercises”.
5. The Rule of Absolutes. Langer argues that we tend to create rules
and absolutes and then try to apply them mindlessly to our own
64
Ibid., 25.
65
Ibid., 36.
66
Ibid., 40.
67
Ibid., 43.
68
Ibid., 58.
69
Ibid., 76.
detriment. After all, “rules are, by their very nature, mindless

limitations on our attention to the context in which we do

things.”70 Langer quotes Ansel Adams, stating, “There are no rules
for good photographs, there are only good photographs”. By
becoming more mindful about the genesis of the rules—by asking
such questions as when was the rule made, by whom, under what
context etc.—we move from being rule-governed to being
rule-guided.
6. Mindlessness of Social Comparisons. According to Langer, the main
reason we do not engage the world more creatively is that “we mind-
lessly compare ourselves with other people we deem highly creative
and we come up short.”71 Although to compare is a natural human
tendency, we should remember that most social comparisons set us
up for future unhappiness because there will always be someone who
will be better in some respect than we are. We will benefit a lot if we
keep in mind the contextual influences that contribute to other peo-
ple’s perceived “greatness” and not just their talent.
7. Myth of Talent. Langer notes that the problem with accepting the
conventional idea of talent as being normally distributed is that,
“if we find ourselves on the wrong end of the curve, we just
assume we don’t have what it takes.”72 Langer speaks about our
exaggerated sense of other people’s talent. She points out that in
making comparisons, the gap between us and talented people
widens because we tend to focus on the end results of their efforts
and ignore the “struggles, uncertainties and false starts.”73 She
notes that the “real difference between those we think of as tal-
ented and ourselves may be nothing more than their willingness
to go forward in the face of the uncertainty, if only because they
believe in the skills they know they can bring to bear.”74
8. Blindness of Knowing. Pointing out that our very familiarity with an
object leads to a mindless approach to its reality, Langer insightfully
states: “The opportunity for creating new choices for ourselves
70
Ibid., 103.
71
Ibid., 130.
72
Ibid., 171–172.
73
Ibid., 150.
74
Ibid.
88 S. DHIMAN
comes only when we are open to noticing the very differences that
work against this tendency.”75 She gives several examples of cases
when we are looking but not seeing, such as picking out a picture that
most looks like a penny from among several pictures that look like
a penny. She goes on to remark that there is a good deal of research
that shows how poor eyewitness accuracy is and that confidence and
accuracy are not correlated: “People may be absolutely sure of what
they have seen, and they may be wrong.”76 She notes that “open-
ness to different points of views is an important aspect of being
mindfully creative”. And then with Zen-like simplicity, she con-
cludes: “To play an instrument, all you need to learn is to hear it.”77
9. From Reference to Preference. Langer presents an important aspect
of her approach in this section: taking notice of things expands our
appreciation of them. The more we engage with unfamiliar things,
the more likely we will get to like them. She contends that her
research so far has revealed that “rather than breeding contempt,
familiarity breeds liking.”78 This is called the “mere exposure
effect” in social psychology: seeing something over and over again
increases our liking for it. Langer believes that the more distinc-
tions we draw, the more we see into the essence of something. It is
our mindful engagement with the world that leads us to enjoy the
world and “to be mindfully engaged is the most effortless, natural,
and creative state we can be in.”79
10. Mindful Choice. Langer points out that when it comes to making
choices, we need to remember an important point: “Certainty
breeds mindlessness …. If we do not run from it, uncertainty pro-
motes mindfulness.”80 Then in almost Buddhist vein, she goes on
to remark: “Inasmuch as we confuse the stability of our mind-sets
with the stability of the underlying phenomenon, there is uncer-
tainty whether we choose to acknowledge it or not.”81
75
Ibid., 175.
76
Ibid., 182.
77
Ibid., 190.
78
Ibid., 203.
79
Ibid., 211.
80
Ibid., 223–224.
81
Ibid., 225.
What prevents us from realizing our creative self or mindful creativ-

ity? Langer believes that it is the fear of making mistakes and lack of trust
in our creative talent. She notes that through mindful creativity, we can
change ennui in our lives to exhilaration and improve our overall well-
being. I present below the essence of Langer’s message:
Our fear of making mistakes, our belief that we have no talent, and our
comparisons with others all keep us from engaging in any creative activity
…. The more we engage our mindful creativity, the closer we get to living
a mindful life …. Mindful creativity can turn our lives troubled by boredom
and loneliness into lives that are rich and exciting …. Thus, creative engage-
ment makes us like ourselves and others better, improving our overall hap-
piness and even our health.82
The Practice of Mindfulness
“Mindfulness, I declare, is helpful everywhere.”83
The Buddha regarded mindfulness as the most helpful since it is through

mindfulness alone that we can fully benefit from the present moment.
Since one has access to the present moment alone, mindfulness is con-
sidered helpful every time, everywhere. Mindfulness is the art of keep-
ing one’s consciousness alertly alive in the present. According to the
Vietnamese monk, Thich Nhat Hanh, mindfulness refers to a special
form of awareness or presence of mind. Although one is always aware
to some degree, this awareness rarely goes beyond the surface level to
reach the mind’s deeper layers.84 However, with the practice of mind-
fulness, the normal awareness or attentiveness is applied with greater
intensity and “at a special pitch.”85 Bodhi, a pre-eminent Theravada
82
Ibid., 210; 229; 194.
83
Bhikkhu Khantipalo, Practical Advice for Meditators (Kandy, Sri Lanka: Buddhist
Publication Society, 1986), 8.
84
Ven. Henepola Gunaratana, Mindfulness in Plain English (Boston, MA: Wisdom, Rev.
ed., 2002).
85
Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi, The Noble Eightfold Path: Way to the End of Suffering (Onalaska,
WA: BPS Pariyatti, 1994), 70. Ven. Bhikkhu Khantipalo, Practical Advice for Meditators
(Kandy, Sri Lanka: Buddhist Publication Society, 1986), 8.
90 S. DHIMAN
Buddhist scholar-monk, explains the practice of right mindfulness as

follows:
The mind is deliberately kept at the level of bare attention, a detached

observation of what is happening within us and around us in the present
moment. In the practice of right mindfulness the mind is trained to remain
in the present, open, quiet, and alert, contemplating the present event. All
judgments and interpretations have to be suspended, or if they occur, just
registered and dropped …. To practice mindfulness is thus a matter not so
much of doing but of undoing: not thinking, not judging, not associating,
not planning, not imagining, not wishing. All these “doings” of ours are
modes of interference, ways the mind manipulates experience and tries to
establish its dominance.86
Bodhi captures all the essential elements of right mindfulness within the
compass of this short paragraph. He points out the most important part of
the mindfulness practice to be “undoing” more than doing and remaining
alertly present. The Pali word for mindfulness is sati. Buddha described
sati as the ability to remember, that is, to be aware of what one is doing in
the movements of the body, in the movements of mind:
And what is the faculty of sati? There is the case where a monk, a disciple of
the noble ones, is mindful, highly meticulous, remembering & able to call
to mind even things that were done & said long ago. He remains focused
on the body in & of itself—ardent, alert, & mindful—putting aside greed
& distress with reference to the world. He remains focused on feelings in
& of themselves … the mind in & of itself … mental qualities in & of
themselves—ardent, alert, & mindful—putting aside greed & distress with
reference to the world.87
Although, sati originally meant memory or remembrance, in its general

Buddhist usage, it has been mostly employed to denote a certain qual-
ity of attentiveness or awareness of the present that Buddhist doctrine
specifies as good, wholesome, skillful, or right. It is not just bare attention
that is referred to here; rather, it is appropriate or wholesome attention,
denoted by the Pali word yonisomaniskara. Buddhist psychology identifies
three unwholesome tendencies of mind: greed, hatred and ignorance. If
86
Ibid., 76.
87
Ven. Thanissaro Bhikkhu, trans., Sutta Nipata: 48.10. Retrieved February 21, 2016:
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn48/sn48.010.than.html.
a ttention emanates from any of these three unwholesome tendencies, then

it is not appropriate and will not provide one with knowledge of reality as
it truly is. Used in this sense, it is called samma-sati, or right mindfulness,
and forms the seventh factor of the Noble Eightfold Path,88 which repre-
sents the heart of the Buddha’s teaching to end suffering.
Jon Kabat-Zinn, the founder-director of the Stress Reduction Clinic at
the University of Massachusetts Medical Center, who is generally accred-
ited with bringing mindfulness into the mainstream of medicine and soci-
ety in the West, charmingly highlights the importance of mindfulness as
“much ado about what might seem like almost nothing that turns out to
be just about everything.”89 Kabat-Zinn provides an operational definition
of mindfulness as an “awareness cultivated by paying attention in a sus-
tained and particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and non-
judgmentally.”90 Mindfulness thus defined is a particular form of awareness
that involves paying attention to the present moment in a non-judgmental
way. J. Krishnamurti, a preeminent spiritual teacher, captures the essence
of this practice by using a felicitous expression, choice-less awareness—an
awareness in which we remain attentive to our experiences in the pres-
ent moment, without being attracted towards the pleasant experiences or
being repelled by the unpleasant ones.
One of the most widely practiced techniques to develop mindfulness
is to pay close attention to the sensations of the incoming and outgo-
ing breath. It is not about “controlling” the breath in any manner but
about just paying attention to the breath in a natural, unforced way. All
meditation traditions of the world recognize the importance of breath
for obvious reasons. For one, we all breathe. Breath is always available to
us in every situation. Breath is also culturally neutral: There is no Hindu
or Buddhist or Christian breath. And, most importantly, one can only
breathe in the present! So, when we become alertly aware of our breath, it
naturally and spontaneously brings us to the present moment. Thus, our
breath serves as our vital connection to the present moment.
88
See Ven. Thera Nyanaponika, The Heart of Buddhist Meditation: A Handbook of Mental
Training Based on Buddha’s Way of Mindfulness (London: Ryder., 1960).
89
Jon Kabat-Zinn, Mindfulness for Beginners: Reclaiming the Present Moment and Your
Life (Louisville, CO: Sounds True, 2012), 4 (emphasis in the original).
90
Ibid., 1.
92 S. DHIMAN
Benefits of Mindfulness, Creativity, and Flow

There is an increasing body of empirical research that shows that mindful-
ness results in greater insight, receptivity, balance, and clarity;91 ensures
increased energy and sense of well-being and expands awareness and range
of our responses;92 and results in an increased life span, greater creativity,
and lesser burnout.93 Mindfulness really pays. It helps us adapt to the cur-
rent situation meaningfully by making us more sensitive to the present
context. It makes everything more alive, more distinctly vivid.
Mindfulness is truly a hallmark of excellence in any field. “At the very
highest level of any field”, says Langer, “Fortune 50 CEOs, the most
impressive artists and musicians, the top athletes, the best teachers and
mechanics—you’ll find mindful people, because that’s the only way to
get there.”94 When we dwell in the present, we are more sensitive to the
present context and thus less judgmental. This enhances engagement in
any human interaction. When we are more aware, more mindful, we are
greatly open to the new possibilities and fresh opportunities. This reduces
stress. Most stress arises by missing the present because we are busy living
in the past memories or in future dreams.
When asked during her recent interview with senior HBR editor, Alison
Beard, what one thing about mindfulness she would like every executive
to remember, Langer replied, “Life consists only of moments, nothing
more than that. So if you make the moment matter, it all matters. You can
be mindful you can be mindless. You can win, you can lose. The worst
case is to be mindless and lose. So when you’re doing anything, be mind-
ful, notice new things, make it meaningful to you, and you’ll prosper.”95
In Langer’s view, it is mindfulness which makes our activities meaningful
to us. Noticing new things is then the essence of both mindfulness and
creativity.
The following figure shows the vital relationship among mindfulness,
creativity and flow (Fig 4.1).
91
See Langer, On Becoming an Artist; Saki Santorelli, Heal Thy Self: Lessons on Mindfulness
in Medicine (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2000).
92
Jon Kabat-Zinn & Saki Santorelli, Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction Professional
Training: Scientific Papers from the Stress Reduction Clinic (Boston, MA: Center for
Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society, 2002). Spiral Bound.
93
See Langer, Mindfulness (New York: Addison-Wesley, 1989).
94
Mindfulness in the Age of Complexity, HBR, 2014, 4.
95
Ibid., 7.
Fig. 4.1 Creativity, flow and mindfulness, Satinder Dhiman (2012)
Concluding Thoughts
Most of us go to our graves with our music still inside us, unplayed.
—OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES
Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes laments about the unrealized creative

potential of humanity. Perhaps our ingrained beliefs as assumptions about
creativity prevent us from recognizing and realizing our creative prowess.
Although we all have creative potential, yet it requires certain deliberate
effort on our part to harness it. This chapter clarified some myths about
94 S. DHIMAN
creativity and presented some strategies for leaders to unleash creativity

through mindfulness.
To enjoy the felicitous state of creative fulfillment or flow, one has to
achieve a certain measure of awareness regarding the contents of one’s
consciousness. Mindfulness as a meditative practice can help tremendously
in raising the awareness level of the contents of the mind. By being mind-
fully aware of one’s inner and outer world, one notices new things, which
in turn helps one to become more creative and alive. This has been vari-
ously called full-blast living or full catastrophic living.96 Thus, mindfulness
can serve as a basis of creativity, flow, and meaningful engagement with
life in its myriad manifestations. And when mindfulness matures into right
mindfulness, that is, by minding a mind that is free from greed, hatred, or
delusion, one can experience the flow of existence with generosity, com-
passion, and wisdom.
One of the simplest meditative practices we can integrate into our lives
is the practice of silence. It has been said that silence is a proven atmo-
sphere for self-discovery. Silence is also the choice strategy of creation in
nature:
A seed while growing makes no sound!

A tree while falling makes huge noise!
Destruction has noise, creation is quiet.
So be quiet and be creative.97
Through a deep sense of calm and stillness, silence brings forth the
latent creativity in us. In silence, our mind is freed from its habitual think-
ing patterns and is able to see novel possibilities. The jury is still out on
the role of creative genius. Perhaps both nature and nurture have their
due share. Some research reviewed in this chapter shows that the creative
thought process is not much distinct from ordinary thinking. Still no one
has yet discovered a direct road to creativity. The path is circuitous, mun-
dane, serendipitous, and exciting. It is only when we are creative that we
are truly alive. Creativity may still be a gift. But it also needs concerted
tending. Of course, the best thing is to be born as a genius; the next best
thing is to work at it.
96
See Jon Kabat-Zinn, Full Catastrophic Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind
to Face Stress, Anxiety and Depression (New York, NY: Guildford Press, 1990).
97
Author unknown.
Creativity and Flow: Reflection Questions

1. It has been observed that one doesn’t manage creativity; one man-
ages for creativity. What steps can leaders take to foster an environ-
ment of creativity in the workplace, given that creativity has come to
be recognized as the single most important attribute for success in
leading a large corporation in the future?
2. Given the fact that majority of US workers are not engaged, as indi-
cated by a series of recent Gallup polls, do you think that it is para-
mount for present-day leaders to foster conditions of flow at work
for better employee engagement and satisfaction?
3. Recent research has shown that flow directly correlates to happiness
at work and happiness at work directly correlates to success. Does
happiness follow success or success follow happiness?
4. Is originality enough in business? Or, to be creative, must an idea
also be useful and actionable? What is the difference between cre-
ativity and innovation?
5. Is creativity an art or a science? Can one train oneself to become
more creative?
6. Sometimes the best insights come from those outside a particular
field. Does expertise lead to creativity or are they two very different
things?
7. What is the link among flow, creativity, and mindfulness? Explain
how mindfulness enhances engagement in any human interaction.
CHAPTER 5
Emotional & Multiple Intelligences:

10 Different Ways of Being Smart
The difference between those who succeed and those who fail is emotional
intelligence and self-awareness.
—Bill George1
Introduction
The opening quote amply demonstrates the importance of emotional
intelligence (EI) and self-awareness in leadership success, although it can
be argued that EI is in fact an expression of greater self-awareness. Bill
George’s observation is amply borne out by two decades of research high-
lighting the role of EI in workplace success and effective leadership. This
chapter explores the role of emotional intelligence and multiple intelli-
gences in enhancing leadership effectiveness. The findings from these two
fields are presented to create a roadmap for holistic leaders. The author
believes that by harnessing both emotional and multiple intelligences, lead-
ers can recognize and nurture the myriad gifts that people bring to work
in an integral manner. Emotional intelligence is defined as one’s ability to
accurately identify, appraise, discern and discriminate among emotions in
oneself and others, understand emotions, assimilate emotions in thought,
1
Quoted by Steve Minter, When Leaders Lose Their Way, IndustryWeek, Sep 1, 2015. Retrieved
February 10, 2016: http://www.industryweek.com/leadership/when-leaders-lose-their-way.

DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-55571-7_5
98 S. DHIMAN
and to regulate both positive and negative emotions in self and others.2
The chapter also explores the role of empathy in leadership success.
The concept of multiple intelligences, as propounded by Howard
Gardner, recognizes various additional forms of intelligence to account
for excellence in music, language, sports, and other fields. It challenges
the conventional view of intelligence that exclusively focuses on linguistic
and mathematical intelligence. The chapter takes the view that both emo-
tional intelligence and multiple intelligences are amenable to conscious
development and their mastery can contribute to the development of a
holistic leader.
Emotions and Emotional Intelligence

The degree of one’s emotions varies inversely with one’s knowledge of facts: the
less you know the hotter you get. —Bertrand Russell 3
Bertrand Russell, the great British philosopher, provides an important clue

to manage our emotions: Our knowledge of facts affects the monitor-
ing of our emotions. It is our common experience that the less we know
about a situation, the more emotionally agitated we get. Likewise it pays
to know our emotions. The role of emotions in our lives can hardly be
over-emphasized. To feel emotions is to be human. It has been observed
that our emotions, as much as our intelligence, are signs of our humanity.
Emotions are inborn and represent our inmost core. If our inner self is not
working well, we are not able to cope with things that we encounter in our
external environment.
About 2500 years ago, Aristotle observed that emotions “may be felt
both too much or too little, and in both cases not well; but to feel them at
the right times, with reference to the right objects, towards the right peo-
ple, with the right motive, and in the right way, is what is both i ntermediate
2
Mayer, J., D. Caruso, & P. Salovey (2000). Emotional intelligence meets traditional stan-
dards for an intelligence. Intelligence, 27(4), 267–298. See also: Peter Salovey & John
D. Mayer, “Emotional intelligence,” Imagination, Cognition, and Personality, 1990, 9 (3),
185–211. Goleman, D. (2001). An EI-based theory of performance. In C. Cherniss &
D. Goleman (Eds.), The Emotionally Intelligent Workplace (pp. 27–44). San Francisco, CA:
Jossey-Bass.
3
As quoted in Moshe Zeidner, Gerald Mathews, and Richard D. Roberts, What We Know
about Emotional Intelligence: How It Affects Learning, Work, Relationships, and Our Mental
Health (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2012), 13.
EMOTIONAL & MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCES: 10 DIFFERENT WAYS... 99
and best, and this is characteristic of virtue.”4 For Aristotle, handling emo-
tions appropriately was a mark of virtuous behavior. A popular adage puts
it well: “Rule your emotions, lest they rule you.” Emotional regulation is
an essential part of personal and professional excellence. Although manag-
ing emotions effectively has been long prized as key human virtue, it is
only during the last 2 decades that emotional intelligence has become a
topic of concerted scientific exploration.
Emotional intelligence has come to be widely recognized as a key com-
ponent of effective leadership. Lately, it has become an increasingly popu-
lar competency for identifying and developing effective leaders. A search
on Google under the heading “emotional intelligence” yielded more than
16 million hits.5 A similar search on Google Scholar yielded more than
1.86 million entries.6 This clearly shows that that the popular literature
has far outpaced scientific study, which is of concern to many research-
ers.7 Given its ubiquitous presence in the numerous corporate leadership
programs, myriad tests, and frequent mention in the mass media, it is
little wonder that emotional intelligence has become quite a profitable
growth industry. What is the evidence behind the media hype about the
emotional intelligence construct? Can emotional intelligence be learned?
What is the role of EI in developing effective leaders? What are the limita-
tions of the EI construct? These are some of the questions I will explore
in this chapter.
First, I review various constructs of EI in the following section.
Models of Emotional Intelligence (EI)

Emotional intelligence may be defined as a generic competence in per-
ceiving emotions (both in oneself and in others), in regulating emotions,
and in coping effectively with emotive situations.8 This definition posits
emotional intelligence as the competence in recognizing and regulating
4
Quoted in Moshe Zeidner, Gerald Mathews, and Richard D. Roberts, What We Know
about Emotional Intelligence, ix.
5
Retrieved February 25, 2015: https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-
instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=emotional%20intelligence.
6
Retrieved February 25, 2015: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=emotional
+intelligence&btnG=&as_sdt=1%2C5.
7
Moshe Zeidner, Gerald Matthews, and Richard D. Roberts, What We Know about
Emotional Intelligence, xiv.
8
As quoted ibid., 33.
100 S. DHIMAN
emotions effectively in oneself and in others. Currently, there are at least

three dominant models of EI in vogue: Mayer and Salovey’s Four Branch
Model, Reuven Bar-On’s Model of Emotional-Social Intelligence, and
the Goleman Model of EI. According to Goleman, most elements of
every EI model fit within the four generic domains: self-awareness, self-
management, social awareness and relationship management.9 The Mayer
and Salovey model is considered an “ability model” since they favor defin-
ing EI as an ability. The Bar-On model furnished one of the first systematic
instruments professing to measure EI. Goleman’s model is best consid-
ered as a “mixed model” since it includes a broader conception of EI by
including both abilities and qualities related to personality and motivation.
Mayer and Salovey’s Four Branch Model of EI10

The first systematic research on emotional intelligence, as a psychological
theory, was conducted by Peter Salovey and John Mayer.11 In their semi-
nal article on EI, published in 1990, they articulated a framework of an
expanded array of essential skills for life and what it means to educate the
‘whole child’ for life. While traditional IQ scores are useful for predicting
how we will do in school, they tell very little about our performance once
we leave school. IQ proves to be a weak predictor of how well we relate
with others, perform at work, and cope with a variety of daily challenges.12
These authors thus provide us with the first systematic and c omprehensive
9
Daniel Goleman, The Brain and Emotional Intelligence: New insights (Northampton,
MA: More Than Sound, LCC, 2011).
10
John Mayer, David Caruso & Peter Salovey, Emotional intelligence meets traditional
standards for an intelligence. Intelligence, 1999, 27, 267–298. Also John Mayer, Peter
Salovey & David Caruso, D. R. Models of emotional intelligence. In R. J. Sternberg
(Ed.). Handbook of Intelligence (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2000),
396–420.
11
Salovey says he and John “Jack” were equal coauthors, and Jack got his name first
because of a coin toss. The team has gone on to publish numerous articles: Opinion cited in
Joshua Freedman, Emotional WHAT? Definitions and History of EQ, January 26, 2010. Six
Seconds: The Emotional Intelligence Network. Retrieved February 27, 2016: http://
www.6seconds.org/2010/01/26/emotional-intelligence-definition-history/.
12
See Peter Salovey & John Mayer, Emotional Intelligence. Imagination, Cognition, and
Personality, 1990, 9: 185–211. Also see John D. Mayer, Peter Salovey, & David R. Caruso,
Emotional intelligence: New ability or eclectic traits? American Psychologist, 2008, 63,
503–517.
framework to understand the role of emotional intelligence in life and

leadership.
Mayer and Salovey believe that definitions of emotional intelligence
should someway connect emotions with intelligence if the meanings of
the two terms are to be preserved.13 It is important to remember that
IQ and EI are not opposing competencies, but rather different ones. As
their colleague David Caruso writes, “It is very important to understand
that emotional intelligence is not the opposite of intelligence, it is not the
triumph of heart over head—it is the unique intersection of both.”14 Thus,
these two competencies are not mutually exclusive, but complementary.
They verily need to interact—emotions enhancing thinking and thinking
regulating emotions. We need the wisdom of both the mind and the heart
to succeed in the business of life.
Mayer and Salovey have provided the following definition connecting
intelligence and emotions:
Emotional intelligence is the ability to perceive emotions; to access and gen-

erate emotions so as to assist thought; to understand emotions and emo-
tional knowledge; and to reflectively regulate emotions so as to promote
emotional and intellectual growth.15
There are four parts to this definition:
1. Perceive or sense emotions,

2. Use emotions to assist thought,
3. Understand emotions, and
4. Manage emotions.
Their four branch model of EI is built upon this definition. This

model has come to be called ability model of EI since it defines
13
See John Mayer & Peter Salovey, “What is emotional intelligence?” In Peter Salovey &
David Sluyter (Eds.), Emotional Development and Emotional Intelligence: Educational
Implications (New York, New York: Basic Books, 1997), 3–31.
14
Quoted in Joshua Freedman, Emotional WHAT? Definitions and History of EQ, January
26, 2010. Six Seconds: The Emotional Intelligence Network. Retrieved February 27, 2016:
http://www.6seconds.org/2010/01/26/emotional-intelligence-definition-history/.
15
Ibid., 6.
102 S. DHIMAN
emotional intelligence as involving the abilities. More specifically,

these abilities are: 16
1. Accurately perceive emotions in oneself and others

2. Use emotions to facilitate thinking
3. Understand emotional meanings, and
4. Manage emotions
The following explanation is based on John Mayer’s description of

these abilities:17
1. PERCEIVING EMOTION. The initial, most basic, area has to do

with the nonverbal reception and expression of emotion …. The
capacity accurately to perceive emotions in the face or voice of oth-
ers provides a crucial starting point for more advanced understand-
ing of emotions.
2. USING EMOTIONS TO FACILITATE THOUGHT. Cognitive
scientists point out that emotions prioritize thinking …. Having a
good system of emotional input, therefore, should help direct think-
ing toward matters that are truly important. A number of research-
ers have suggested that emotions are important for certain kinds of
creativity to emerge.
3. UNDERSTANDING EMOTIONS. Emotions convey information:
Happiness usually indicates a desire to join with other people; anger
indicates a desire to attack or harm others; fear indicates a desire to
escape, and so forth …. Fully understanding emotions involves the
comprehension of the meaning of emotions, coupled with the
capacity to reason about those meanings.
4. MANAGING EMOTIONS. Finally, emotions often can be man-
aged. A person needs to understand that emotions convey informa-
tion … within the person’s emotional comfort zone, it becomes
possible to regulate and manage one’s own and others’ emotions so
as to promote one’s own and others’ personal and social goals.
As is clear from the description above, EI is about perceiving and regu-

lating emotions through knowledge and understanding.
16
See John D. Mayer, The Four Branch Model of Emotional Intelligence. Retrieved
March 5, 2016: http://www.unh.edu/emotional_intelligence/ei%20What%20is%20EI/
ei%20fourbranch.htm.
17
Ibid.
The Bar-On Model of EI

The Bar-On concept of EI describes emotional-social intelligence as an
array of interrelated emotional and social competencies, skills and behav-
iors that impact intelligent behavior.18
The Bar-On Emotional Quotient Inventory, EQ-i ™, is a self-report
measure of emotionally and socially-intelligent behavior that provides an
estimate of emotional-social intelligence.19 The individual’s responses ren-
der a total EQ score as well as scores on the following 15 scales in addition
to the validity indicators, which is described in detail below20:
A. Intrapersonal:
1. Self-Regard: Understand, accept, and respect oneself.

2. Emotional Self-Awareness: Recognize and understand one’s
feelings.
3. Assertiveness: Express feelings, thoughts and beliefs.
4. Independence: Self-directed and Self-controlled.
5. Self-Actualization: Realize one’s potential capacities.
B. Interpersonal:
6. Empathy: Aware and appreciative of the feelings of others.

7. Social Responsibility: Cooperative and responsible member of
social group.
8. Interpersonal Relationship: Establish and maintain satisfying
relationship.
C. Stress Management:
9. Stress Tolerance: Withstand adverse events through positive

coping.
10. Impulse Control: Resist or delay an impulse or temptation to act.
18
Reuven Bar-On, The Bar-On Model. Retrieved March 5, 2016: http://www.reuven-
baron.org/wp/the-bar-on-model/.
19
Reuven Bar-On, The Bar-On Model. Retrieved March 5, 2016: http://www.reuven-
baron.org/wp/description-of-the-eq-i-eq-360-and-eq-iyv/.
20
See Zeidner et al., 114. Also see Reuven Bar-On, How Important Is It to Educate
People to be Emotionally Intelligent, and Can it be Done? In Reuven Bar-On, J.G. Maree,
and Maurice Jesse Elias, (eds.), Educating People to be Emotionally Intelligent (Westport, CT:
Praeger Publishers, 2007), 4.
104 S. DHIMAN
D. Adaptability:
11. Reality Testing: Evaluate the correspondence between subjec-

tive and objective reality.
12. Flexibility: Adjust emotions, thoughts and behaviors to chang-
ing conditions.
13. Problem-Solving: Define problems and generate potentially
effective solutions.
E. General Mood:
14. Optimism: Maintain a positive attitude, even in the face of

adversity.
15. Happiness/Well-Being: To feel content with oneself, others
and life in general.
The EQ-i ™ includes the following four validity indicators21:
1. Omission Rate (number of omitted responses) when it is com-

pleted offline.
2. Inconsistency Index (degree of response inconsistency).
3. Positive Impression (tendency toward exaggerated positive

responding).
4. Negative Impression (tendency toward exaggerated negative

responding).
The critics point out that this is a “self-report” test—meaning a test-taker

self-reports on his or her ability—and a self-report is not a reliable indicator
of one’s actual ability. Duas and Ashkanasy note that such tests are much
too broad in scope, and do not appear to differ markedly from traditional
personality models or competency models and report self- and other-per-
ceptions of these traits rather than an estimate of a person’s actual emo-
tional ability.22 They cite the opinion of Joseph Ciarrochi and colleagues
noting that “we should not make up a test and call it EI when really it is a
21
Ibid.
22
Catherine S. Daus and Neal M. Ashkanasy, “Will the real emotional intelligence please
stand up? On deconstructing the emotional intelligence ‘debate’”, The Industrial-
Organizational Psychologist, 41 (2), (2003): 69–72.
measure of some other, well-established personality trait.” Therefore, these

authors do not endorse this approach to studying emotional intelligence in
the workplace.
Daniel Goleman Model of EI

IQ and technical skills are important, but emotional intelligence is the sine qua
non of leadership.23
In this quote, Goleman underscores the key role of emotional intelligence

in leadership effectiveness. Through his myriad popular writings on the
subject, he has provided EI much wider academic and media exposure.
According to Goleman, emotional intelligence is the capacity for recog-
nizing our own feelings and those of others, for motivating ourselves and
for managing emotions well in ourselves and in our relationships. He pre-
sented his theory of EI initially in his seminal 1995 book titled Emotional
Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More than IQ. Later, working with his col-
leagues, Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKee, Goleman et al. further devel-
oped the EI model, as presented in their book entitled Primal Leadership:
Unleashing the Power of Emotional Intelligence.
In 1998, in one of Harvard Business Review’s most popular articles,
“What Makes a Leader”, Goleman highlights the importance of EI in
developing effective leaders:
The most effective leaders are all alike in one crucial way: they all have a high
degree of what has come to be known as emotional intelligence. It’s not that
IQ and technical skills are irrelevant. They do matter, but mainly as “thresh-
old capabilities”; that is, they are the entry-level requirements for executive
positions. My research, along with other recent studies, clearly shows that
emotional intelligence is the sine qua non of leadership. Without it, a person
can have the best training in the world, an incisive, analytical mind, and an
endless supply of smart ideas, but he still won’t make a great leader.24
The essence of Goleman’s view is this: while IQ can get you in the door,
it is the EI that holds the key to make you a “star performer” in the
23
Daniel Goleman, What Makes a Leader? Harvard Business Review, January 2004
Reprint: Best of HBR 1998, 1.
24
Ibid., 2–3.
106 S. DHIMAN
workplace. The article then goes on to introduce four fundamental com-

ponents of emotional intelligence that allow individuals to recognize, con-
nect with, and learn from their own and other people’s mental states:
1. Self-awareness
2. Self-regulation
3. Social awareness
4. Social skills
Emotional intelligence consists of following four fundamental

competencies:25
1. Self-Awareness: Self-awareness means having a deep understanding

of one’s emotions, as well as one’s strengths and limitations and
one’s values and motives …. Self-aware leaders are clear about their
values, goals, and dreams.
2. Self-Management: Self-management is the ability to keep disrup-
tive emotions and impulses under control (self-control), maintain
honesty, integrity and trustworthiness (transparency), take responsi-
bility for one’s performance (conscientiousness), be flexible in han-
dling change (adaptability), have internal drive to meet standards of
excellence (achievement), show readiness to seize opportunities
(initiative), and see the upside of events (optimism).
3. Social Awareness: Social awareness is sensing others’ emotions,
perspectives and taking active interest in their well-being (empathy);
understanding organizational currents, decision networks, and poli-
tics (organizational awareness), and recognizing and meeting fol-
lower, customer/client needs (service orientation).
4. Social Skills: Social skills include guiding and motivating with com-
pelling vision (inspirational leadership); ability to induce desirable
responses in others by using effective persuasion (influence); enhanc-
ing others’ abilities through effective coaching and mentoring
(developing others); listening openly and sending clear, convincing
messages (communication); initiating managing and leading in new
25
See Daniel Goleman, Leadership That Gets Results, Harvard Business Review, March–
April 2000, 4; Daniel Goleman, What Makes a Leader? Harvard Business Review, January
2004 Reprint: Best of HBR 1998, 4; and Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis, and Annie
McKee, Primal leadership, 39–52.
directions (change catalyst); ability to resolve disagreements (con-

flict management); ability to nurture a web of relationships (build-
ing bonds); and ability to foster cooperation and team building
(teamwork and collaboration).
As is evident from the above, Goleman and his colleagues provide a

comprehensive listing of EI competencies in four broad headings, link-
ing them to essential leadership competencies. They call emotionally
savvy leaders as resonant leaders. Resonant leaders inspire a compel-
ling vision, use persuasion for buy-in and inspire teamwork and col-
laboration through effective coaching and mentoring. Some may feel
that there is much here which may not be specific to the emotional
intelligence construct per se but pertains to a broad array of effective
leadership competencies and skills. Nonetheless, the authors succeed in
bringing to wider public attention what really matters in leading oneself
and others.
Emotional Intelligence and Leadership

Effectiveness
“Great leadership works through the emotions.” —Goleman et al.26
Calling emotions “primal”, Goleman opines that leading through the

emotions is the hallmark of great leadership. Thanks to his energetic
efforts, the construct of emotional intelligence has become increas-
ingly popular recently for identifying and developing effective leaders.
Although handling emotions effectively has been long prized as a key
human virtue, it is only during the last two decades that emotional intel-
ligence has become a subject of concerted scientific exploration. Jack
Welch famously quipped, “The soft stuff is the hard stuff,” and those
involved in the leadership ranks know this to be true. According to
Goleman, “Soft skills have hard consequences.”27 During the last few
decades, the role of soft skills has become more integral to effective
leadership.
26
Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis, and Annie McKee, Primal Leadership: Unleashing
the Power of Emotional Intelligence (Boston, Massachusetts: Harvard Business Review Press,
2013), 3.
27
As quoted in Sharon Shinn, “Intelligence at Work,” BizEd, September/October, 2003, 23.
108 S. DHIMAN
Recounting the ratcheting up of global competitive forces, and conse-

quent ever-increasing pressures on those responsible for leadership ranks,
Daniel Goleman and his colleagues aver that “this whirlwind of change
makes it more important than ever for leaders to be self-aware and com-
posed, focused and high energy, empathic and motivating, collaborative
and compelling—in short, resonant. A host of studies worldwide on emo-
tions, emotional contagion, leader-follower relations, and coaching, as
well as research on human behavior continue to confirm and clarify our
understanding of why emotionally intelligent leaders get results.”28
Over the last two decades, several researchers and practitioners have
enriched the field of emotional intelligence. Perhaps the foremost pro-
ponent of the leadership effectiveness of EI is Daniel Goleman, who,
through his myriad popular books and Harvard Business Review articles,
has championed the cause of EI and its application to the workplace.
Goleman presents a popular, broad journalistic account of EI. In his
1998 book entitled Working with Emotional Intelligence, Goleman refor-
mulated EI in terms of its application to the workplace and provided
guidelines for training in the “emotionally intelligent organization.”
Drawing upon studies in more than 500 organizations world-wide, he
documents an important fact: in determining star performance in every
field, emotional intelligence matters twice as much as IQ or techni-
cal expertise. According to Goleman, “a leader’s singular job is to get
results.”29 Goleman contends that leaders high in emotional intelligence
are integral to organizational success and have the capacity to influence
organizational performance by setting a particular work environment,
which “accounts for nearly a third of results.”30
Research at the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) using a battery
of tests during 1995–1998 found that the only statistically significant fac-
tor that set apart the uppermost quartile of successful leaders from the
lowest quartile of unsuccessful leaders was caring—the ability to give and
receive affection.31 These findings further underscore the importance of EI
28
Goleman, Boyatzis, and McKee, Primal Leadership, ix.
29
Daniel Goleman, Leadership That Gets Results, HBR, March–April, 2000, 2.
30
Goleman, Boyatzis, and McKee, Primal Leadership, 3.
31
As cited in Robert R. Cooper, The Other 90 %: How to Unlock Your Vast Untapped
Potential for Leadership and Life (New York: Crown Business; Later Printing edition, 2002),
18. See also James M. Kouzes & Barry Z. Posner, Encouraging the Heart: A Leader’s Guide
to Rewarding and Recognizing Others (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2003), 7.
in predicting success in organizations. Another area where EI can help in

the workplace is offering what is called “artful critique.” Providing spe-
cific feedback empathetically that offers a solution in terms of the issue at
hand rather than focusing on the person can go a long way in motivat-
ing employees. As Daniel Goleman has pointed out, “An artful critique
focuses on what a person has done and can do rather than reading a mark
of character into a job poorly done.”32 By focusing on the performance
rather than the personality of the performer, leaders motivate employees
and create a caring work environment.
Contrary to the belief that academic achievement matters very much
in the success we have in working life, Chen et al. have shown that close
to 90 percent of success in leadership positions is attributed to Emotional
Intelligence.33 Cavallo and Brienza conducted a study of 358 manag-
ers across the Johnson & Johnson Consumer & Personal Care Group
(JJC&PC Group) globally to assess if there were specific leadership com-
petencies that distinguished high performers from average performers.
Results supported the position that emotional competence differenti-
ates successful leaders from the average. High performing managers at
the Johnson & Johnson Consumer and Personal Care Group were seen
to possess significantly higher levels of Self-Awareness, Self-Management
capability, Social Skills, and Organizational Savvy, all considered part of
the Emotional Intelligence domain.34 These results show a good valida-
tion of Goleman’s construct of EI.
Goleman has suggested “emotional quotient” (EQ) as an alternative
to the more traditional measures of IQ. An important part of his thesis is
that IQ is overrated. Goleman asserts that while IQ helps, “EQ” is more
important than IQ when it comes to leading a successful life, personally
and professionally. As for the relevance of IQ in the workplace, studies
have shown that IQ can serve to predict between 1 and 20 percent (the
average is 6 percent) of success in a given job. Emotional Intelligence
(EI), on the other hand, has been found to be directly responsible for
32
Goleman, Emotional Intelligence, 153.
33
Wei Chen, Ruth Jacobs, & Lyle Spencer, “Calculating the competencies of stars.” In
Daniel Goleman (Ed.) Working with Emotional Intelligence (New York: Bantam Books,
1998), 377–380.
34
Kathleen Cavallo & Dottie Brienza (n.d.). Emotional competence and leadership excel-
lence at Johnson & Johnson: The emotional intelligence and leadership study, 2001.
Retrieved Mach 6, 2016: http://www.eiconsortium.org/reports/jj_ei_study.html.
110 S. DHIMAN
between 27 and 45 percent of job success, depending upon the field under
study.35 This research is a part of the mounting evidence that EI matters
most in the workplace.
While IQ is considered fairly stable over time, EI, research has shown,
changes over time and can be learned and expanded, at any time dur-
ing one’s life.36 Goleman also regards emotional competencies as “learned
abilities”—that is, one has the potential to become adept at these com-
petencies. This has far-reaching leadership implications. However, this
potential has to be “actualized” in practice. Thus even though one may
have an EI ability, there is no guarantee that it will manifest itself as a com-
petence in the workplace. For example, one may be highly empathetic, yet
poor at handling relationships due to lack of self-control.
Research on EI has deeper implications for empathy. Empathy is much
more than a warm fussy feeling reserved for greeting cards. Empathy
involves identifying, subjectively, with the emotion of another and expe-
riencing concern for that emotion.37 While sympathy signifies feeling for
others, empathy involves feeling with others. Underscoring the impor-
tance of empathy in leadership, Peter Drucker has observed that the num-
ber one practical competency for leaders is empathy. Studies have shown
that empathy is also the number one practical competency for a success-
ful life.38 However, there is zero correlation between IQ and emotional
empathy. They are controlled by different parts of the brain.39 Brilliance in
the cognitive domain does not always guarantee a corresponding talent in
the emotional arena, a fact that is also confirmed by common observation.
Analyzing the data from close to 500 competence models from global
companies including the likes of IBM, Lucent, PepsiCo, British Airways,
as well as health care organizations, academic institutions, government
agencies, Goleman et al. discovered that EI-competencies played an
35
Steven J. Stein & Howard E. Book, The EQ Edge: Emotional Intelligence and Your
Success, 3rd Edition (Ontario: Jossey-Bass, A Wiley Imprint, 2011), 17.
36
Ibid.
37
Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence: Why It can Matter more than IQ (New York:
Bantam Books, 1995). Daniel Goleman, Working with Emotional Intelligence: Why It can
Matter more than IQ (New York: Bantam Books, 1998).
38
Robert R. Cooper, The Other 90 %: How to Unlock Your Vast Untapped Potential for
Leadership and Life (New York: Crown Business; Later Printing edition, 2002), 232.
39
Daniel Goleman, “Why aren’t we more compassionate?” A Ted Talk, March 2007.
Interactive Transcript retrieved March 2016: http://www.ted.com/talks/daniel_goleman_
on_compassion/transcript?language=en.
increasingly important role at the higher level of organizations … In other

words, the higher the rank of those considered star performers, the more
the EI competencies emerged as the reason for their effectiveness. Simply
put, the higher up one advances in an organization, the more important
Emotional Intelligence becomes.40 This reiterates the importance of EI in
leadership effectiveness.
Daniel Goleman et al. conclude their book with a technical note on EI
versus IQ as follows:
While the precise ratio of EI to cognitive abilities depends on how each are
measured and on the unique demands of a given organization, our rule of
thumb holds that EI contributes 80 to 90 percent of the competencies that
distinguish outstanding from average leaders—and sometimes more. To be
sure, purely cognitive competencies, such as technical expertise, surface in
such studies—but often as threshold abilities, the skills people need simply
to do an average job …. Thus, purely cognitive abilities help—but the EI
competencies help far more.41
According to Goleman and his colleagues, IQ matters but not as much as

EI. In their view, leadership effectiveness is largely a matter of emotional
intelligence.
What Makes You a Star Performer?

EI counts far more than IQ when it comes to star leadership performance.42
According to Goleman, the single most important factor in job perfor-

mance and advancement is emotional intelligence. In fact, on average
emotional intelligence is almost 90 percent of what sets stars apart from
the mediocre.43 Goleman reports that “when IQ test scores are correlated
with how well people perform in their careers, the highest estimate of how
much difference IQ accounts for is about 25 percent. A careful analysis,
though, suggests a more accurate figure may be no higher than 10 percent,
and perhaps as low as 4 percent.” Drawing on leadership studies in more
40
Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis, and Annie McKee, Primal Leadership, 249; 250.
41
Ibid., 251.
42
Ibid.
43
Dainel Goleman, Working with Emotional Intelligence (New York: Bantam Books,
1998), 32.
112 S. DHIMAN
than 500 organizations, Goleman notes an astonishing fact: in determin-

ing star performance in every field, emotional intelligence matters twice
as much as IQ or technical expertise.44 A study of Harvard graduates in
the fields of law, medicine, education, and business found that scores on
entrance exams—a surrogate for IQ—had a zero or negative correlation
with their eventual career success.45 This goes to show that EQ matters the
most in workplace and career success.
Goleman states that during the 1960s and 1970s, people got ahead by
going to the right schools and doing well there. During the 1980s, 1990s
and the twenty-first century, “IQ takes second position to EI in deter-
mining outstanding job performance” as shown by 30 years of empirical
studies done by scores of experts in thousands of organizations. Academic
ability provides ‘threshold competence’, it does not make you a star. What
makes you a “star” at work is a combination of personal qualities and emo-
tional brilliance, qualities such as personal integrity, initiative, empathy,
discipline, cooperation, compassion, adaptability, interpersonal sensitivity,
and our ability to learn on the job.46 The role of emotional intelligence is
pervasive when it comes to workplace excellence.
Got Marshmallows?
In his book entitled Working with Emotional Intelligence, Goleman reports
an experiment at Stanford University called the “marshmallow test.” In
this test, four-year-olds in Stanford preschool were brought into a room
one by one, a marshmallow was put on the table in front of them. They
were told: You can have this marshmallow now if you want, but if you
wait until I come back after I run an errand, you can have two. Some 14
years later …
Those who waited had scores averaging 210 points higher (out of a
possible 1600) on SAT, the college entrance exam. Goleman reports that
as the children in the Stanford study grew into adulthood and entered the
workforce, those who had resisted the marshmallow were still more intel-
lectually skilled, more attentive, and better able to concentrate.47 Thus, EI
helps not only in school, but in the school of life as well. In fine, it makes
us smart at studies, at work, and in life.
44
Ibid., 19.
45
Ibid.
46
Ibid., 1–19.
47
See Goleman, Working with Emotional Intelligence, 79–80.
The Story of the Three Brains

The brain is a wonderful organ; it starts working the moment we get up in the
morning and doesn’t stop until we get to work. —Robert Frost
The American poet Robert Frost never disappoints, even when he is pok-
ing fun at the human incongruities. But fortunately he was dealing with
one human brain. With the story of three brains, as the modern science
tells us, matters seem to get a bit more complicated! Robert Cooper offers
another insight into the pervasiveness of emotions in human life in his book
entitled The Other 90 %: How to Tap Your Vast Untapped Potential for Life
and Leadership. By establishing the supremacy of heart, and by implication,
the importance of emotions, Cooper underscores the role of EI in human
affairs. It is interesting to know that neuroscience is challenging the conven-
tional wisdom—that everything happens in our head—by declaring that we
have not one, but three brains! And much of human brilliance is driven less
by the brain in our head than by other two brains in the gut and the heart:48
1. The Brain in the Gut

2. The Brian in the Heart
3. The Brain in the Head
1. Brain in the Gut: Known as the Enteric Nervous System, this ‘sec-
ond brain’ inside the intestines is independent but also interconnected
with the brain in the cranium. Every contact point with life creates gut
feeling. Scientists now tell us that there are more neurons in the intes-
tinal tract than in the entire spinal column—about 100 million.49
2. Brain in the Heart: Comprising 40,000 Baroreceptors, the heart
brain is as large as many key areas of the brain in our head. The
heart’s electromagnetic field (EMF) is 5000 times greater than that
of the brain. The electrical changes in feeling transmitted by the
human heart can be felt and measured at least 5 feet away and even
10 feet away or more. Atrial peptide, a chemical in the heart, is the
primary driver of motivated behavior and desire for achievement.
After all, if we don’t feel our values and goals, we can’t live them. It
is the heart, not the head, that moves us to excel.50
48
Robert R. Cooper, The Other 90 %, 12–25.
49
Ibid., 15–16.
50
Ibid., 16–18.
114 S. DHIMAN
3. Brain in the Head: As is conventionally known, the brain in the

head mainly comprises:
Reticular Activating System (RAS): The link between the spinal col-
umn and the brain. Given choice, the RAS always interprets things
negatively. “Better safe than sorry” are the words it lives by.
Limbic System: Leaving the RAS, the neural impressions travel to
the limbic system in split seconds. It is the seat of emotions in the brain
and is known to work 80,000 times faster than the cerebral cortex.
Cerebral Cortex: At last, the neural impressions reach the think-
ing area of the brain known as the cerebral cortex. So, we think last,
not first and foremost.51
When we consciously employ all the three brains in our daily affairs, we
make use of all the wisdom that nature has put at our disposal. And this is
also how nature seemed to have intended us to function.
EI: The Evidence Behind the Hype
Is EI merely a passing fad or a concept here to stay for the long haul?
What is the scientific evidence behind the media claims for EI? In other
words, how much of EI zeal is grounded in empirical research and how
much of it is folklore and anecdotal? What are the prospects and limita-
tions of the emotional intelligence concept? Zeidner et al. ask these per-
ceptive questions in their well-researched book entitled What We Know
about Emotional Intelligence.
Unquestionably, Goleman has done the field of psychology a valuable
service by expanding upon and especially by popularizing the notion of
emotional intelligence originally presented by Salovey and Mayer.52 Part
of the appeal of Goleman’s version of EI is the democratic view that EI is
malleable and, hence, learnable. The popular notions of EI also resonate
with anti-intellectual sentiment. However, some researchers are concerned
how the popular literature on EI has far outpaced the scientific research.
Critics say that Goleman stretched the concept of EI into areas which were
never included by the researchers Mayer and Salovey. Zeidner, Matthew
and Roberts criticized Goleman for presenting a potpourri of almost every
51
Ibid., 18–25.
52
Robert Sternberg’s Letter to the Editor of the APA Monitor (Source: American
Psychological Association letters).
positive quality that was not actually IQ itself as a part of emotional intel-
ligence. These included motives, social skills, all forms of self-regulation,
and warmth, and many other attributes.
The problem with this idea is that those different psychological quali-
ties are separate and independent from one another—both conceptually
and empirically (e.g., they do not correlate). Moreover, most of them have
little to do directly and specifically either with emotion or intelligence.
Lumping them together has created considerable conceptual confusion.
Zeidner et al. further contend that “anyone can write a laundry list of
desirable personal qualities (and many have done so) … For the fledgling
construct of EI to take wing, it must be measured as a distinct personal
quality that promotes effective social functioning.”53 Today, such mod-
els are called “mixed models”, as they mix many attributes unrelated to
emotion, intelligence, or emotional intelligence with the emotional intel-
ligence concept.
Zeidner et al. point out that proponents of EI see self-confident and
happy workers as being more productive, while the empirical evidence
is more nuanced.54 They also indicate that research does not show any
downside to academic intelligence55 and that EI appears at best to be a
modest predictor of job performance.56 It is not incompatible with real-
life competence and common sense. They agree that EI is a multifaceted
construct and can cover a variety of disparate nodes and notions. They
remain confident that increasing applied research will in due course of
time bring added clarity to the value of EI. They muse about two futures
for EI: either the heart and head will continue to follow separate paths or
greater work on EI will broker a happy marriage between emotion and
intellect.57 I believe Zeidner et al. provide a balanced assessment about
the present and future of EI. Perhaps, nature wills heart and head to fol-
low separate paths and seldom shall the twain meet. Or perhaps human
glory lies in the dialectical integration of the faculties of head and heart.
We need both the sensibility of the mind and the sensitivity of the heart to
wade through the rough seas of life.
53
Moshe Zeidner, Gerald Matthews, and Richard D. Roberts, What We Know about
Emotional Intelligence, 10; 22.
54
Ibid., 16.
55
Ibid., 18.
56
Ibid., 373.
57
Ibid., 371.
116 S. DHIMAN
Multiple Intelligences: 8 Different Ways

of Being Smart
Suspend the usual judgment of what constitutes intelligence, and let your
thoughts run freely over the capabilities of humans—perhaps those that would be
picked out by the proverbial visitor from Mars. In this exercise, you are drawn
to the brilliant chess player, the world-class violinist, and the champion athlete;
such outstanding performers deserve special consideration. Following through
on this experiment, a quite different view of intelligence emerges. Are the chess
player, violinist, and athlete “intelligent” in these pursuits? If they are, then
why do our tests of “intelligence” fail to identify them? If they are not “intelli-
gent,” what allows them to achieve such astounding feats? In general, why does
the contemporary construct “intelligence” fail to take into account large areas
of human endeavor?58
What is intelligence? How do we measure intelligence? Is it confined to

mathematical and verbal ability alone? If so, then how do we explain out-
standing talent in such fields as music and sports? To approach these ques-
tions, Howard Gardner, Hobbs Professor of Cognition and Education
at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, introduced the theory of
multiple intelligences (MI) in the early 1980s. In his 1983 book Frames of
Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences, Gardner avers that traditional
types of intelligence, such as IQ, fail to explain the full range of our cogni-
tive abilities. Specifically, Gardner questions the view that intelligence is
a single unified entity, that it results from a single factor, and that it can
be measured simply by using IQ tests. He introduced the idea of mul-
tiple intelligences which also included both interpersonal intelligence (the
capacity to understand the intentions, motivations and desires of other
people) and intrapersonal intelligence (the capacity to understand oneself,
one’s feelings, fears and motivations).
Gardner theorizes that human cognitive competence is better described
in terms of a set of abilities, talents, or mental skills, which he calls “intel-
ligences”, All normal individuals possess each of these skills to some
extent; individuals however differ in the degree of skill and in the nature
of their combination. Gardner believes this theory of intelligence may be
more humane than alternative views of intelligence and that it also more
sufficiently reflects the data of human “intelligent” behavior. Such an
58
Howard Gardner, Multiple Intelligences: New Horizons in Theory and Practice (New
York: Basic Books, revised edition, 2006), 5–6.
e xpansive theory of intelligences has important educational and leadership

implications.
The traditional definition of intelligence that measures intelligence in
terms of linguistic and logical-mathematical abilities being too narrow,
Gardner’s broader definition in terms of multiple intelligences seems more
accurately to reflect the myriad ways in which humans think and learn.
Gardner argues that an exclusive emphasis on the IQ causes it to be need-
lessly glorified. He defines intelligence as “bio-psychological potential to
process information that can be activated in a cultural setting to solve
problems or create products that are of value in a culture.”59 According to
him, there are more ways to identify human capacities than just through
logical and linguistic intelligence, as traditionally measured by the IQ
construct.
The Components of MI
For something to qualify as an intelligence, it has to satisfy Gardner’s

eight “signs” of intelligence. Defining intelligence as “the capacity to solve
problems or to fashion products that are valued in one or more cultural
setting,”60 Gardner has identified the following eight, distinct intelligences
comprising his theory of multiple intelligences:61
1. Spatial: The ability to conceptualize and manipulate large-scale spa-

tial arrays (e.g., airplane pilot, sailor), or more local forms of space
(e.g., architect, chess player).
2. Bodily-Kinesthetic: The ability to use one’s whole body, or parts of
the body (like the hands or the mouth), to solve problems or create
products (e.g., dancer).
59
Howard Gardner, Intelligence Reframed: Multiple Intelligences for the 21st Century (New
York: Basic Books, 1999), 33–34. Gardner, Changing Minds: The Art and Science of
Changing Our Own and Other People’s Minds (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School
Press, 2004). Gardner, Multiple Intelligences: The Theory in Practice (New York: Basic Book,
1993).
60
Howard Gardner & Thomas Hatch, “Multiple Intelligences Go To School: Educational
Implications of the Theory of Multiple Intelligences.” Educational Researcher, 1989, 18(8),
4–9.
61
As described on Gardner’s official website, Oasis: http://multipleintelligencesoasis.
org/about/the-components-of-mi/ Also see Gardner, Intelligence Reframed. Gardner
started with seven intelligences originally and later added “naturalistic” intelligence.
118 S. DHIMAN
3. Musical: Sensitivity to rhythm, pitch, meter, tone, melody and tim-

bre. May entail the ability to sing, play musical instruments, and/or
compose music (e.g., musical conductor).
4. Linguistic: Sensitivity to the meaning of words, the order among
words, and the sounds, rhythms, inflections, and meter of words
(e.g., poet). (Sometimes called language intelligence).
5. Logical-mathematical: The capacity to conceptualize the logical
relations among actions or symbols (e.g., mathematicians, scien-
tists). Famed psychologist Jean Piaget believed he was studying the
range of intelligences, but he was actually studying logical-
mathematical intelligence.
6. Interpersonal: The ability to interact effectively with others.
Sensitivity to others’ moods, feelings, temperaments and motiva-
tions (e.g., negotiator). (Sometimes called social intelligence.)
7. Intrapersonal: Sensitivity to one’s own feelings, goals, and anxiet-
ies, and the capacity to plan and act in the light of one’s own traits.
Intrapersonal intelligence is not particular to specific careers; rather,
it is a goal for every individual in a complex modern society, where
one has to make consequential decisions for oneself. (Sometimes
called self intelligence).
8. Naturalistic: The ability to make consequential distinctions in the
world of nature as, for example, between one plant and another, or
one cloud formation and another (e.g., taxonomist). (Sometimes
called nature intelligence).
Gardner considers that everyone has all eight intelligences to some

degree, although each individual has his or her own unique combination
of stronger or weaker intelligences. Gardner also contends that most tasks
require more than one form of intelligence working in tandem with oth-
ers. For example, a golfer obviously uses spatial and bodily-kinesthetic
intelligences, but also must use interpersonal intelligence to interact with
others effectively. Similarly a dancer can excel only if s/he has strong musi-
cal intelligence to understand musical variation, harmony and rhythm,
bodily-kinesthetic intelligence for physical agility, and interpersonal intel-
ligence to relate emotively with the audience.
Gardner has not yet developed a multiple intelligences test or assess-
ment himself. He is skeptical about self-assessment/reporting because
most people may not possess realistic insight into their own strengths and
weakness and their interests and likes may not necessarily equate with their
capacities. Self-reporting is highly susceptible to faking in which the test-

takers tend to represent themselves in an excessively positive light. Ideally,
a triangulation process would include having individuals rate themselves
in a self-assessment as well as having their family, friends, and teachers
rate them objectively—supplemented by first-hand observation of how
the individual handles a particular situation requiring effective emotional
response. For example, a good way to assess interpersonal intelligence
would be to observe how a person handles and/or resolves conflict situa-
tions or motivates others to pursue a certain course of action.62
Leaders can empower themselves and others through their understand-
ing of multiple intelligences. Gardner has suggested that human beings
have evolved to exhibit several intelligences that work in concert and not
in isolation in a particular cultural setting or community: “Where indi-
viduals differ is in the strengths of these intelligences, the so-called profile
of intelligences, and the ways in which such intelligences are invoked and
combined to carry out different tasks, solve problems, and progress in
various domains.”63 According to this view, although leaders have differ-
ent strengths and weaknesses, they exhibit several multiple intelligences.
In fact, leaders demonstrate a generous degree of at least three of the eight
multiple intelligences: linguistic intelligence, interpersonal intelligence,
and intrapersonal intelligence.64 Effective leaders have a robust sense
of self, display effective communication skills, and demonstrate a great
sense of empathy in interacting with others—all markers of greater EI and
self-awareness.
In the introduction to the tenth anniversary edition of his classic Frames
of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences, Gardner indicates that many
researchers interested in the history and growth of multiple intelligences
have asked him whether additional intelligences have been added—or
original candidates deleted since his early work on multiple intelligence
in 1983. While Gardner himself has “chosen not to tamper for now with
the original list”, he continues to think that there are in fact others, from
“intrapersonal intelligence” to some form of “spiritual intelligence”.
Gardner’s work has been described as “trend-setter” and “paradigm-
shifter” and his ideas have been an important force in education for the
62
Retrieved February 27, 2016: http://multipleintelligencesoasis.org/what-mi-am-i/.
63
Gardner, The Unschooled Mind: How Children Think and How Schools Should Teach (New
York: Basic Books, 1991), 12.
64
Gardner, Intelligence Reframed, 128.
120 S. DHIMAN
past 25 years. His theory of multiple intelligences challenges the prevail-

ing definition of intelligence as limited to logical and linguistic abilities.
Gardner’s work has met with an enthusiastic reception from many educa-
tors. However, it is not without its detractors among the scientific commu-
nity. It has not been readily accepted within academic psychology. Perry
Klein contends that multiple intelligence theory has inspired educational
innovations across North America, but has received little critical analysis.
He finds the theory to be too broad to be useful for planning a curricu-
lum.65 Daniel T. Willingham, a professor of psychology at the University
of Virginia, notes in the journal Education Next that Gardner’s theory “is
an inaccurate description of the mind.” He states that Gardner became
a hero among educators simply by renaming various abilities or talents
as intelligences.66 Willingham further contends that Gardner has himself
pointed out on several occasions that the success of his book turned, in
part, on this new label: “I am quite confident that if I had written a book
called ‘Seven Talents’ it would not have received the attention that Frames
of Mind received.”67 Be that as it may, the fact remains that Gardner has
provided us with a bold vision to think about the diverse gifts that under-
gird human accomplishment across cultures:
Gardner’s theory provides a much needed corrective to the shortcomings of

traditional psychometric approaches. Instead of probing the bases of bubble-
sheet results, Gardner sought to illuminate the mental abilities underlying
the actual range of human accomplishment that are found across cultures.68
Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences has important implications

for teachers as well as leaders. It implies that educators should recognize
and teach to a broader range of skills and talents. Another implication is
that teachers should structure the presentation of material in a way that
65
Perry D. Klein, Multiplying the Problems of Intelligence by Eight: A Critique of
Gardner’s Theory, Canadian Journal of Education/Revue canadienne de l’éducation, Vol.
22, No. 4 (Autumn, 1997), 377–394.
66
Daniel T. Willingham, Reframing the Mind: Howard Gardner became a hero among
educators simply by redefining talents as “intelligences.” Check the Facts, Education Next,
Summer, 2004, 19–24. Retrieved March 15, 2016: http://educationnext.org/files/
ednext20043_18.pdf.
67
As cited Ibid., 24.
68
Mindy Kornhaber cited in Thomas Armstrong, Multiple Intelligences in the Classroom
(Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development; ASCD Member
Book, 3rd edition, 2009), 190.
engages most of the intelligences. Similarly, leaders should recognize and

celebrate the multiple gifts employees bring to work. The work should
be so structured that it provides for members of the workplace a creative
outlet for most or all of the intelligences.
Does emotional intelligence fall under one of Gardner’s multiple intelli-
gences? When a researcher asked Goleman if the identification of intraper-
sonal and interpersonal intelligences in Gardner’s theory is, in essence, an
expression of emotional intelligence, Goleman said, “yes!” He explained
that when he wrote Emotional Intelligence, he had been building on
Gardner’s model of multiple intelligences.69 However, the theory of MIs
has evolved to focus more on “metacognition” rather than on the full
range of emotional abilities. Even so, Gardner pointed out to Goleman
that “many people with IQs of 160 work for people with IQs of 110, if
the former have poor intrapersonal intelligence and the latter have a high
one. And in the day-to-day world, no intelligence is more important than
the intrapersonal.”70
In essence, Goleman’s model of emotional intelligence augments
Gardner’s theory by including self-awareness and self-regulation as the
intrapersonal abilities, and empathy and social skill as the interpersonal
intelligences.
Spiritual Intelligence: The Next Step Beyond

Emotional Intelligence
Postulated as intelligence beyond the traditional notions of rational intel-
ligence (IQ) and emotional intelligence (EQ), spiritual intelligence (SI
or SQ) has come to be recognized as an essential component of per-
sonal growth and professional development. It has been suggested that
mature leadership requires spiritual intelligence development.71 Personal
and professional development is vitally interlinked and can no longer be
viewed as two opposing dimensions of the leadership journey. While we
build our external career, we should not neglect our inner character and
69
Goleman, “Howard Gardner and Multiple Intelligences.” October 29, 2011. Q & A
entry. Retrieved February 27, 2016: http://www.danielgoleman.info/howard-gardner-
multiple-intelligences/.
70
As quoted in Goleman, Emotional Intelligence, 1995, 41–42.
71
Cindy Wigglesworth, Why Spiritual Intelligence Is Essential to Mature Leadership.
Integral Leadership Review, 2006, retrieved March 15, 2016: http://andyatwood.com/
uploads/2/8/4/4/2844368/spiritual-intelligence-n-mature-leadership.pdf.
122 S. DHIMAN
transformation. In his book A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an

Undivided Life, Parker Palmer speaks to our yearning to live undivided
lives—lives that are congruent with our inner truth—in a world filled with
the forces of alienation and fragmentation.72 There is a deep connection
between our inner life of self and outer life of service and contribution.
Spiritual intelligence recognizes and honors this connection.
Spiritual Intelligence has been hailed as the critical intelligence for lead-
ership success in the twenty-first century by many contemporary research-
ers, psychologists and practitioners.73 As Frances Vaughan has observed,
“With IQ accounting for only a small part of leader performance, EI and
SI are new useful constructs of intelligence that hold promise for selecting
and developing business leaders.”74 Vaughan offers the following defini-
tion of SI: “Spiritual intelligence is concerned with the inner life of mind
and spirit and its relationship to being in the world.”75 King and DeCicco
propose yet another construct in terms of existential thinking, transcen-
dental awareness, and personal meaning. It includes four core compe-
tencies of SI: critical existential thinking, personal meaning production,
transcendental awareness, and conscious state expansion.76 This is perhaps
the most comprehensive view of spiritual intelligence from an existential
72
Parker J. Palmer, A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life (San
Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2009).
73
See Robert A. Emmons, The Psychology of Ultimate Concerns: Motivation and Spirituality
in Personality (New York: The Guilford Press, 2009), 157–179. Donah Zohar, ReWiring the
Corporate Brain: Using the New Science to Rethink How We Structure and Lead Organizations
(San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc., 1997). Danah Zohar and Ian Marshall, SQ:
Connecting With Our Spiritual Intelligence (New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2000).
Danah Zohar, Spiritual Capital: Wealth We Can Live By (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler
Publishers, Inc., 2004). Danah Zohar and Ian Marshall, Spiritual Intelligence: The Ultimate
Intelligence (London: Bloomsbury, 2012). Cindy Wigglesworth, SQ21: The 21 Skills of
Spiritual Intelligence (New York: Select Books, 2012). Dorothy A. Sisk and E. Paul Torrance,
Spiritual Intelligence: Developing Higher Consciousness (Buffalo, NY: Creative Education
Foundation, 2001). See also Howard Gardner, Intelligence Reframed: Multiple Intelligences
for the 21st Century (New York: Basic Books, 1999), 53.
74
Frances Vaughan, “What is spiritual intelligence?” Journal of Humanistic Psychology,
42(2), (2002):16–33.
75
Ibid.
76
David B. King & Teresa L. DeCicco, “A Viable Model and Self-Report Measure of
Spiritual Intelligence,” The International Journal of Transpersonal Studies, 28, (2009):
68–85.
standpoint. Ultimately, SI remains a domain of transcendental awareness

and personal meaning.
In the words of the management expert, Stephen Covey, “Spiritual
intelligence is the central and most fundamental of all the intelligences,
because it becomes the source of guidance for the others.”77 Spiritual
intelligence counts the most in things that really matter—in the quest
for truth, goodness, and altruistic love. It enables us to live a noble life
of sacrifice and service to the sacred based on universal moral principles.
Without spiritual intelligence, we are not able to realize our ultimate pur-
pose of existence. If we fail in this realm, true fulfillment in life will always
elude us. And it will matter little what else we have achieved in other
aspects of our life.
The wisdom texts of the world remind us tellingly about the impor-
tance of realizing our highest goal. In the Gospel According to Matthew
(6:33, King James Version), for example, Matthew tells us that Jesus
advised, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all
these things shall be added unto you.” Elsewhere, in the Gospel According
to Mark (8:36, King James Version), we are told that Jesus asked, “For
what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own
soul.” In the same manner, Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad 3.8.10, a Hindu wis-
dom text, declares that he who departs from this world without knowing
his essential Self is the most unfortunate.78 Similarly, the Bhagavad Gītā,
the Hindu spiritual text, assures us that the knowers of the Self and the
practitioners of the yoga of selfless action are freed from the greatest fear:
the fear of repeated conditioned existence.79
Spiritual intelligence stokes our innate desire to nobility and our search
for the sacred. Spiritual intelligence helps us to know our higher self and
realize it in acting selflessly for the good of others. It is an intelligence that
inspires us to ask ultimate questions, seek meaning and purpose, and strive
77
Stephen Covey, The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness (New York: Simon and
Schuster, 2004), 53.
78
Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad 3.8.10: यो वा एतदक्शरं गार्ग्यविदित्वास्माल्लोकात्प्रैति स
कृपणः He who departs from this world without knowing this Immutable, is miserable. See
Swāmī Mādhavānanda, tr., Brihadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad, with the Commentary of Śankarācārya
(Kolkata, India: Advaita Ashrama, 2008), 364.
79
Bhagavad Gītā 2.40: स्वल्पम् अप्य् अस्य धर्मस्य त्रायते महतो भयात्: svalpam apy asya
dharmasya trāyate mahato bhayāt: even a little practice of this art of selfless action (born of
self-knowledge) saves one from the great terror (of repeated conditioned existence).
124 S. DHIMAN
for the greater good. It is critical for proper personal growth and authentic
leadership.
The term spiritual intelligence was first used by Danah Zohar in her
1997 book ReWiring the Corporate Brain. SQ is the intelligence that
makes us whole—“most human,”80 and gives us our true identity and
integrity. It is the soul’s intelligence, the intelligence of the true self. It is
the intelligence of “ultimate concerns”—the intelligence with which we
ask fundamental questions and reframe our answers. It is our transforma-
tive intelligence.81 Zohar, who studied physics and philosophy at MIT
and did her postgraduate work in Philosophy, Religion & Psychology
at Harvard University, proposed spiritual intelligence as intelligence of
knowing our conscious meaning and purpose that goes beyond the tradi-
tional notions of IQ and emotional intelligence.
Zohar and Marshall, drawing upon the findings from psychology, neu-
rology and religious traditions, contend that spiritual intelligence is an
integrative or unitive intelligence because it enables us to make sense of
our world that is experienced through rational intelligence and emotional
intelligence. SQ makes us the fully intellectual, emotional and spiritual
creatures that we are.82 They propose that we have three intelligences,
which include rational intelligence (IQ), emotional intelligence (EQ)
and spiritual intelligence (SQ). They contend that spiritual intelligence
is the ultimate intelligence dealing with questions of meaning, purpose
and value. It is the source of morality. Therefore, SQ serves as a necessary
foundation for both IQ and EQ.
They identify twelve indicators of high spiritual intelligence: self-
awareness, vision and values led, positive use of adversity, holism, sponta-
neity, compassion, celebration of diversity, field independence, tendency
to ask fundamental why questions, reframing, a sense of vocation, and
humility. These behavioral indicators of high SQ, devised largely by Peter
Saul, led to a cultural shift at the workplace in the form of transparent
communication, shared power, commitment to truth, flexibility, and
empowerment representing the true spiritual capital of an organization.83
Emmons, The Psychology of Ultimate Concerns, 179.

80

81
Retrieved and adapted from Danah Zohar’s website http://danahzohar.com/
www2/?p=53.
82
Zohar and Marshall, SQ: Connecting With Our Spiritual Intelligence, 6.
83
Danah Zohar and Ian Marshall, Spiritual Capital: Wealth We Can Live by, 127–131.
Defining Spiritual Intelligence

As we saw in the previous section, Gardner, who proposed the theory
of Multiple Intelligences, theorized that human intelligence was best
explained as a series of intelligences comprising spatial, linguistic, logical-
mathematical, bodily-kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and
naturalistic dimensions. Later, Gardner suggested an “existential intelli-
gence” as viable—stating that “the capacity to deal with existential issues
may qualify as an intelligence.”84 However, Gardner argued that it was bet-
ter to “put aside the term spiritual, with its manifest and problematic con-
notations, and to speak instead of an intelligence that explores the nature of
existence in its multifarious guises. Thus, an explicit concern with spiritual
or religious matters would be one variety—often the most important vari-
ety—of an existential intelligence.”85 Existential intelligence is described
as “a proclivity for pondering ultimate cosmic or existential concerns.”86
Those with existential intelligence, such as the Dalai Lama and Pope
Francis, could be labeled as cosmic smart. Thus, it may be reasonable to say
that Gardner is willing to entertain the possibility of existential intelligence
as the “half” in 8-1/2 intelligences that comprise his MI Theory. Gardner
chose not to include spiritual intelligence amongst his list of intelligences
due to the challenge of codifying quantifiable scientific criteria.87
There are many definitions and dimensions of spiritual intelligence. In
most definitions, an existential dimension and a search for the sacred are
highlighted. Spiritual intelligence can be defined as the ability to create
meaning based on deep understanding of existential questions, and aware-
ness of and the ability to use multiple levels of consciousness in problem-
solving.88 Taking a highly pragmatic and instrumental view, Emmons
defines spiritual intelligence as “the adaptive use of spiritual information
84
Howard Gardner, “A case against spiritual intelligence,” International Journal for the
Psychology of Religion, 10(1), (2000): 27–34.
Brendan Hyde, “The plausibility of spiritual intelligence: spiritual experience, problem
solving and neural sites,” International Journal of Children’s Spirituality, 9(1), (2004):
39–52.
85
Gardner, Intelligence Reframed: Multiple Intelligences for the 21st Century (New York:
Basic Books, 2000), 60.
86
Ibid., 22.
87
Gardner, “A case against spiritual intelligence,” International Journal for the Psychology
of Religion, 10 (1), (2000): 27–34.
88
Frances Vaughan, “What is spiritual intelligence?” Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 42
(2), (2002):16–33.
126 S. DHIMAN
to facilitate everyday problem solving and goal attainment.”89 Using

Gardner’s eight criteria, Emmons states that there would appear to be “an
overwhelming amount of evidence stacking up in favor of the thesis that
spirituality is, in fact, an intelligence.”90 Gardner opines that Emmons tends
“to lump together different aspects of spirituality and also various facets of
psychology” and finds Emmons’ overall enterprise as “plausible.” Gardner
believes that Emmon raises many intriguing issues such as sacredness,
problem-solving, and the unifying potential of religion that merit further
investigation.91 This shows the pervasiveness and enigmatic nature of SI.
Emmons postulates the following 5 core characteristics of spiritually
intelligent people:
1. The capacity to transcend the physical and material.

2. The ability to experience heightened states of consciousness.
3. The ability to sanctify everyday experience.
4. The ability to utilize spiritual resources to solve problems.
5. The capacity to be virtuous.92
Spiritual intelligence includes the capacity for transcendence, height-

ened consciousness, sanctification, spiritual problem-solving and virtuous
behavior.93 Emmons states that transcendence is one of the key defining
features of all definitions of spirituality. It helps us develop a deep and
abiding bond with humanity. Spiritually intelligent people are skilled in
entering mystical states of consciousness. Spirituality sanctifies everything.
The fourth characteristic has to do with “spiritual coping.” The fifth com-
ponent of spiritual intelligence pertains to our capacity to engage in vir-
tuous behavior: to show forgiveness, to express gratitude, to be humble,
to display compassion and wisdom.94 This is what makes us truly human.
It is important to bear in mind that spirit is beyond intellect but spiri-
tual knowledge takes place in the intellect. It does not take place in the
89
90
Ibid., 169.
91
Howard Gardner, “A case against spiritual intelligence.”
92
93
See Emmons (2000a), “Is spirituality an intelligence? Motivation, Cognition and the
Psychology of Ultimate Concern,” The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion,
10(1) (2000): 3–26; Emmons, “Spirituality and intelligence: Problems and prospects,” The
International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 10 (1), (2000): 57–64.
94
Emmons, The Psychology of Ultimate Concerns, 164–166.
spirit.95 Since spiritual intelligence is a manifestation of higher conscious-

ness, it is important to understand the precise meaning of the word con-
sciousness. A modern teacher of Vedānta presents following 5 axioms of
consciousness:
1. Consciousness is not a part, product or a property of the body.

2. Consciousness is an independent entity that pervades and enlivens
the body.
3. Consciousness is not limited to the boundaries of the body. It is
all-pervading.
4. Consciousness does not come to an end with the destruction of the
body. It is eternal.
5. Consciousness manifests itself through the medium of material
objects. When the familiar medium of body ceases to exist, con-
sciousness is not recognizable; however, it does not cease to exist.96
The imperishability and eternality of the consciousness is splendidly

captured in a half-verse of the Bhagavad G ītā 2.16: The unreal never is;
the real never ceases to be.97
Cindy Wigglesworth, the author of SQ21: The Twenty-One Skills of
Spiritual Intelligence defines spiritual intelligence (SQ) as: The ability to
behave with wisdom and compassion, while maintaining inner and outer
peace, regardless of the situation. She has researched 21 measurable “skills”
or “competencies” that are components of this ability. Unlike many spiri-
tual teachings, which can tend to seem vague or mysterious, these tangible
skills can be learned through practice and developed through clearly-
defined levels.98 Wigglesworth, along with Goleman, believes that these
spiritual competencies can be learned and developed.
Wigglesworth defines spirituality as “the innate human need to be con-
nected to something larger than ourselves, something we consider to be
divine or of exceptional nobility.… This innate desire for that connection
transcends any particular faith or tradition. It does not require a belief in
95
Based on Swami Parmarthananda, Discourses on Brahma-Sutras, no. 389: Refinement
and Fulfillment of Desire.
96
Based on Swami Parmarthananda, Discourses on Śrī Dakśiṇāmūrti Stotram, discourse
no. 9 of 16.
97
Bhagavad Gītā 2.16: nāsato vidyate bhāvo nābhāvo vidyate sataḥ.
98
See Cindy Wigglesworth, “Spiritual Intelligence: Living as Your Higher Self.” A Blog
Entry. Huffpost Healthy Living. Retrieved March 15, 2016: http://www.huffingtonpost.
com/cindy-wigglesworth/spiritual-intelligence_b_1752145.html.
128 S. DHIMAN
a divinity by any description, nor does it preclude belief in God or Spirit

or the divine.”99 She defines spiritual intelligence as “the ability to behave
with wisdom and compassion, while maintaining inner and outer peace,
regardless of the situation.”100 Wigglesworth is vigilant to define spiritual-
ity and spiritual intelligence in most universalistic and practical terms to
make it widely acceptable and implementable in the workplace.
According to Wigglesworth, SQ development boils down to this: We
move from immature ego-driven behaviors to more mature higher self-
driven behaviors … We develop the ability to hear the voice of our higher
self, to understand and transcend the voice of our ego, and to be guided
by deep wisdom and compassion. IQ and EQ support us as we develop
the skillful means to deploy our noblest intention. The ego matures and
nuanced forms of more effective leadership develop. With more SQ comes
less drama and more impact.101 The ego says, ‘Once everything falls in
place, I will find peace.’ The spirit says, ‘Find peace and everything will fall
in place.’ Many proponents of SI would concur.
Building on Goleman’s model of emotional intelligence, Wigglesworth
presents the competencies that comprise SQ into 21 skills, arranged into a
four quadrant model as follows:
Higher Self/Ego Self Awareness Higher Self/Ego Self Awareness

Awareness of own worldview Commitment to spiritual growth
Awareness of life purpose (mission) Keeping Higher Self in charge
Awareness of values hierarchy Living your purpose and values
Complexity of inner thought Sustaining your faith
Awareness of Ego Self/Higher Self Seeking guidance from Spirit
Universal Awareness Social Mastery/Spiritual Presence
Awareness of interconnectedness of all life A wise and effective spiritual
Awareness of worldviews of others teacher/mentor
Breadth of time/space perception A wise and effective change agent
Awareness of limitations/power of human Makes compassionate and wise decisions
perception A calming, healing presence
Awareness of spiritual laws Being aligned with the ebb and flow of life
Experience of transcendent oneness
[Source: Cindy Wigglesworth, SQ21: The Twenty-One Skills of Spiritual Intelligence]
99
Wigglesworth, SQ21, 8.
100
Ibid.
101
Wigglesworth, “Spiritual Intelligence: Living as Your Higher Self.” Also see: We can
build a bridge: Cindy Wigglesworth at TEDxSonomaCounty, Retrieved March 22, 2016:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hscdmpKGqrQ.
Wigglesworth notes that while the model is complex and multidimen-

sional, the essence of Spiritual Intelligence is quite simple: it is about
shifting from ego to Higher Self.102 The spiritual journey represents the
transition from the servitude of the imposter ego to the compassionate
wisdom of the higher Self. This wisdom is expressed in the loving service
for the good of others.
I close this section with a quote from Margaret Mead that underscores
the value of recognizing diverse human gifts:
If we are to achieve a richer culture, rich in contrasting values, we must

recognize the whole gamut of human potentialities, and so weave a less
arbitrary social fabric, one in which each diverse human gift will find a fit-
ting place.103
Concluding Thoughts
Regardless of their size and nature, all organizations need leaders at all
strategic levels and spheres. Effective leaders are like gardeners who have
a “green thumb” that enables them to “grow” leaders for all those levels
and areas. And this magic touch works through superior emotional intel-
ligence and empathy. Effective leaders are “intelligent” about their emo-
tions. This emotional brilliance sets them apart from the rest.
While traditional IQ scores are useful for predicting how we will do in
school, IQ proves to be a weak predictor of how well we relate with oth-
ers, perform at work, and cope with a variety of daily challenges.104 It is
important to bear in mind that IQ and EI are not opposing competencies,
but rather different ones. EI is not about the victory of heart over head—it
is the unique harmony of both: emotions enhancing thinking and thinking
regulating emotions. We need the wisdom of both the mind and the heart
to succeed in the business of life.
Daniel Goleman contends that appreciating the role of emotions in the
workplace sets the best leaders apart from the rest. When leaders inspire
people with enthusiasm and vigor, job performance and employee morale
soar. It is leaders’ primal job to create a progressive emotional environ-
102
Wigglesworth, SQ21, 123.
103
Margaret Mead, Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies (New York: Harper
Perennial, reprint edition, 2001), 300.
104
See Reuven Bar-On, How Important Is It to Educate People to be Emotionally
Intelligent, and Can it be Done?, 1.
130 S. DHIMAN
ment that frees the best in people. Similarly, the theory of multiple intel-
ligences suggests that the best way to start to understand the human mind
is to examine and recognize its different capacities and frames. However,
in the end, as Howard Gardner concludes, we must also learn to “yoke
all the intelligences together and mobilize them for constructive ends.”105
And it is in their integration that the value of these intelligences lie.
What does this “yoking” get us? Does it just make us more “street
smart” or also help us become better citizens of the world? Gardner
minces no words when he says that, “I want my children to understand
the world, but not just because the world is fascinating and the human
mind is curious. I want them to understand it so that they will be posi-
tioned to make it a better place.”106 He agrees that “knowledge is not the
same as morality” for the flesh is weak even when the spirit may be willing.
But greater understanding will give us added perspective to do our best
in making both the spirit and flesh willing and in making this imperfect
world a better place for all.
Multiple Intelligences: Reflection Questions

1. Do you think that the construct of logical and linguistic intelligence,
as traditionally measured by IQ, does proper justice to identify the
full range of human capacities?
2. Explain how IQ proves to be a weak predictor of how well we relate
with others, perform at work, and cope with a variety of daily tasks
and challenges.
3. Do you think that IQ and EI are opposing competencies or just dif-
ferent ones? Does EI prove the primacy of heart over head or do we
need the wisdom of both the mind and the heart to succeed in the
business of life? Explain briefly.
4. Is it a leader’s job to create a progressive emotional environment
that frees the best in people?
5. Does EI change over time? Can it be learned and expanded, at any
time during one’s life? Are there any gender differences or is EI
gender-neutral?
105
Howard Gardner, Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences (New York: Basic
Books, 2011), xxxvi; xIiv.
106
Gardner, Intelligence Reframed, 181.
6. Do you think spiritual intelligence goes beyond the traditional

notions of rational intelligence (IQ) and emotional intelligence
(EQ)? Does spiritual intelligence serve as a necessary foundation for
both IQ and EQ?
7. Do you agree that everyone has all eight intelligences to some
degree—as postulated by Howard Gardner, although each individ-
ual has his or her own unique combination of stronger or weaker
intelligences? Explain how most tasks require more than one form
of intelligence working in tandem with others.
CHAPTER 6
Appreciative Inquiry: Discovering the Best

in People and Organizations
All that we are is the result of what we have thought:

it is founded on our thoughts, it is made up of our thoughts.1
—THE BUDDHA
Introduction
The opening quote by the Buddha reveals that we are constantly shap-
ing our reality by our thoughts. We become what we think. Likewise, a
central premise of the Appreciative Inquiry method is that we are con-
stantly shaping our reality through our assumptions, expectations, and
core beliefs. Accordingly, if we want to change, we need to change our
thinking. We have to change our line of inquiry. This is also true of social
systems. Appreciative inquiry is based on the premise that ‘human sys-
tems grow and change in the direction in which they ask questions’. If
an organization inquires into problems, it will keep finding problems; if
an organization seeks to appreciate what is best in itself and its people, it
will discover more and more that is good. It can then use these discover-
ies to envision and create a new future where the best naturally becomes
the norm. In essence it is the art of seeing things differently and harnessing
human potential to the benefit of humanity.
1
F.M. Max Muller, tr. and ed., Wisdom of the Buddha: The Unabridged Dhammapada
(New York: Dover Publications, 2000), 1.

DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-55571-7_6
134 S. DHIMAN
This chapter builds on the premise that success in leadership lies in

discovering and linking the untapped energies of a living system to an
organization’s change agenda. It explores the concept of Appreciative
Inquiry (AI) and its role in holistic leadership. Just as Michelangelo was
able to sense the historic figure of David in a slab of marble, Appreciative
Inquiry is the art of sensing the human and organizational potential
inherent in the present—seeing the proverbial mighty oak in the acorn.
It is a strength-based, affirmative approach to effect transformational
change in social systems and aspires to build organizations based on what
is right with them instead of focussing on what is wrong with them. AI
has been variously described as an ‘affirmative approach to change’, a
‘culmination of Maslow’s vision of positive human potential’, and a ‘new
yoga of inquiry.’2 In a way, appreciative inquiry is the cousin of positive
psychology.
Each organization has a two-part existence: the positive and the prob-
lematic—the abundant and the deficit. Which part wins depends upon
what we care to feed. By focusing on an organization’s moments of
excellence and through collective exploration and positive imagery, AI
serves as a powerful tool in a leader’s repertoire by creating, releasing,
and nurturing new potentials and possibilities. Thus, AI continuously
infuses new life into the veins of holistic leadership through searching
for what gives life to human systems when they are most alive, creative
and connected in healthy ways to their constituents and communities.
Professor Robert Quinn, in his celebrated book Change the World, agrees:
“Appreciative Inquiry is currently revolutionizing the field of organiza-
tional development.”3
Origin and Development of AI
Imagine what would happen to you if you had the ability to consistently see and
connect with every strength in the universe—every one of the capacities inherent
in a world of 10 billion galaxies and 6 billion people; or to see every positive
potential in your son or daughter; or, like Michelangelo, the intellectual ability
2
Harman, W. W. (1990). Shifting Context for Executive Behavior: Signs of Change and
Revaluation. In S. Srivastva, D. L. Cooperrider, & Associates (Eds.), Appreciative
Management and Leadership: The Power of Positive Thought and Action in Organizations
(San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Inc., 1990), 37–54.
3
Robert Quinn, Change the World: How Ordinary People Can Achieve Extraordinary
Results (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2000), 220.
APPRECIATIVE INQUIRY: DISCOVERING THE BEST IN PEOPLE... 135
to “sense” the towering, historic figure of David “already existing” in the huge
slab of marble—even before the reality.4
As the foregoing quote clearly demonstrates, AI is the science of “seeing”

and “sensing” possibilities through the prism of human potential. It is the
art of realizing the creative potential inherent in each and every human
being and social system.
The original theory of AI was articulated by Cooperrider and Suresh
Srivastva at the Weatherhead School of Management during 1980s at the
Case Western Reserve University. In 1987, Cooperrider and Srivastva
wrote the seminal article on AI which served as a precursor to later devel-
opments in “positive organizational studies” and the “strengths-based”
movement in American management.5
During his first presentation on the egalitarian organization at the
Academy of Management in 1984, Cooperrider showed a diagram con-
trasting problem-solving with appreciative analysis and proposed that,
instead of seeing organizations as problems to be solved, they should be
viewed as mysteries to be appreciated. In the same manner, Cooperrider’s
first presentation of AI to organization development (OD) scholars and
practitioners at the 1985 OD Network Conference in San Francisco
argued that problem-solving processes tended to exacerbate the problems
they were attempting to solve, and that more change could be got from
focusing members’ attention on the ‘life giving properties’ of their social
systems.6
In the late 1990s the ‘4-D model’ of Appreciative Inquiry appeared and
has come to be strongly associated with AI. Prior to this, AI practitioners
had relied on the initial set of 4 principles as stated by Cooperrider and
Srivastva in their 1987 article. The original method was based on a col-
lective discovery process using (1) grounded observation to identify the
best of what is (2) vision and logic to identify ideals of what might be (3)
collaborative dialogue and choice to achieve consent about what should
4
David Cooperrider, Elevating and Extending Our Capacity to Appreciate the Appreciable
World. In a Foreword to Tojo Thatchenkery and Carol Metzker, Appreciative Intelligence:
Seeing the Mighty Oak in the Acorn (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2006), ix.
5
Gervase Bushe , Appreciative inquiry: Theory and critique. In Boje, D., Burnes, B. and
Hassard, J. (eds.) The Routledge Companion To Organizational Change (Oxford, UK:
Routledge, 2011), 87.
6
Gervase Bushe, Foundations of Appreciative Inquiry: History, Criticism and Potential.
AI Practitioner. February 2012, 14 (1), 9.
136 S. DHIMAN
be (4) collective experimentation to discover what can be. In a personal

communication to Gervase Bushe, Copperrider has observed, “I think we
are still on this quest for a full blown non-deficit theory of change. I’m not
saying that the other isn’t a way of change but I am saying that we are still
in our infancy in understanding non-deficit, strength-based or life-centric
approaches to change.”7 It is interesting to note that despite the progress
made by positive psychology during the recent decades, we are still in the
very initial stage of leveraging those gains in recreating our organizations.
Many theoretical constructs and approaches have either influenced the
principles of AI or are aligned with them. AI welcomes many streams and
influences. It is very much rooted in Ken Gergen’s writings on social con-
structionism, Maslow’s humanistic psychology, positive psychology, and
new sciences like chaos theory, complexity theory, and quantum physics.
Defining Appreciative Inquiry

According to Cooperrider, “The basic premise of Appreciative Inquiry (AI)
is to build organizations around what works rather than fix what doesn’t,
focusing on what is right with people rather than what is wrong.” AI
promotes the search for the best in things—for what “gives life” to a sys-
tem when it is at its most effective and capable state, in economic, social,
environmental and human terms. The basic idea is to build organizations
around what works, rather than trying to fix what doesn’t. “AI assumes that
every living system has many untapped and rich and inspiring accounts of
the positive. Link the energy of this core to any change agenda and changes
never thought possible are suddenly and democratically mobilized.”8
I present below some key definitions of the term AI, as understood by
various scholars and practitioners:
Appreciative Inquiry (AI) is the cooperative search for the best in peo-
ple, their organizations, and the world around them. It involves sys-
tematic discovery of what gives a system ‘life’ when it is most effective
and capable in economic, ecological, and human terms. AI involves the
7
Cited in Gervase Bushe, Foundations of Appreciative Inquiry: History, Criticism and
Potential. AI Practitioner. February 2012, 14 (1), 16.
8
David L. Cooperrider, Diana Kaplin Whitney, and Jacqueline M. Stavros, (eds.),
Appreciative Inquiry Handbook: The First in a Series of AI Workbooks for Leaders of Change
(Bedford Heights, OH: Lakeshore Communications and San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler
Publishers, Inc., 2003), 319.
art and practice of asking questions that strengthen a system’s capacity

to heighten positive potential. It mobilizes inquiry through crafting an
“unconditional positive question” often involving hundreds or some-
times thousands of people.9
Appreciative Inquiry deliberately seeks to discover people’s exceptional-
ity—their unique gifts, strengths, and qualities. It actively searches and
recognizes people for their specialties—their essential contributions and
achievements. And it is based on principles of equality of voice—every-
one is asked to speak about their vision of the true, the good, and the
possible. Appreciative Inquiry builds momentum and success because it
believes in people. It really is an invitation to a positive revolution. Its
goal is to discover in all human beings the exceptional and the essential.
Its goal is to create organizations that are in full voice!10
Appreciative Inquiry [is] a theory and practice for approaching change from
a holistic framework. Based on the belief that human systems are made and
imagined by those who live and work within them, AI leads systems to
move toward the generative and creative images that reside in their most
positive core—their values, visions, achievements, and best practices.11
AI is intentional inquiry and directed conversation and story-telling that
leads to a place of possibility. Possibility is fresh, new, and sacred. The
story is the genesis of all that is human. Societies are stories, as are
companies, schools, cities, families and individuals. There are bricks and
mortar and flesh and bones, but all of it comes from a story. Even the
flesh and bones of one person comes from a story of two people uniting
to form another. I can think of many moments where groups reached
a profound spot with AI and touched a sense of freedom. Usually one
person would say something like, “From what we heard in these stories,
we could …” and there follows a collective deep breath and then silence
as people consider the new “we could.” Possibility sits in the room as a
space of silence and then thought fills the space.12
9
David L. Cooperrider & Diana Whitney, “Appreciative Inquiry: A positive revolution in
change”. In P. Holman & T. Devane (eds.), The Change Handbook (San Francisco, CA:
Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc., 2007), 73–88.
10
David Cooperrider et al. (Eds.), Lessons from the Field: Applying Appreciative Inquiry
(Plano, TX: Thin Book Publishing, 2001), 12.
11
Jane Magruder Watkins, Bernard J. Mohr, & Ralph Kelly, Appreciative Inquiry: Change
at the Speed of Imagination (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2001), xxxi.
12
John Steinbach, Contribution to the AI Listserve, July 2005. Retrieved March 7, 2016:
https://appreciativeinquiry.case.edu/intro/definition.cfm.
138 S. DHIMAN
AI involves, in a central way, the art and practice of asking ques-

tions that strengthen a system’s capacity to apprehend, anticipate,
and heighten positive potential. It centrally involves the mobilization
of inquiry through the crafting of the “unconditional positive ques-
tion, often involving hundreds or sometimes thousands of people. …
AI deliberately, in everything it does, seeks to work from accounts of
the “positive change core”—and it assumes that every living system has
many untapped and rich and inspiring accounts of the positive. Link
the energy of this core directly to any change agenda and changes never
thought possible are suddenly and democratically mobilized.”13
David Cooperrider says that the inquiry into organizational life should
have four characteristics. It should be14:
Appreciative—AI looks for the ‘positive core’ of the organization and

seeks to use it as a foundation for future growth.
Applicable—AI is grounded in stories of what has actually taken place in
the past and is therefore essentially practical. It is not a ‘pie in the sky’
approach but instead seeks the best of ‘what is’ in order to build the best
of ‘what might be’.
Provocative—AI invites people to take some risks in the way they imagine
the future and redesign their organization to bring it about. With the
security and energy gained from the exploration of the best in the orga-
nization, people feel able to respond with ‘provocative propositions’
about the future.
Collaborative—AI is a form of collaborative inquiry. It always involves
the whole organization or a representative cross-section of the whole
organization. In this way all voices can be heard and everyone’s contri-
bution valued.
As is clear from the above features, AI is a collaborative approach built

around the ‘what might be’ vision about the future. Its positive yet pro-
vocative tenure brings out the best in people and organizations.
13
David L. Cooperrider and Diana Whitney, “A Positive Revolution in Change:
Appreciative Inquiry.” In David Cooperrider, Peter Sorensen, Diana Whitney, & Teherese
F. Yaeger, (Eds.), Appreciative Inquiry: Rethinking Human Organization Toward a Positive
Theory of Change (Champaign, Illinois: Stipes Publishing, 2000), 5.
14
As quoted in Richard Seel, Introduction to Appreciative Inquiry, Retrieved March 12,
2016: http://www.new-paradigm.co.uk/introduction_to_ai.htm.
Appreciative Intelligence: The Missing Link

Going one step beyond appreciative inquiry, Thatchenkery and Metzker
have suggested the term “Appreciative Intelligence” in their book titled
Appreciative Intelligence: Seeing the Mighty Oak in the Acorn. Seen along
the lines of Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences, the construct of
Appreciative Intelligence is a strength-based approach to organiza-
tional change and development. The authors conceptualize Appreciative
Intelligence as “an ability or capacity to reframe reality to bring out the
best from others and the environment.”15 It is “the ability to see the
mighty oak in the acorn;” that is, the ability to perceive the positive inherent
generative potential in the present.
Building upon the legacy of AI construct, Appreciative Intelligence
reframes reality to reveal the hidden potential within even the most
apparently unpromising present. The authors also show that an under-
standing of Appreciative Intelligence leads to social systems that enjoy
higher levels of innovation, more productive employees, greater ability to
adapt to changes, and, ultimately, greater financial gains.16 Appreciative
Intelligence, much like Emotional Intelligence, has the potential to illu-
mine the path of effective leadership research and practice. And like emo-
tional intelligence, we can nurture appreciative intelligence and sharpen it
once we realize the presence of it within us.
Appreciative intelligence focuses on the key question: “What is the abil-
ity that enables some people to take new or challenging circumstances and
turn them into successful experiences for themselves and those around
them, while others waver at similar situations?” It is the power of refram-
ing, appreciation of positive possibility, and seeing how the future unfolds
from the present. The authors indicate that there are 4 qualities signify-
ing this ability: persistence, conviction that one’s actions matter, tolerance
for uncertainty, and irrepressible resilience. Together, these competencies
comprise the Appreciative intelligence—the proverbial ability of “seeing
the mighty oak in the acorn”. Developing the metaphor further, they also
explain how to plant and preserve the acorns to help them grow and thrive
despite challenging circumstances.
15
Tojo Thatchenkery and Carol Metzker, Appreciative Intelligence: Seeing the Mighty Oak
in the Acorn (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2006), xvi.
16
See Tojo Thatchenkery and Carol Metzker, Appreciative Intelligence: Seeing the Mighty
Oak in the Acorn (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2006).
140 S. DHIMAN
The Pygmalion Effect

We have all heard about self-fulfilling prophecy: that is, what you expect is
what you get. Whether self-fulfilling prophecies really do occur is a mat-
ter for scientific investigation, but psychological research indicates that
in some areas they are a reality.17 The Pygmalion effect is the phenom-
enon whereby higher expectations lead to an increase in performance. In
the leadership context, the Pygmalion effect, by extension, will mean that
increasing the leader’s expectancy of the follower’s performance will result
in better follower performance.
Can a teacher’s expectations for his students’ intellectual competence
play out as an educational self-fulfilling prophecy? During 1968, Rosenthal
and Jacobson administered a nonverbal intelligence test to all of the chil-
dren in elementary school called Oak School (Kindergarten through fifth
grade). Rather than telling the teachers that it was an intelligence test, it
was presented as a new test being developed at Harvard for identifying
children likely to “bloom” (to show dramatic intellectual spurt) over the
upcoming school year. The 20 % of the children were reported to their
teachers as showing potential for unusual intellectual growth, although
their names were picked randomly.
One year later, when the same intelligence test was given to the stu-
dent body, these unusual or “magic” children showed significantly greater
gains in IQ than did the remaining children who had not been singled
out for the teachers’ attention.18 Even two years later, the bloomers’ gains
still exceeded the control group. Although “the difference between the
children earmarked for intellectual growth and the undesignated control
children was in the mind of the teacher,”19 teachers’ expectations created
a self-fulfilling prophecy. To be precise, the teacher’s false expectations had
come true.
Is the Pygmalion effect confined to the education field only? In 2002,
Rosenthal himself reviewed the literature on expectancy effects using
meta-analysis techniques. He demonstrated how “the expectations
17
Robert Rosenthal & Lenore Jacobson, Teachers’ expectancies: Determinates of pupils’
IQ gains. Psychological Reports, 1966, 19, 115–118.
18
See Robert Rosenthal & Lenore Jacobson, Pygmalion in the Classroom: Teacher
Expectation and Pupils’ Intellectual Development (New York: Crown House Publishing,
2003), vii–viii.
19
Robert Rosenthal & Lenore Jacobson, Pygmalion in the Classroom: Teacher Expectation
and Pupils’ Intellectual Development (New York: Crown House Publishing, 2003), 68.
of psychological researchers, classroom teachers, judges in the court-

room, business executives, and health care providers can unintention-
ally affect the responses of their research participants, pupils, jurors,
employees, and patients.”20 Holistic leaders are aware that expectations
determine outcomes and leverage this insight in orchestrating positive
results.
Does that mean that self-fulfilling prophecies work all the time?
Although it may seem so, the empirical research is more nuanced. After
reviewing 35 years of empirical research on teacher expectations, Lee
Jussim and Kent Harber conclude that whether self-fulfilling prophecies
affect intelligence, and whether in general they do more harm than good,
remains unclear and that more research in this area is needed. They indi-
cate that it is possible that some conditions are more conducive to nega-
tive expectancy, whereas others are more conducive to positive effects.21
Whatever explanation we choose, it is clear that we shape our reality and
that is where the true power of AI resides.
The Art of Asking Engaging Questions22

“… the word ‘why’ not only taught me to ask, but also to think. And
thinking has never hurt anyone. On the contrary, it does us all a world
of good.”23
—ANNE FRANK
As stated earlier, AI is based on the premise that ‘human systems grow

and change in the direction in which they ask questions.’ Questions, as
Anne Frank tells us, make us think. And thinking, pure and simple, har-
nesses the best in us. Nobel laureate scientist, Isidor Isaac Rabi, tells us
that while every other Jewish mother in Brooklyn would ask their children
20
Robert Rosenthal, Covert communication in classrooms, clinics, courtrooms, and cubi-
cles. American Psychologist, 2002, 57, 839.
21
Lee Jussim & Kent D. Harber, “Teacher Expectations and Self-Fulfilling Prophecies:
Knowns and Unknowns, Resolved and Unresolved Controversies,” Personality and Social
Psychology Review, 2005, 9 (2): 131; 153. PDF retrieved March 9, 2016: http://www.rci.
rutgers.edu/~jussim/Teacher%20Expectations%20PSPR%202005.pdf.
22
Eric E. Vogt, E., Juanita Brown, J., and David Issacs, The Art of Powerful Questions:
Catalyzing Insight, Innovation, and Action (Mill Valley, CA: Whole Systems Associates,
2003), 2–12.
23
See Anne Frank, Anne Frank’s Tales from the Annex.
142 S. DHIMAN
after school what they had learnt, his mother would instead ask, “Izzy,
did you ask a good question today? And that difference—asking good
questions—made me become a scientist.”24 According to the Encyclopedia
of Management Theory, “The theory’s central management insight is that
teams, organizations and society evolve in whatever direction we collec-
tively, passionately and persistently ask questions about.”25 It is our natu-
ral tendency to try to find something wrong with people or what is not
working with organizations. While there is lot that can be improved in
human systems, this tendency also has the inevitability of a self-fulfilling
prophecy—that is, if we expect something to happen in a certain way,
our expectation will tend to make it so. And due to the positive feedback
between belief and behavior, the law of attraction works both ways—that
is, in the manner of both as self-fulfilling and self-defeating prophecy. If
an organization inquires into problems, it will keep finding problems; if
an organization seeks to appreciate what is best in itself and its people, it
will discover more and more that is good. It can then use these discoveries
to envision and create a new future where the best naturally becomes the
norm.26
The usefulness of the knowledge we acquire and the effectiveness of the
actions we take depend on the quality of the questions we ask. Questions
open the door to dialogue and discovery. They are an invitation to creativ-
ity and breakthrough thinking.27 Many historic discoveries are attributable
to people asking engaging questions. Einstein when still a teenager used
to wonder: “What if I could ride a beam of light across the universe?” He
regularly conducted “thought experiments”, which over a period of time
led to great advances in theoretical physics.
Asking the right questions using appreciative inquiry is important in a
collaborative setting and can create meaningful and positive change. Used
properly, these questions help focusing attention, connecting ideas and
finding deeper meaning, and creating forward movement.
24
Cited in Larry Ferlazzo, Self-Driven Learning: Teaching Strategies for Student Motivation
(New York: Routledge, 2013), 115.
25
Gervase R. Bushe, The Appreciative Inquiry Model. In Eric H. Kessler, (ed.),
Encyclopedia of Management Theory (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2013), 41–44.
26
Eric E. Vogt, E., Juanita Brown, J., and David Issacs, The Art of Powerful Questions:
Catalyzing Insight, Innovation, and Action (Mill Valley, CA: Whole Systems Associates,
2003), 2–12.
27
Ibid., 1.
Thus, a powerful question: generates curiosity in the listener, stimu-

lates reflective conversation, is thought-provoking, surfaces underlying
assumptions, invites creativity and new possibilities, generates energy and
forward movement, channels attention and focuses inquiry, stays with par-
ticipants, touches a deep meaning, and evokes more questions.28
Vogt et al. report that in some German companies there is a job title
of Direktor Grundsatzfragen that translates as “Director of Fundamental
Questions”. In fact, “some of the larger German companies have an entire
department of Grundsatzfragen. These are the people who are always
thinking about what the next questions will be. Of course, these people
are only in the German companies headquartered in Germany, such as
Daimler, Bayer, Siemens, or SAP. If the German company is acquired by
a US company, they usually eliminate the Grundsatzfragen positions.”29
This shows the fundamental difference between the mindsets of American
and German companies. We need to realize that when we invest in ques-
tions about the future, we are in fact improving our present.
Whitney and her colleagues who have put together a resourceful hand-
book of positive questions that work, state that their key discovery is as
follows: “If you truly wish to change your world, you must change your
way of asking questions. It could be that the moment you do so, a totally
different world will take shape around you.”30 The following narrative
illustrates the power of framing the right questions, using the language of
appreciative inquiry:
Think back about a time at work that you recall as a “high point” … an expe-
rience or moment you remember as having left you with an intense sense of
pride, excitement, or involvement in having been a part of something that
was meaningful … a time when you truly felt you had contributed to the
betterment of a fellow employee(s), the customer, or the organization.31
The question of questions is: How can we better inquire into organiza-
tional existence in ways that are economically, humanly, and ecologically
28
Ibid., 4.
29
Ibid., 2.
30
Diana Whitney, David Cooperrider, Amanda Trostein-Boom, & Brian S. Kaplin,
Encyclopedia of Positive Questions: Using Appreciative Inquiry to Bring out the Best in Your
Organization, Volume One (Euclid, OH: Lakeshore Publishers, 2002), x.
31
Frank J. Barrett, F. & Ronald E. Fry, Appreciative Inquiry: A Positive Approach to
Cooperative Capacity Building (Chagrin Falls, OH: Taos Institute Publishing, 2005), 58.
144 S. DHIMAN
significant, that is, in ways that increasingly help people discover, dream,
design and transform toward the greatest good?32
I conclude this section with a quote from the German language poet,
Rainer Maria Rilke, which probably contains the best advice that can be
given about living the questions patiently, to find our way into the answers:
I would like to beg you, dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with
everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions them-
selves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign lan-
guage. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now,
because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live every-
thing. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you
will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.33
Rilke admirably points out that the quest is not about finding the answers
but living the questions. If one does that patiently, the answers emerge
spontaneously and unexpectedly. But one has to live the unresolved cre-
ative tension first and make it all one’s own.
Questions for All Seasons!34
Questions for Focusing Collective Attention on Your Situation

What question, if answered, could make the most difference to the future
of (your specific situation)?
What’s important to you about (your specific situation) and why do
you care?
What’s our intention here? What’s the deeper purpose (the big “why”)
that is really worthy of our best effort?
What opportunities can you see in (your specific situation)?
What do we know so far/still need to learn about (your specific
situation)?
32
David L. Cooperrider and Diana Whitney, “A Positive Revolution in Change:
Appreciative Inquiry,” n.d. A draft article retrieved March 10, 2016: https://appreciativein-
quiry.case.edu/uploads/whatisai.pdf.
33
Stephen Mitchell (tr.), Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke (Malden, MA:
Scriptor Press, 2001), 13–14.
34
Adapted from Eric E. Vogt et al., The Art of Powerful Questions, 12.
What are the dilemmas/opportunities in (your specific situation)?

What assumptions do we need to test or challenge here in thinking
about (your specific situation)?
What would someone who had a very different set of beliefs than we do
say about (your specific situation)?
Questions for Connecting Ideas and Finding Deeper Insight

What’s taking shape? What are you hearing underneath the variety of
opinions being expressed?
What’s emerging here for you? What new connections are you
making?
What had real meaning for you from what you’ve heard? What sur-
prised you? What challenged you?
What’s missing from this picture so far? What is it we’re not seeing?
What do we need more clarity about?
What’s been your/our major learning, insight, or discovery so far?
What’s the next level of thinking we need to do?
If there was one thing that hasn’t yet been said in order to reach a
deeper level of understanding/clarity, what would that be?
Questions That Create Forward Movement

What would it take to create change on this issue?
What could happen that would enable you/us to feel fully engaged and
energized about (your specific situation)?
What’s possible here and who cares? (rather than “What’s wrong here
and who’s responsible?”)
What needs our immediate attention going forward?
If our success was completely guaranteed, what bold steps might we
choose?
How can we support each other in taking the next steps? What unique
contribution can we each make?
What challenges might come our way and how might we meet them?
What conversation, if begun today, could ripple out in a way that cre-
ated new possibilities for the future of (your situation)?
What seed might we plant together today that could make the most
difference to the future of (your situation)?
146 S. DHIMAN
Main Principles of Appreciative Inquiry (AI)35

AI involves the following 5 original core principles that form the theoreti-
cal basis of its transformative change schema:
The Constructionist principle: Words create worlds. Reality is constructed

through language. What we consider to be real is created through our
social discourse. Organizations are living, human constructions guided
by the generative capacity of knowledge and language. This principle is
based on social constructionist approach that studies the ways in which
individuals and groups participate in the construction of their perceived
social reality. Its dictum is that ‘language does not mirror reality; rather,
it creates it.’36
The Principle of Simultaneity: Inquiry creates change. The first ques-
tion is fateful. Change is co-extensive and simultaneous with inquiry: It
begins the moment we begin asking questions. The seeds of change are
planted in the very first questions we ask. Questions evoke reality. The
moment we ask a question, we begin to create a change. In this sense
at least, inquiry is intervention itself. When we wait for the analysis, we
delay the change process. By altering our questions, we begin to alter
the outcomes.
The Anticipatory Principle: Image inspires action. An image of the future
precedes actual change. What we do today is guided by our image of
the future. Human systems move in the direction of their images of the
future. Positive images of the future lead to positive actions. People
and organizations become what they think and believe. When we create
positive, uplifting images of our future we are more likely to act to reach
that desired future.
The Poetic Principle: Organizations are like an open book or a poem. They
are open to multiple interpretations and conclusions. The organizational
35
See David L. Cooperrider, Peter F. Sorensen, Jr., Diana Whitney, & Therese
F. Yaeger (eds.), Appreciative Inquiry: Rethinking Human Organization Toward A Positive
Theory of Change (Champaign, Illinois: Stipes Publishers, 2000), 17–20. Also see Diana
Whitney & Amanda Trosten-Bloom, The Power of Appreciative Inquiry: A Practical
Guide to Positive Change (San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler, 2003), 52–65.
36
One of the key proponents of social constructionism is Ken Gergen who was this
author’s dissertation chair at Taos Institute-Tilburg University, the Netherlands.
life unfolds in the stories people tell each other every day, and the story
of the organization is constantly being rewritten. Great poems, stories
and works of art touch us on a number of sensory levels. What we focus
on grows. We can choose what we study and focus on.
The Positive Principle: Positive questions lead to positive change. The more
positive the approach, the more lasting the change. The positive prin-
ciple invites us to look at and articulate what is positive, vibrant, vital and
empowering. It promotes sentiments like hope, excitement, inspiration,
camaraderie, creativity, openness to new ideas and people, and cognitive
flexibility.
The current AI literature also added the following 5 emergent

principles:37
The Wholeness Principle: Wholeness brings out the best. Wholeness

inspires the best in people, organizations, and communities. The whole-
ness principle inspires the participants to focus on the higher ground
than just the common ground. It is about appreciating our commonali-
ties while at the same time acknowledging and celebrating differences.
It means engaging the entire organization and its stakeholders in the
process of transformative change. Looked from the standpoint of the
whole system, there are no others and no one is an outsider.
The Enactment Principle: Acting “as-if” is self-fulfilling. The “act as
if” principle means if you act as if you are what you want to be, then
you will become that.38 This principle is a powerful tool of altering our
consciousness from self-destructive negative feelings into specific posi-
tive behaviors. In the organizational setting, when leaders role-model
certain behaviors, it helps them as well as others to imbibe the values
personified by those behaviors. Positive change occurs when leaders
37
Diana Whitney & Amanda Trosten-Bloom, The Power of Appreciative Inquiry, 66–74.
38
American psychologist, William James, had a theory about emotion and behavior: It is
not that our emotions guide our actions; rather, it is our actions that guide our emotions.
This led him to a remarkable discovery: “If you want a quality, act as if you already have it”.
William James considered it to be the greatest discovery that man can change his life simply
by changing his attitude of mind. Likewise, Aristotle proposed learning by doing and consid-
ered virtues as lived values.
148 S. DHIMAN
become the living models of ideal behavior. To really bring about a

change, we must “be the change we want to see.”
The Free Choice Principle: Free choice liberates power. People perform
better and are more committed when they have the freedom to choose
how and what they contribute. Free choice stimulates organizational
excellence and positive change. It fosters creativity and infuses a height-
ened sense of belongingness. When people have free choice, organiza-
tions excel.39
The Narrative Principle: Stories are transformative. We construct stories
about our lives (personal and professional) and live into them. The nar-
rative principle celebrates the power of stories as catalysts for change.
Stories remind us of our deeply cherished values, build bonds, and con-
nect us with others. Organizations and human systems are stories in
progress.40 Effective leaders tell three stories: about themselves, about
the organization, and, more importantly, about connecting their story
with that of the organization.
The Awareness Principle: Be aware of underlying assumptions. The
awareness principle states that one should understand and integrate AI
principles in organizations in an intentional manner. While relating to
others, one should be aware of one’s underlying assumptions and reflect
on one’s ‘automatic thinking’. This helps create a culture of openness,
understanding and mutual support.
Problem-Based Approach vs. Strength Based

Approach41
AI is a strength-based approach to human systems which sees the best
of what could be based on the best of what is. The pioneers of AI feel
that we have taken the problem-based paradigm a bit too far. From the
stance ‘organizations have problems,’ we have moved to ‘organization are
problems.’ This deficit-thinking has constrained our ability to realize the
possibilities of what is good in our human systems. The following table
39
Diana Whitney & Amanda Trosten-Bloom, The Power of Appreciative Inquiry, 71–72.
40
Frank J. Barrett, F. & Ronald E. Fry, Appreciative Inquiry: A Positive Approach to
Cooperative Capacity Building (Chagrin Falls, OH: Taos Institute Publishing, 2005), 49–51.
41
David L. Cooperrider, Peter F. Sorensen, Jr., Diana Whitney, & Therese F. Yaeger
(Eds.), Appreciative Inquiry, 23.
summarizes and contrasts problem-based and AI approaches to organiza-

tional change:
Problem Solving Appreciative Inquiry

“Felt Need” Identification of Problem Appreciating and Valuing The Best of “What is”
Analysis of Causes Envisioning “What Might Be”
Analysis of Possible Solutions Dialoguing “What Should Be”
Action Planning (Treatment) Innovating “What Will Be”
Basic Assumption Basic Assumption
An Organization is a Problem to be An Organization is a Mystery to be Embraced
Solved
Deficit-Based Research Strength-Based Research
[Source: Adapted from Cooperrider and Whitney, Appreciative Inquiry, 2000, p. 23]
The 4-D Model of Appreciative Inquiry

The Appreciative Inquiry process is generally represented by a 4-step process
that is developed around an issue or a topic. Each step is given a name begin-
ning with ‘D’ and the model is usually known as the 4-D model (Fig. 6.1):
The following briefly outlines the 4 phases of the model:42
Discover
People talk to one another, usually via structured interviews, to discover
the times when the organization is at its best. These stories are told as
richly as possible and from them people start to discover the ‘positive core’
of the organization, what gives life to it when it is at its best. People start
to appreciate themselves and their colleagues and some quite significant
transformations start to occur.
Dream
The dream phase is often run as a large group conference where a cross-
section of the organization is encouraged to imagine and co-create the
future. They are encouraged to envision the organization as if the peak
moments discovered in the ‘discover’ phase were the norm rather than the
exception. “What would things be like if …?” Working in small groups,
Adapted from Richard Seel, Introduction to Appreciative Inquiry, Retrieved March 12,
42
2016: http://www.new-paradigm.co.uk/introduction_to_ai.htm.
150 S. DHIMAN
Fig. 6.1 4 D model of appreciative inquiry. [Source: Richard Seel, Introduction

to Appreciative Inquiry (2008)]
they try to put as much ‘flesh’ on their visions as possible. These are then
‘creatively presented’ to the rest of the group and worked on further.
Design
In this collaborative design approach the group first derives a design possibil-
ities map, which contains, in three concentric circles, the dream for the orga-
nization, the key relationships which have an impact on the dream, and key
organizational design elements which will be needed to deliver the dream.
In small groups participants then ‘sign up’ to explore particular design
elements which they have energy for and these groups craft ‘provocative
propositions’ which challenge the organization to adopt a new and health-
ier future. These are shared with the large group and further refined.
Deliver
The final phase is to deliver the dream and the new design. Because the
term ‘deliver’ has a rather mechanical feel to it, many AI workers now pre-
fer the term ‘Destiny’ which continues the future-facing theme. Whichever
term is chosen, the final phase is one of experimentation and improvisa-
tion, sometimes described as ‘organizational jazz’. Small implementation
teams will be formed to follow up on the design elements and to continue
the appreciative process.
AI and Implications for Management
David Cooperrider presents the following implications of AI for manage-

ment and leadership:43
1. Organizations as made and imagined are artifacts of the affirmative

mind.
2. No matter what its previous history is, virtually any pattern of orga-
nizational action is open to alteration and reconfiguration.
3. To the extent that organizations’ imaginative projections are the key
to their current conduct, organizations are free to seek transforma-
tions in conventional practice by replacing conventional images with
images of a new and better future.
4. Organizations are heliotropic in character in the sense that organi-
zational actions have an observable and largely automatic tendency
to evolve in the direction of positive imagery.
5. Conscious evolution of positive imagery is a viable option for orga-
nized systems as large as global society or as small as the dyad or
group.
6. To understand organizations in affirmative terms is also to under-
stand that the greatest obstacle in the way of group and organiza-
tional well-being is the positive image, the affirmative projection
that guides the group or the organization.
7. Organizations do not need to be fixed. They need constant
reaffirmation.
8. Creating the conditions for organization-wide appreciation is the
single most important measure that can be taken to ensure the con-
scious evolution of a valued and positive future.
43
David L. Cooperrider et al., Appreciative Inquiry, 46–52.
152 S. DHIMAN
Concluding Thoughts
Appreciative inquiry is about tapping into the river of positive possibilities,
a way of harnessing the untapped creative energies of people and organiza-
tions. It is a science of the possible. It is the art of seeing the mighty oak
in the acorn. Appreciative inquiry is not another tool, like team building
or quality management. Rather, it is a whole new approach to organiza-
tional change—a way of being in the organizations. We have seen that
the approaches which focus on “problem-solving” can take us only so far.
These approaches basically focus on what is wrong in a given situation and
proceed to “fix” it with all the analytical tools available. But this approach
can never take us beyond the confines of the dark past. For achieving
quantum leaps of progress, we need clear, bright images of the future.
We need to create a field of possibilities. As Cooperrider succinctly put it:
“We create our organizations based on our anticipations of the future. The
image of the future guides the current behavior of any system.”44
Stephen Hawking, perhaps the most brilliant theoretical physicist in
history, in his classic entitled A Brief History of Time, explains the Law of
Conservation of Energy as “the law of science which states that energy
(or its equivalent in mass) can neither be created nor destroyed, but can
and does change form.”45 How and in which direction the creative human
energy changes form depends in large part upon our collective conscious.
The only thing we are truly limited by is our beliefs—physical, mental,
emotional, and spiritual. If we wish to change our world, says appreciative
inquiry, we must change the direction of our inquiry about the world, our
way of asking questions about it. It could be that the moment we do so,
a totally different world might crystallize around us. The sooner the right
questions are asked, the sooner the right answers start emerging.
What if we fail to achieve our total potential because our own beliefs
prevent us from realizing it? We need to imagine big and we need to think
bold. Words create worlds and images evoke actions. Positive images of
future lead to positive actions. We need to have a vision that clearly sees
a mighty oak tree in a tiny acorn. For limitations in our perceptions are
not limitations in the things perceived. Each social system has a two-part
44
David Cooperrider Appreciative Inquiry Course 2007 (submitted by aicommons@case.
edu). Retrieved March 10, 2016: https://appreciativeinquiry.case.edu/practice/quotesDe-
tail.cfm?coid=12447.
45
Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time, 10th Anniversary edition (New York: Bantam
Books, 1998), 200.
existence: the positive and the possible—the abundant and the deficit.
Which part wins depends upon what we care to feed.
The following folk tale46 clarifies the point splendidly:
An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life. “A fight is going on

inside me”, he said to the boy.
“It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil—he is
anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment,
inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego”. He continued, “The other
is good—he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevo-
lence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is
going on inside you—and inside every other person, too”.
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfa-
ther, “Which wolf will win?”
The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed”.
We have spawned a culture of deficit around us. The media thrives on

promoting an ethos of doom and gloom, victimhood, and alienation, glo-
rifying what is broken. When we are looking for problems, we indeed find
them. The small still voice of the possibilities gets choked in the loud noise
of the negative.
Let us stop feeding problems and start nurturing potentials and pos-
sibilities. Let us all become “goodfinders.” Since everything depends upon
everything, we transform the world by transforming ourselves. Every
thought we think is changing our future. If we become what we think, as
the Buddha taught, the best way to transform ourselves and our organiza-
tions is to change our thinking.
We need to imagine big and we need to think bold. For, as Vaçlav Havel
wonders at the end of his perceptive essay “The Power of the Powerless”,
“the real question is whether the brighter future is really always so distant.
What if, on the contrary, it has been here for a long time already, and only
our own blindness and weakness has prevented us from seeing it around
us and within us, and kept us from developing it?”47 Yes, what if …. It
depends upon us!
46
Original author unknown.
47
Vaçlav Havel, taken from his open letter on ‘The Power of the Powerless.’ Václav Havel,
Power of the Powerless—samizdat essay, October 1978. Retrieved March 10, 2016: http://
vaclavhavel.cz/showtrans.php?cat=eseje&val=2_aj_eseje.html&typ=HTML.
154 S. DHIMAN
Appreciative Inquiry: Reflection Questions

1. How does Appreciative Inquiry (AI) harness the untapped creative
energies of people and organizations and use these discoveries to
envision and create a new future where the best naturally becomes
the norm?
2. AI is based on the premise that ‘human systems grow and change in
the direction in which they ask questions’. Formulate two such
questions that will help you as a leader to discover the best in people
and organizations.
3. Do you think that traditional approaches to problem-solving that
focus on what is wrong in a given situation and proceed to “fix” it
with all the analytical tools available are adequate for achieving
quantum breakthroughs?
4. We are constantly shaping our reality through our assumptions,
expectations, and core beliefs. List 2–3 “empowering” assumptions
and positive images about people and organizations to unleash their
hidden possibilities.
5. Effective leaders use stories as catalysts of change. Imagine and
reflect on three such stories: first, about yourself; second, about your
organization, and third, about the connection of your story with
that of the organization.
CHAPTER 7
Spiritual Leadership: A Superior Way to

Be and Serve
We are not human beings on a spiritual journey. We are spiritual beings on a

human journey.1
Introduction
The opening quote, widely attributed to Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, high-
lights the primacy of the spiritual dimension of our being. It points out
that it is spirituality that verily lends glory to our human existence. This
chapter explores the need and importance of spiritual leadership in con-
temporary organizations. Spiritual leadership is a vital expression of holis-
tic leadership since it covers all of its three important elements: self, spirit
and service. Spiritual leadership encompasses the values, attitudes, and
behaviors necessary intrinsically to motivate oneself and others by appeal-
ing to humanity’s fundamental yearning for spiritual well-being realized by
living out one’s higher consciousness, calling and contribution. Spiritual
leadership is an emerging paradigm within the broader context of work-
place spirituality designed to create a values-driven, intrinsically motivated
organization.2 As Fry has noted, “The purpose of spiritual leadership is to
1
A variant rendering of the quote: ‘We are not human beings having a spiritual experience.
We are spiritual beings having a human experience.’ Most authors who quote it do not pro-
vide its source. It is quoted here for its telling force in underscoring the primacy of our spiri-
tual dimension.
2
Mark Kriger and Yvonne Seng, “Leadership with inner meaning: A contingency theory of
leadership based on worldviews of five religions”, The Leadership Quarterly, 6, (2005): 771–806.

DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-55571-7_7
156 S. DHIMAN
create vision and value congruence across the strategic, empowered team,
and individual levels and, ultimately, to foster higher levels of organiza-
tional commitment and productivity.”3
The corporate world is realizing that spiritual values are integral to
employee well-being and business success. Organizations are becoming
increasingly aware that people seek meaning and purpose in their work
and desire to connect with other human beings as part of a community.
Recent polls have found that American managers and leaders want a deeper
sense of meaning and fulfillment on the job—even more than they want
money and time off.4 This calls for transformation of the workplace and
the self. Spiritual leadership recognizes that the fundamental problems
confronting organizations are so pervasive that they can only be solved
by transforming the human spirit—at the level of our most authentic self.
The transformation of self is also a sine qua non for bringing about larger
social change. Lives of exemplary world leaders such as Gandhi, Martin
Luther King, Jr., Nelson Mandela, Rosa Parks, and Mother Teresa clearly
show that leadership for social change requires cultivation of inner spiri-
tual qualities.
Recent studies have shown that values traditionally associated with spiri-
tuality—such as integrity, honesty, trust, kindness, caring, fairness, and
humility—have a demonstrable effect on leadership effectiveness and suc-
cess. Reave conducted an exhaustive review of over 150 studies that revealed
a clear consistency between the following spiritual values and practices and
effective leadership: showing respect for others, demonstrating fair treat-
ment, expressing caring and concern, listening responsively, recognizing
the contributions of others, and engaging in reflective practice. Specifically,
Reave noted that spirituality expresses itself in the form of spiritual values
(i.e., integrity, trust, ethical influence, honest communication, and humility)
and spiritual behaviors (i.e., demonstrating respect, treating others fairly,
expressing care and concern, listening responsively, appreciating the contri-
butions of others, and engaging in spiritual practice).5
First, this chapter reviews the construct of spirituality in the workplace
and its role in leading organizations effectively. It clarifies that s pirituality and
3
Louis W. Fry, “Toward a theory of spiritual leadership”, The Leadership Quarterly, 14,
(2003): 693–727.
4
Ibid., 702.
5
Laura Reave, “Spiritual values and practices related to leadership effectiveness”, The
Leadership Quarterly, 16, (2005): 655–687. Retrieved March 15, 2016: https://sites.fas.
harvard.edu/~soc186/AssignedReadings/Reave-ValuesPay.pdf.
SPIRITUAL LEADERSHIP: A SUPERIOR WAY TO BE AND SERVE 157
religion are two related yet distinct concepts. Understanding this distinction
is of vital importance for practicing spiritual leadership and for effectively
implementing spirituality in the workplace. The chapter presents various
definitions of workplace spirituality and also analyzes its various elements.
Finally, it examines a few important models of spiritual leadership with spe-
cial emphasis on authentic leadership and servant leadership, as two widely
practiced forms of spiritual leadership. Spiritual leadership begins with being
authentic and ends with serving others. Holistic leadership requires we cul-
tivate both of these dimensions and mandates that, before leading others,
we lead ourselves first. Spiritual leaders are self-directed and other-focused.
Meaning and Definition of Spirituality
True spirituality lies in making the heart and lips the same.—Ramakrishna
Paramahamsa
Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, perhaps the best-known seer-saint of nine-

teenth century India, presents the essence of being a spiritual person in
terms of authenticity: making the heart and lips the same. Broadly speaking,
spirituality addresses meaning, motivation, and values involving existen-
tial questions and the awareness of divine presence. Webster’s Dictionary
defines spirituality as: of, relating to, consisting of or affecting the spirit;
of or relating to sacred matters; concerned with religious values; related
or joined in spirit; of or relating to supernatural beings or phenomena.
Etymologically speaking, the term “spirituality” comes from the Latin
word “spiritus” that means vapor, breath, air or wind. The term spirituality
means different things to different people. Cavanagh illustrates the diversity
of opinions regarding the definition of spirituality as follows:
Ian Mitroff, in a 1998 Symposium addressed to the Academy of Management,

defined the concept as “the desire to find ultimate purpose in life, and to live
accordingly”. Others define spirituality loosely as energy, meaning, know-
ing, etc. Some authors rely heavily on Taoist, Buddhist, Hindu, Zen and
Native American spiritualities. These authors correctly claim that these non-
western societies are better in integrating personal life, work, leisure, prayer,
religion, and other aspects of one’s life.6
6
Gerald F. Cavanagh, “Spirituality for managers: context and critique”, Journal of
Organizational Change Management, 12 (3), (1999): 186–199.
158 S. DHIMAN
Giacalone and Jurkiewicz define workplace spirituality as: “A framework

of organizational values evidenced in the culture that promotes employ-
ees’ experience of transcendence through the work process, facilitating
their sense of being connected in a way that provides feelings of compas-
sion and joy.”7 Mitroff and Denton explain that spirituality is viewed as
universal, nondenominational, broadly inclusive, and tolerant, and as “the
basic feeling of being connected with one’s complete self, others, and the
entire universe.”8 Marques, Dhiman and King explain workplace spiritual-
ity as: “an experience of interconnectedness among those involved in a
work process, initiated by authenticity, reciprocity, and personal good-
will; engendered by a deep sense of meaning that is inherent in the orga-
nization’s work; and resulting in greater motivation and organizational
excellence.”9
Although the interest in workplace spirituality has been growing over
the past three decades, still “the field is full of obscurity and impreci-
sion for the researcher, the practitioner, the organizational analyst and
whoever attempts to systematically approach this relatively new inquiry
field.”10 Moreover, there is no commonly-agreed definition of spiritual-
ity. A review of most frequently cited definitions of workplace spirituality
reveals the following key components: meaning and purpose in life; sense of
interconnectedness, belonging, and transcendence; keener moral sense; living
the spiritual values; and personal joy and fulfillment.
Spirituality is the inmost core of our existence without which our life
has no meaning beyond the passing façade of fleeting phenomenon. It is
what defines us at the deepest level and gives our lives an abiding meaning.
Ursula King, Professor Emerita of Theology and Religious Studies at the
University of Bristol, broadly defines spiritual life as a “life that cultivates
wisdom, compassion, and love for the sake of other people’s lives and
7
Robert A. Giacalone and Carole L. Jurkiewicz, Handbook of Workplace Spirituality and
Organizational Performance (New York: M. E. Sharpe, 2003), 13.
8
Ian Mitroff and Elizabeth Denton, A Spiritual Audit of Corporate America: A Hard Look
at Spirituality, Religion, and Values in the Workplace (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1999), xvi.
Also see Ian Mitroff and Elizabeth Denton, “A study of spirituality in the workplace”, Sloan
Management Review, 40, (1999): 83–84.
9
Joan Marques, Satinder Dhiman, and Richard King, Sprituality in the Workplace: What it
is, Why it Matters, How to Make it Work for You (Riverside, CA: Personhood Press, 2007), 12.
10
George Gotsis and Zoi Kortezi, “Philosophical Foundations of Workplace Spirituality: A
Critical Approach”, Journal of Business Ethics, 78 (4) (2008): 575–600.
one’s own.”11 Taking a broader view of the term, the Australian writer,
David Tacey, defines spirituality as referring “to our relationship with
sacredness of life, nature, and the universe.”12 King indicates that this new
paradigm of all-inclusive spirituality that is democratic and nonhierarchi-
cal relegates religion to subsets of the broader category of spirituality. She
further notes that even though the relationship between spirituality and
religion has now been inverted, the two are still interrelated in many ways.
Broadly speaking, spirituality comprises the following minimum work-
ing hypotheses:
1. That the entire world is one family with a common identity and
heritage.13
2. That there is a higher principle, force, being or intelligence that
sustains the universe.
3. That this is basically a just and fair universe and we are put here
to do good.
4. That everything is connected with everything else.
5. That there is a purpose for everyone and everything.
6. That people have both an inner and outer life.
7. That the cultivation of inner life can lead to a more meaningful
and productive outer life.
8. That Self-knowledge and selfless service are the two most impor-
tant means to spiritual fulfillment.
9. That the Truth is One, sages call it by various names.14
11
Ursula King, The Search for Spirituality: Our Global Quest for a Spiritual Life (New York:
BlueBridge Publishing, 2011), 176.
12
Cited in Ursula King, The Search for Spirituality, 16.
13
Mahōpaniṣad—VI.72: udāracaritānām tu vasudhaiva kuṭumbakam: For the magnani-
mous, the entire world constitutes but a single family. See: Dr. A. G. Krishna Warrier, trans.,
Maha Upanishad (Chennai: The Theosophical Publishing House, n.d.). Accessed: March
20, 2016: http://www.advaita.it/library/mahaupanishad.htm.
14
Ṛg Veda 1.164.46: एकम् सत्, विप्राः बहुधा वदन्ति, ekam sat, viprāḥ bahudhā vadanti.
ekam sat, viprāḥ bahudhā vadanti. The complete Sanskrit verse is as follows (with Vedic
accent):
इन्द्रं॑ मि॒त्रं वरु॑णम॒ग्निमा॑हु॒रथो॑ दि॒व्यः स सु॑प॒र्णो ग॒रुत्मा॑न्।
एकं॒ सद्विप्रा॑ बहु॒धा व॑दन्त्य॒ग्निं य॒मं मा॑त॒रिश्वा॑नमाहुः॥ १.१६४.४६
Retrieved March 20, 2016: http://sanskritdocuments.org/mirrors/rigveda/sanskrit03/
RV0301.html.
160 S. DHIMAN
10. T hat this Truth—called variously as the One, Brahman, God,

Tao, Allah, Yahweh, the Void, the Ground—is the unmanifest
principle of all manifestation.
11. That the Ground is at once transcendent and immanent.
12. That it is possible for human beings to love, know, and, virtually,
to become actually one with the divine Ground.
13. That to achieve this oneness of individual self with the divine
Ground is the final end and purpose of human existence.
14. That there is a Law or Dharma which must be observed, a Tao or
Way which must be followed, if we are to achieve our ultimate
purpose.
15. That the more there is of self, the less there is of the Self; and that
the Tao is therefore a way of humility and altruistic love.15
These postulates form the basis of the world’s most spiritual and
religious traditions. However, spirituality can be practiced without reli-
gious beliefs. This explains why some people (and organizations such as
Alcoholics Anonymous) view themselves as spiritual and not religious. In
this chapter I have chosen to focus on spirituality within the context of
leadership. This is in no way to imply that spiritual values and practices are
superior to religious beliefs and practices.
Spirituality is an inner quest, highly individual and intensely personal
(the flight of the alone to Alone).16 The goal of all spiritual life is to dis-
cover the truth of our existence and to cultivate a sense of harmony with
all that exists. Most religious and spiritual traditions postulate a state of
inner freedom from limitations and variously denote it by such words as
mukti, mokṣa, nirvāna, spiritual freedom, liberation, salvation, awaken-
ing, enlightenment, or self-realization.
This is the summum bonum, the desideratum of all spirituality.
15
Points 10–15 are adapted from Aldous Huxley, “The Minimum Working Hypothesis”,
in Christopher Isherwood, Ed., Vedanta for the Western World (New York: The Viking Press,
1962), p. 34.
16
This is Plotinus’s description of spiritual ecstasy. Cited in Aldous Huxley & Jacqueline
H. Bridgeman, Ed., Huxley and God: Essays (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 1992), viii.
Spirituality Versus Religion

There is a natural tendency to confuse spirituality with religion. Spirituality,
however, is distinct from institutionalized religion. As words, religion is a
common noun, spirituality is an abstract noun. Religion can be expressed
as a plural noun, spirituality cannot be expressed as a plural.17 While reli-
gion often looks outward, depending on rites and rituals; spirituality looks
inward—the kingdom within. Spirituality recognizes that there is something
sacred at the core of all existence. Spirituality is a nondogmatic, nonexclu-
sive, nonpatriarchal and gender-neutral approach to connect with this one
source of all existence. Whatever its origin, this one sacred element dwells
within every living organism. We call it ‘self’, as distinct from the body-
mind-sense complex. The words ‘soul’ and ‘spirit’ are intimately connected
and often used interchangeably. Bolman and Deal point out an important
distinction: “Soul is personal and unique, grounded in the depths of per-
sonal experience. Spirit is transcendent and all embracing. It is the universal
source, the oneness of all things.”18 Defined in this manner, spirit is the
universal dimension of soul as soul is the individual aspect of spirit.
Based on a 2-year empirical study, Mitroff and Denton found that 60
percent of the participants viewed religion as an inappropriate form of
expression, whereas spirituality was interpreted as a proper subject for the
workplace.19 Spirituality is supposedly free, universal, and open, while reli-
gion is dogmatic, particular, and proselytizing. It is thus possible, in the
minds of many, to be religious without being spiritual, and most impor-
tant, to be spiritual without being religious.20 This dichotomy has inspired
the emergence of spirituality in the workplace.
However, one can be spiritual without being religious. Although some
researchers couple spirituality and religion together, yet many people these
days like to self-identify as “spiritual but not religious”, not because they
are antagonistic to any religious institution, but simply because there is
no one institution that fits their spiritual ideology. Frequently, they like to
17
Based on a message posted at Yahoo group, Advaitin by Sunder: sunderh@yahoo.com
[
advaitin], March 22, 2016. Retrieved: https://mail.google.com/
mail/u/0/#inbox/1539c4f9f5877183.
18
Lee G. Bolman & Terrence E. Deal, Leading with Soul: An Uncommon Journey of Spirit
(San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, revised third edition, 2011), 5.
19
Ian Mitroff and Elizabeth Denton, “A study of spirituality in the workplace”, Sloan
Management Review, 40, (1999): 83–84.
20
Lake Lambert III, Spirituality, Inc.: Religion in the American Workplace (New York:
New York University Press, 2009), 16.
162 S. DHIMAN
combine elements of various religious traditions and spiritual philosophies

such as Buddhism, Vedānta, Sufism, and Judeo-Christianity into some-
thing that uniquely resonates with their inner truth. They long for an
ideology which is congruent with a reliable knowledge of higher reality,
while simultaneously honoring the innate human quest for the Eternal
and connection with the Divine. We believe that this longing could serve
as a good model for workplace spirituality. If there is respect for everyone’s
belief system and there is no persecution or conversion involved, work-
place spirituality can contribute significantly to fulfill our spirit’s longing
for something greater, fuller, and transcendental.
In his insightful book Ethics for the New Millennium, the Dalai Lama
makes a clear distinction between spirituality and religion and situates spir-
ituality within the larger societal context, as follows:
Religion I take to be concerned with faith in the claims of one faith tradi-
tion or another, an aspect of which is the acceptance of some form of heaven
or nirvana. Connected with this are religious teachings or dogma, ritual
prayer, and so on. Spirituality I take to be concerned with those qualities
of the human spirit—such as love and compassion, patience, tolerance, for-
giveness, contentment, a sense of responsibility, a sense of harmony—which
bring happiness to both self and others.21
These values provide the fundamental basis for a true religious and spiritual
life. In the broadest sense, a religious way of life purifies the mind and pre-
pares us for living a spiritual life. Accordingly, spirituality may be viewed as the
fulfillment of all religions. True religion and spirituality both teach us how to
live a noble life of service and sacrifice based on moral principles. In the true
sense, there is no place for fundamentalism in pure religion and spirituality.
Is Workplace Spirituality a Passing Fad?

Some critics opine that spirituality in the workplace is just another passing
fad like TQM and reengineering. However, this does not seem to be the
case, as several research studies, books, and emerging practices attest. The
field has not only blossomed, but literally exploded.22 After providing a
Dalai Lama, Ethics for the New Millennium (New York: Riverhead Books, 2001), 22.
21
See Robert A. Giacalone and Carole L. Jurkiewicz, Handbook of Workplace Spirituality

22
and Organizational Performance (London: Routledge, 2nd edition, 2015); Don Grant,
Kathleen O’Neil, and Laura Stephens, “Spirituality in the Workplace: New Empirical
critical review of the literature on workplace spirituality, Gotsis and Kortezi

observe that “there are good reasons to believe that workplace spirituality
is more than an impermanent trend; on the contrary, the concept carries a
much more substantial meaning and its potential contribution to a more
rounded understanding of human work, of the workplace and of the orga-
nizational reality worthy of examination.”23
Workplace spirituality has now come to be recognized as an acceptable
research field. Special issues or sections on this subject have been devoted
in peer-reviewed journals (Journal of Managerial Psychology, Journal
of Managerial Inquiry, Journal of Management Education, Leadership
Quarterly, and Journal of Organizational Change Management).24 In 2001,
the Academy of Management, the Holy Grail of management scholars, set
up a special interest group for Management, Spirituality, and Religion. And
the Journal of Management, Spirituality & Religion has come to be rec-
ognized as the journal for research in this area. Through these venues, an
increasing cadre of management research scholars and practitioners are now
exploring the links between management studies, spirituality and religion.
Some critics have expressed doubt about the workplace spirituality
movement, arguing that it can be used as a way to manipulate workers to
fulfill the selfish or materialistic objectives of some business owners.25 This
cannot be considered a valid criticism per se of the workplace spirituality
construct. It is like saying that science should be suspect because scientific
discoveries can be used for destructive ends. Spirituality, like science, is
neutral: both are as good or bad as their users.
Based on the findings drawn from their landmark study comprising
more than 90 in-depth interviews and surveys with high level manag-
ers and executives, Mitroff and Denton present the following important
results about workplace spirituality:26
Directions in the Study of the Sacred”, Sociology of Religion, 65 (3), (2004): 265–283; Lake
Lambert III, Spirituality, Inc.: Religion in the American Workplace (New York: New York
University Press, 2009).
23
George Gotsis and Zoi Kortezi, “Philosophical Foundations of Workplace Spirituality”,
575.
24
Robert A Giacalone and Carole L. Jurkiewicz, Handbook of Workplace Spirituality and
Organizational Performance (London: Routledge, 2nd edition, 2015).
25
Cavanagh, G. F., & Bandsuch, M. R., “Virtue as a benchmark for spirituality in busi-
ness”, Journal of Business Ethics, 2002, 38 (1), 109–117.
26
Ian Mitroff and Elizabeth Denton, A Spiritual Audit of Corporate America, xv–xvii.
164 S. DHIMAN
1. There was nearly unanimous agreement on the definition of spiritu-

ality and its role in people’s lives: spirituality is the basic desire to find
ultimate meaning and purpose in one’s life and to live an integrated
life.
2. People do not want to compartmentalize or fragment their lives.
They want to be acknowledged as whole persons in the workplace.
3. The respondents generally differentiated strongly between religion
and spirituality. They viewed religion as a “highly inappropriate”
topic while spirituality was viewed as “highly appropriate.”
4. People are hungry for models of practicing spirituality in the work-
place without offending their co-workers or causing acrimony.
5. Only a number of models currently exist for practicing spirituality
responsibly in the workplace.
These findings provided a clear understanding of the difference

between religion and spirituality and thus have important implications for
workplace spirituality. They also provide a solid foundation to map out the
spiritual leadership canvas in terms of what people really yearn for in the
workplace. In the following section, we explore the role of spirituality in
leadership.
Leadership Research in the Twentieth Century

Leadership research in the twentieth century has mainly focused on the
industrial paradigm of leadership characterized by a hierarchical structure
of authority and responsibility with an individualistic focus on the person-
ality of the leader—one person directing other people for materialistic,
utilitarian ends. After critiquing hundreds of definitions of leadership put
forth by different scholars and writers during the twentieth century, Rost
concluded that they largely reflected the industrial paradigm of leader-
ship, characterized by hierarchical and pyramid-type structures, an indi-
vidualistic focus on the leader, and a strong utilitarian ethical perspective.
He contends that these definitions largely define leadership in terms of
good management characterized by their exclusive focus on goals and
results.27 However, this traditional paradigm cannot solve many of the
27
Joseph C. Rost, Leadership for the Twenty-First Century (NY: Praeger, reprint edition,
1993). See also Joseph C. Rost, “Leadership development in the new millennium”, The
Journal of Leadership Studies, 1 (1), (1993): 91–110.
problems that confront us today. Rost notes that a number of leadership

scholars, writers and commentators have begun to emphasize the impor-
tance of values such as collaboration, the common good, global concern,
diversity and pluralism as important components of leadership for the
twenty-first century.28 As a result, we see the emergence of new forms of
leadership—called “positive theories of leadership”. Authentic leadership
and servant leadership are two such approaches that we will explore in
this chapter.
Drawing upon the literature review of organizational spirituality,
psychology of religion, positive psychology, and spirituality leadership
theory, Vasconcelos contends that the logic that has prevailed in busi-
ness enterprises has been largely economic, except for some honorable
initiatives. He avers that these findings also indicate that the material
paradigm is not suited to deal with germane problems that shape today’s
world.29
According to Rost, “Leadership is an influence relationship among
leaders and followers who intend real changes that reflect their mutual
purposes.”30 Two key components of this definition are “influence” and
“mutual purposes”. Leadership as an influence, says Rost, has two fea-
tures: (1) It is multidirectional, in that influence flows in all directions and
not just from the top down; (2) and it is noncoercive, meaning that it is
not based on authority or dictatorial actions.31 It may be noted that Rost
uses the phrase “mutual purposes” (and not “mutual goals”) to emphasize
both the “mutuality” and “plurality” of purposes. The compelling basis of
this “mutuality” is best expressed by a popular quote widely attributable
to Mother Teresa: “I can do things you cannot do, you can do things I
cannot do; together we can do great things.”32 In this vital observation,
Mother Teresa underscores our mutuality and provides the best raison
d’être for team work in organizations.
The progressive history of business during the twentieth century bears
out Rost’s analysis of leadership theories. If the twentieth century was
characterized by leadership theories influenced by the industrial revolution
Ibid., 181.
28
Joseph C. Rost, Leadership for the Twenty-First Century, 101.

29
30
Ibid., 102. [emphasis added].
31
Ibid., 107.
32
These are perhaps not her exact words: http://www.motherteresa.org/08_info/
Quotesf.html.
166 S. DHIMAN
paradigm, in the twenty-first century we have a spiritual revolution g

uiding
us toward more humane approaches to leadership.
This understanding provides a good transition to spiritual leadership.
Spiritual Leadership: Theory and Practice

In the recent years, educators and scholars have underscored the i mportance
of spirituality as a critical element of leadership.33 Astin and Astin contend
that “future leaders will not only need to possess new knowledge and
skills, but will also be called upon to display a high level of emotional
and spiritual wisdom and maturity.”34 More recently, Fry and Kriger have
proposed a being-centered theory of leadership that goes beyond current
theory which emphasizes having and doing—either having appropriate
traits and competencies or doing appropriate actions depending on the
situation.35 These perspectives illustrate how leadership is closely related to
one’s spirituality with a higher awareness of self and others.
Fry, Vitucci and Cedillo define spiritual leadership as “the values,
attitudes, and behaviors that one must adopt in intrinsically motivating
oneself and others so that both have a sense of spiritual survival through
calling and membership—i.e., they experience meaning in their lives, have
a sense of making a difference, and feel understood and appreciated.”36
Fry and Matherly theorize that “spiritual leadership involves motivating
and inspiring workers through a transcendent vision and a culture based
in altruistic values to produce a more motivated, committed and produc-
tive workforce. … The theory of spiritual leadership was developed within
an intrinsic motivation model that incorporates vision, hope/faith, and
33
See Lee G. Bolman & Terrence E. Deal, Leading with Soul: An Uncommon Journey of
Spirit (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, revised third edition, 2011); Parker J Palmer. “Leading
from Within”. Chapter 5 from Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation (New
York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2000). Chapter retrieved March 15, 2016: http://www.
couragerenewal.org/PDFs/Parker-Palmer_leading-from-within.pdf.
34
Alexander W. Astin and Helen S. Astin, Leadership Reconsidered: Engaging Higher
Education in Social Change (Battle Creek, MI: W.K. Kellogg Foundation, 2000), 1.
35
Louis Fry and Mark Kriger, “Towards a theory of being-centered leadership: Multiple
levels of being as context for effective leadership”, Human Relations, 62 (11), (2009):
1667–96.
36
Louis W. Fry, Steve Vitucci, and Marie Cedillo, “Spiritual leadership and army transfor-
mation: theory, measurement, and establishing a baseline”, The Leadership Quarterly, 16 (5),
(2005): 835–862.
altruistic love, theories of workplace spirituality, and spiritual survival/

well-being.”37
Drawing upon further research, Fry provided a more c omprehensive
description of the purpose of spiritual leadership as “to tap into the fun-
damental needs of both leaders and followers for spiritual well-being
through calling (life has meaning and makes a difference) and membership
(belonging); to create vision and value congruence across the individual,
empowered team, and organization levels; and, ultimately, to foster higher
levels of employee well-being, organizational commitment, financial per-
formance, and social responsibility—the Triple Bottom Line.”38 Fry makes
it clear that spiritual leadership fulfills the quest for spiritual well-being in
both the leader and the followers.
In sum, Spiritual leadership refers to the values, attitudes, and behaviors
that are necessary intrinsically to motivate oneself and others. This entails:
1. Creating a vision wherein leaders and followers experience a sense of

calling in that life has meaning and makes a difference.
2. Establishing a social/organizational culture based on the values of
altruistic love whereby leaders and followers have a sense of mem-
bership, feel understood and appreciated, and have genuine care,
concern, and appreciation for both self and others.39
Spiritual leadership builds on existing value-based, positive theories

of leadership that foster self-awareness and garner a sense of altruistic
love expressed through selfless service. Crossman highlights some ways
in which spiritual leadership relates to other existing value-based theo-
ries such as transformational, servant leadership and how it fosters “the
ideals of being self-aware and other-aware, but also ‘world-aware.’”40 It
would not be amiss to say that a high sense of moral responsibility is the
very foundation of spiritual leadership. As John Gardner has observed, “It
37
Louis W. Fry and Laura L. Matherly, “Spiritual Leadership and Organizational
Performance: An Exploratory Study”. Retrieved March 21, 2016: http://precisionmi.org/
Materials/LeadershipMat/Spiritual%20Leadership%20and%20Organizational%20
Performance%20-%20An%20Exploratory%20Study.pdf.
38
Retrieved March 21, 2–16: http://iispiritualleadership.com/spiritual-leadership/.
39
Louis W. Fry, “Toward a theory of spiritual leadership”, The Leadership Quarterly, 14,
(2003): 693–727.
40
Cited in Sue Howard, S and David Welbourn, The Spirit at Work Phenomenon (London:
Azure, 2004), 123.
168 S. DHIMAN
isn’t in the grand design that we can have freedom without obligation.”41
Freedom and responsibility are interdependent. When we take care of our
responsibilities, we take care of our freedom on its own accord.
In the following section, I present two most important expressions of
spiritual leadership: Authentic Leadership and Servant Leadership.
Authentic Leadership
Personal authenticity has been explored throughout history, from Greek
philosophers (“Know Thyself”—Socrates) to Shakespeare (“To thine
own self be true”—Polonius, Hamlet). At one level, it implies owning
one’s personal experiences, as indicated by the dictum “Know Thyself.”
Additionally, “To thine own self be true” advises that one acts in accord
with one’s true self.42 Thus, authenticity as defined in this context seems
to be closely linked with self-awareness, sincerity, truth, and transparency.
The first essay on authentic leadership was written by R.W. Terry in
1993, followed up in 2003 by Bill George, the exemplary former head of
Medtronic. George has discussed the concept of authentic leadership in
his bestseller Authentic Leadership: Rediscovering the Secrets to Creating
Lasting Value. In the context of rampant corporate scandals and perva-
sive financial crises, George argues that leadership needs to be completely
reexamined and rethought. This calls for a new type of leader who embod-
ies qualities such as integrity, transparency, humility and a deep sense of
purpose.43 Bill George states concisely: “We need leaders who lead with
purpose, values and integrity; leaders who build enduring organizations,
motivate their employees to provide superior customer service, and create
long-term value for shareholders.”44 The emphasis on these abiding values
has been a recurrent theme throughout this book.
41
John Gardner, Can We Be Equal and Excellent Too? (New York: W. W. Norton, 1984),
154.
42
S. Harter, “Authenticity”, in C. R. Snyder and S. J. Lopez, Eds., Handbook of Positive
Psychology (London: Oxford University Press, 2002), 382–394.
43
See: B. George and P. Sims, True North: Discover Your Authentic Leadership (San
Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2007); B. George, P. Sims, A. N. McLean, and D. Mayer,
“Discovering Your Authentic Leadership”, Harvard Business Review, 85 (2), (2007):
129–138.
44
William George, Authentic Leadership: Rediscovering the Secrets to Creating Lasting
Value (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2003), 9.
In recent times, authentic leadership has gained increasing importance

since it places high emphasis on behaving transparently, with a high moral
and ethical bearing. According to Avolio and Gardner, authentic leader-
ship is a somewhat generic term and can incorporate transformational,
charismatic, servant, spiritual or other forms of positive leadership. As
one of the positive forms of leadership, authentic leadership complements
work on ethical and transformational leadership.45 Walumbwa et al. define
authentic leadership as follows:
A pattern that draws upon and promotes both positive psychological capaci-
ties and a positive ethical climate, to foster greater self-awareness, an inter-
nalized moral perspective, balanced processing of information, and relational
transparency on the part of leaders working with followers, fostering posi-
tive self-development.46
The key components of authentic leadership that emerge from this defi-
nition are: self-awareness, moral perspective, and relational transparency.
Zhu et al. explain that to be authentic, leaders must transcend their own
narrow self-interests and focus on the greater common good.47 Thus
authentic leadership is more than just “being true to oneself” and encom-
passes moral perspectives and honest relationships with followers.
As a proponent of authentic leadership, Bill George has proposed the
view that leaders need to follow their internal compass to reach their true
purpose. Based on interviews with 125 contemporary heads of various
organizations, George and Sims have identified the following 5 dimen-
sions of authentic leaders:
1. pursuing purpose with passion,

2. practicing solid values,
3. leading with heart,
4. establishing enduring relationships, and
45
Bruce J. Avolio and William L. Gardner, “Authentic leadership development: Getting to
the root of positive forms of leadership”, The Leadership Quarterly, 16 (2005): 315–338.
46
F. O. Walumbwa, B. J. Avolio, W. L. Gardner, T. S. Wernsing, and S. J. Peterson,
“Authentic Leadership: Development and Validation of a Theory-based Measure”, Journal
of Management, 34 (1), (2008): 89–126.
47
W. Zhu, D. R. May, and B. J. Avolio, “The Impact of Ethical Leadership Behavior on
Employee Outcomes: The Roles of Psychological Empowerment and Authenticity”, Journal
of Leadership & Organizational Studies, 11 (1), (2004): 16–26.
170 S. DHIMAN
5. demonstrating self-discipline.48
Building on the metaphor of a compass pointing toward a magnetic

pole, George, McLean and Craig equate the search for authentic leader-
ship with a journey toward our True North and point out:
True North is the internal moral compass that guides you successfully through
life. It represents who you are as a human being at your deepest level. … Your
True North is based on what is most important to you, your most cherished
values, your passions and motivations, the sources of satisfactions in your life.
Just as a compass points toward a magnetic pole, your True North pulls you
toward the purpose of your leadership. When you follow your internal com-
pass, your leadership will be authentic, and people will follow you naturally.49
George et al. acknowledge that finding our True North is a lifetime jour-
ney beset with risks and uncertainties. It takes hard work and a sincere
look at our strengths and shortcomings: “Becoming an authentic leader”,
they state, “takes hard work. It is not much different from becoming a
great musician or a great athlete. To become great in any endeavor—
whether it is your career, your family, your community—you must use
the unique strengths you were born with and develop them to the fullest,
while acknowledging and learning from your shortcomings.”50
In the Epilogue to their book True North: Discover Your Authentic
Leadership, George and Sims invite us to reflect upon what our legacy will
be by envisioning the end of our life. What would we like to say to our
children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren about the impact of our
lifework? Or, what difference did we make in the world through our com-
bined efforts? With a seriousness characteristic of certain urgency, they
conclude thoughtfully: “Why not take the opportunity to think about that
question right now, while you are still writing your life story? Just as it is
never too late to lead, it is never too late to make a difference in the world
and to leave a legacy … the only thing you take with you is what you leave
behind. … That is the fulfillment of leadership.”51 What legacy leaders leave
depends upon how they lead their lives.
George and Sims, True North, xxxi.

48
Bill George, Andrew McLean, and Nick Craig, Finding Your True North: A Personal
49
Guide (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2008), xiii.

50
Ibid.
51
George and Sims, True North, 201–202.
Servant Leadership
Regarded by many authors as “a valid, modern theory of leadership,”52 ser-
vant leadership was first introduced by Robert K. Greenleaf’s powerful short
essay written in 1970, titled “The Servant as Leader.” Describing what he
called “the leadership crisis”, Greenleaf notes that “colleges, universities,
and seminaries have failed in their responsibility to prepare young people for
leadership roles in society.”53 According to Greenleaf, “The servant-leader
is servant first … It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve,
to serve first. That person is sharply different from one who is leader first.”54
Greenleaf believes that through selfless service, servant leaders achieve trust
among employees, customers, and communities. He then goes on to pres-
ent the litmus test of effectiveness of leadership:
The best test, and difficult to administer, is: Do those served grow as per-
sons? Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more
autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants? And, what is the
effect on the least privileged in society; will they benefit, or, at least, not be
further deprived? … The servant-as-leader must constantly ask: How can I
use myself to serve best?55
Greenleaf informs us that he got the idea of servant leadership by reading

Hermann Hesse’s book entitled Journey to the East. Therefore, the best way
to understand servant leadership is to read Journey to the East. The book is
about a spiritual journey to the East. During the journey, a humble servant
named Leo does all the chores for the travelers. He keeps the group together
through his songs and high spirits. And when Leo disappears, the group falls
into disarray and the journey is abandoned. They cannot continue without
him. Later on in the book, the narrator finds out that Leo, whom he had
taken to be a servant, was actually the noble leader of the group.56 This radi-
cal shift is the core of servant leadership: from followers serving leaders to
leaders serving followers. Servant leadership is shared leadership in essence: it
52
Robert F. Russell and A. Gregory Stone, “A Review of Servant Leadership Attributes”,
Leadership & Organizational Development Journal, 23 (3), (2002): 145–157.
53
Robert K. Greenleaf, Servant Leadership: A Journey into the Nature of Legitimate Power
and Greatness (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1977), 77.
54
Ibid., 27.
55
Ibid., 5, 10.
56
Hermann Hesse, The Journey to the East, translated by H. Rosner (New York: Picador,
2003; Original work published in 1932).
172 S. DHIMAN
emphasizes increased service to others, a holistic approach to work, promot-

ing a sense of community and the sharing of power in decision-making.57
In short, the basic mind-set of a servant leader is a strong desire to con-
tribute. Stephen Covey writes: “Deep within each one of us there is an
inner longing to live a life of greatness and contribution—to really matter,
to really make a difference.”58 Swami Dayananda, a preeminent modern
teacher of Vedānta, puts it even more succinctly: “One must grow from
being a consumer to become a contributor.”59 For as long as we are living a
life of a consumer, we are not paying off our spiritual debt to the universe.
Servant leadership is similar to transformational leadership in that both
emphasize, appreciate and empower followers. However, as Stone et al.
point out, the main difference between servant leadership and transforma-
tional leadership is the focus of the leader: “Transformational leaders tend
to focus more on organizational objectives, while servant leaders focus
more on people who are their followers.”60 These authors further point
out that servant leaders influence followers through service itself, while
transformational leaders rely on their charismatic abilities.
Integrity: The Most Important Leadership

Ingredient
According to Bennis and Nanus, leaders come in all shapes and sizes—short,
tall, neat, sloppy, young, old, male and female. Based on their research,
the basic ingredients of leadership are a guiding vision, passion, integrity,
trust, curiosity and daring. For them, leadership is all about character,
and integrity matters most.61 The importance of integrity is also borne
out by many other leadership researchers. Kouzes and Posner, having sur-
veyed over 75,000 people around the globe over the last 30 years, discov-
ered that honesty emerges as the single most important ingredient in the
57
Larry Spears, Practicing Servant-Leadership: Succeeding Through Trust, Bravery, and
Forgiveness (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2004).
58
Steven Covey, The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness (New York: Free Press,
2004), 28.
59
Avgcbe (December 18, 2010), Life and Work of Pujya Swami Dayananda Saraswati
[Video file]. Retrieved, February 12, 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FNDth7fajY.
60
G. A. Stone, R. F. Russell, and K. Patterson, “Transformational versus Servant Leadership:
A Difference in Leader Focus”, Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 25 (4),
(2004): 349–361.
61
Bennis and Nanus, Leaders, 7–9.
leader-constituent relationship. They conclude that “nearly 90 percent of

constituents want their leaders to be honest above all else.”62 They list 5
practices of exemplary leadership:
( 1) Model the way;

(2) Inspire a shared vision;
(3) Challenge the process;
(4) Enable others; and
(5) Encourage the heart.63
According to social learning theory, role models facilitate the acqui-

sition of moral and other types of behavior. This theory highlights the
influence aspect of leadership. Albert Schweitzer is reported to have said,
“Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing.”
Defining the process of becoming a leader in terms of authenticity and
self-mastery, Bennis equates it with becoming yourself, which is not as
simple as it sounds. He gives out all the keys to exemplary leadership in an
interview to Fast Company:
The process of becoming a leader is, if not identical, certainly similar to

the process of becoming a fully integrated human being. It’s got to do
with authenticity, it’s got to do with candor, it’s got to do with the fact
that one cannot truly lead unless one is an expert in self-management. The
essence of leaders is placed firmly in issues of character, on who we are, on
self-awareness.64
Both authentic and servant leadership approaches discussed above put the
emphasis on the moral side of leadership, thus underscoring the basic link
between a given leadership style and what could be considered as “values-
based leadership”.
We present below some creative expressions of spirituality and spiritual
leadership in the workplace.
62
Kouzes and Posner, The Leadership Challenge, 34.
63
Ibid., 14–24.
64
Warren G. Bennis (interview, December 26, 2011), “Have the requirements for being a
good leader changed?” Fast Company: Leadership Hall of Fame.
174 S. DHIMAN
Edgewalking Leadership: Dancing Without Falling

Off the Cliff
The traditional forms of leadership and organizational structure are prov-
ing inadequate to deal with emerging reality that is complex, multidimen-
sional, and virtual. We need new thinking, new metaphors of resonance to
dance with the emergent reality. We need holistic systems that are able to
integrate the spiritual and the material perspectives in a dialectical manner.
Based on formal research interviews conducted over a 5 year period
with 40 business leaders and numerous workshops and talks, Judi Neal
presents a model of leadership that incorporates 5 qualities and 5 skills of
leaders called Edgewalkers, a term she coined to denote leaders who are
worldcentric in their identity and outlook, who are deeply spiritual and
who are committed to making a positive difference in the world.65
The 5 Edgewalker qualities of being are: Self-Awareness, Passion,
Integrity, Vision, and Playfulness. Although, many other leadership theo-
ries describe the first 4 of these qualities, yet one quality that is seldom
seen in the leadership literature is the quality of playfulness. The quality of
playfulness allows edgewalkers to see possibilities and to envision seemingly
unrelated things in ways not obvious to others. The 5 Edgewalker skills are:
Knowing the Future, Risk-Taking, Manifesting, Focusing, and Connecting.
What gives these leaders Egdewalker status is the fact that they operate
on the margins, right on the edge between what is present and what is pos-
sible. Neal avers that Edgewalkers walk between the spiritual and material
world by envisioning what is possible and then taking symbolic and con-
crete action to make it real.
Neal clarifies that Edgewalkers’ primary identity is not wrapped up in the
organization that they work for, or the state or province that they live in.
And while they may love the country of their citizenship, they see themselves
more as citizens of the universe. They are people who walk between worlds
and build bridges between different worldviews. They stand with one foot in
the present reality and another foot in the future. These new global humans,
these Edgewalkers, are the ones who can lead humanity into a future based
on peace, sustainability, social justice, equality and enough for all.66
65
Judi Neal, Edgewalkers: People and Organizations that Take Risks, Build Bridges, and
Break New Ground (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2006).
66
See Judi Neal, “Edgewalker: Leadership and the New Global Human,” in Mark Russell
and Mike Thompson, Eds., Business, Spiritually and the Common Good, forthcoming,
retrieved, March 20, 2016: http://edgewalkers.org.
Return on Character? Does it Still Pay to Be Good!

Exemplary leaders will be distinguished by their mastery of soft skills: people
skills, taste, judgment and above all character. Character is the voice inside
which speaks and says ‘This is the real me’. Effective leaders, and effective peo-
ple, know this voice very well.
—WARREN BENNIS
In Warren Bennis’s view, exemplary leaders are distinguished by the

strength of their character. Character signifies our core values and beliefs
and their congruence. Research reported in Harvard Business Review
(HBR) over the last 20 years about the alchemy of exemplary leadership
has fully borne out Bennis’s sage observation. According to this research,
all exemplary leadership largely centers around “leader as a person”—on
leader’s character and qualities of the heart.
Does it pay to be virtuous? Do highly principled leaders and their
organizations perform especially well, financially? Yes, reports the HBR
2015 April issue. According to a new study by KRW International, a
Minneapolis-based leadership consultancy, the researchers found that
CEOs whose employees gave them high marks for character had an aver-
age return on assets of 9.35 % over a two-year period. That’s nearly 5 times
as much as what those with low character ratings had; their ROA averaged
only 1.93 %.67
Drawing on and sifting through the anthropologist Donald Brown’s
classic inventory of about 500 behaviors and characteristics that are recog-
nized and displayed in all human societies, the study identified four moral
principles—integrity, responsibility, forgiveness, and compassion—as uni-
versal markers of character. These four pillars can be expressed as four
sets of leadership behaviors: do the right thing, work for the common
good, rise above mistakes (your own and others’), and be compassionate.
The study found out that leaders who frequently engaged in behaviors
that reveal strong character—for instance, standing up for what’s right,
expressing concern for the common good, letting go of mistakes (their
own and others’), and showing empathy—outperformed their counter-
parts who lacked these moral values.
67
See: Measuring the Return on Character, HBR, April 2015, 20–21.
176 S. DHIMAN
The good news is (and research shows it too) that with some inclina-
tion and concerted effort, character can be cultivated and honed over time
to do the right thing and to act compassionately for the common good.
Steve Jobs: A Case in Point
He wasn’t a saint. I am not saying that. None of us are. But it’s emphatically
untrue that he wasn’t a great human being.68
This quote from Tim Cook, Apple CEO, shows us that spiritual leadership
is not about being a saint; it is about becoming a great human being. In
their recent book on the evolution of Steve Jobs as a visionary leader, Brent
Schlender and Rick Tetzeli quote Tim Cook who tells the untold story of
his friendship with Steve Jobs. According to Cook, Steve was a passion-
ate person, a caring leader and a genuine human being. He believes that
Walter Isaacson’s biography69 did Steve a tremendous disservice by unfairly
portraying him as a sort of greedy, selfish egomaniac. It didn’t capture his
humane side—Steve Jobs, the person.
Tim recalls that when he offered his liver to Steve, Steve refused, stat-
ing, ‘No, ‘I’ll never let you do that. I’ll never do that!’ “Somebody that’s
selfish,” Cook recounts, “doesn’t reply like that.”70 According to Tim
Cook, Steve cared. He cared deeply about things. Yes, he was very pas-
sionate about things, and he wanted things to be perfect. And that was
what was great about him. He wanted everyone to do their best … A lot
of people mistook that passion for arrogance.71
Many believe that the inner clarity and conviction that Steve Jobs
attained was the result of his deep explorations into his spiritual self. It is
well known that Steve was mystified by Eastern philosophies. He went to
India during the ‘70s as a teenager before he co-founded Apple. It proved
to be a life-changing experience and a great turning point in the real spiri-
tual sense. After reading Harvard professor Ram Das’s Be Here Now and
Paramahansa Yogananda’s Autobiography of a Yogi, Steve Jobs traveled to
India in 1974 with a friend, Dan Kottke, who later became Apple’s first
68
Brent Schlender and Rick Tetzeli, Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart
into a Visionary Leader (New York: Crown Business, 2015), 392.
69
Walter Isaacson, Steve Jobs (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2011), 43; 447.
70
Brent Schlender and Rick Tetzeli, Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart
into a Visionary Leader (New York: Crown Business, 2015), 392.
71
Ibid.
employee. His trip to India was disappointing and revelatory at once, as he

himself realized and recounted: “We weren’t going to find a place where
we could go for a month to be enlightened.”72 Yet in a far more impor-
tant sense, during his short fling into various Indian āshrams, Steve picked
up the importance of cultivating inner centeredness and composure and
looking at the world from the inside out. This orientation seemed to have
served him well throughout his life as a leader of Apple.
His interest in Eastern spirituality was solidified later when he dabbled
into Zen Buddhism at the Los Altos Zendo. The greatest influence on
Steve Jobs, however, was the book Autobiography of a Yogi—“the guide to
meditation and spirituality that he had first read as a teenager”, his biog-
rapher, Walter Isaacson, tells us, “then re-read in India and had read once
a year ever since”. It was the only book, Isaacson notes, that Steve down-
loaded on his personal ipad2.73 Steve’s credo “Actualize yourself” seems
to have come directly out of Yogananda’s philosophy of Self-realization.
It has recently come to knowledge that copies of Yogananda’s classic
autobiography were handed out at Steve Jobs’ memorial, as reported by
Marc Benioff, CEO and Co-Founder of Salesforce.Com, in a Tech Crunch
Disrupt SF 2013 conference interview.74 Marc shares his story of opening
the brown box that was given to every guest at Steve Job’ memorial ser-
vice. Steve Jobs had apparently arranged for Yogananda’s Autobiography of
a Yogi to be a last gift from him to persons attending his memorial service.75
Steve Jobs had his share of human failings. He never pretended to be a
saint. His 2005 Stanford Commencement Address shows him to be search-
ing for deep spiritual answers to the perennial questions of life. In him we
find a curious integration of Jim Collins’s level 5 leader, marked by a para-
doxical combination of compelling humility (“stay hungry, stay foolish”) and
fierce professional will (“making a ding in the universe”). A popular ‘Steve
Jobs in heaven’ cartoon has St. Peter introduce Jobs to Moses with the
72
Anthony Imbimbo, Steve Jobs: The Brilliant Mind Behind Apple (Life Portraits)
(New York: Gareth Stevens Publishing, 2009), 42.
73
Walter Isaacson, Steve Jobs (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2011), 527.
74
Marc Benioff on the Invisible Hand of Steve Jobs|Disrupt SF 2013. Interview Retrieved
March 22, 2016 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rO_Vs4M29k.
75
Walter Isaacson in his biography, Steve Jobs, lists a number of books that influenced Steve
Jobs: William Shakespeare’s King Lear, Plato, Clayton Christensen’s Innovator’s Dilemma,
Shunryu Suzuki’s Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, Chogyam Trungpa’s Cutting Through
Spiritual Materialism, Paramahansa Yogananda’s Autobiography of a Yogi, and Herman
Melville’s Moby Dick. See: Isaacson, Steve Jobs, p. 35.
178 S. DHIMAN
caption: “Moses, meet Steve. He’s gonna upgrade your tablets …”76 That
he arranged to distribute Autobiography of a Yogi at his memorial service
tells us a lot about what was on his mind during the final period of his life.
Concluding Thoughts
Leadership is a moral and spiritual journey whose compass is found within
the soul. What is the essence of spiritual leadership? It is just this: Knowing
the truth about ourselves, helping others discover this truth, and boldly
living out this truth together moment-to-moment in a life marked by
humility, altruistic love, compassion and contribution. Having material
wealth doesn’t really satisfy our inner yearning for a deeper meaning and
fulfillment in work and life. Spiritual leadership transforms the nature of
leadership itself—so that the central purpose of leadership becomes spiri-
tual fulfillment and service to society.
As I complete this chapter, a student of mine sent me an email about
Starbucks. The company announced today that it will attempt to donate
100 percent of its leftover food from its 7000-plus US locations to food
banks. According to Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, the idea came from
baristas.77 Reading this announcement made me think about the larger pur-
pose of human existence. It is not by our wars and competitions that we
dignify our race; rather it is through our caring and contribution that we
truly redeem our existence. But the spiritual journey must start with oneself,
for unless there is order within oneself, there cannot be order in the world.
This is the need of the hour: We need leaders who are centered, but not
self-centered, leaders who lead with self-power and not position-power.
This truth is also highlighted by Bolman and Deal as they conclude their
book Leading with Soul with a quote from David Batstone:
At this moment the corporation sorely needs leaders—not people with titles,
but true leaders at every level of the corporate ladder—to live with soul ….
I am inclined to believe, however, that for most people, it is not a new path
but the truth about themselves that awaits discovery. Once they start living out
of that discovery, they inspire everyone around them.78
76
Retrieved March 21, 2016: http://maypalo.com/2011/10/09/top-5-best-steve-jobs-in-
heaven-comics/.
77
Retrieved March 22, 2016: http://abc7.com/news/starbucks-to-start-donating-
leftover-food-to-food-banks/1258192/.
78
Cited in Bolman and Deal, Leading with Soul, 236.
Spiritual leadership is not about how high you climb on the organizational
ladder; it is about what you contribute and stand for.
Leading With Soul: Reflection Questions

1. The twentieth century was characterized by leadership theories
influenced by the industrial revolution paradigm. Explain why we
need a holistic leadership approach that integrates the spiritual and
the material perspectives to deal with emerging reality that is com-
plex, multidimensional and virtual.
2. Why it is important to differentiate between religion and spirituality
in the workplace? Do you think that spirituality is an appropriate
topic for the workplace?
3. Explain 5 key spiritual values that are integral to employee well-
being and organizational success.
4. It has been said that spiritual leadership begins with being authentic
and ends with serving others. Explain how spiritual leadership is
exercised in the form of authentic leadership and servant
leadership.
5. Explain how spiritual leadership is a vital expression of holistic lead-
ership. What do these two forms of leadership have in common?
6. Do highly principled leaders and their organizations perform espe-
cially well, financially? Explain briefly.
7. It has been observed that spiritual leadership depends upon self-
power and not position-power. Explain how holistic leaders develop
self-power through moral and spiritual values.
CHAPTER 8
Meaning & Purpose in Leadership: What

Are You Willing to Bet Your Life On?
Your work is to discover your work and then with all your heart to give
yourself to it.
—The Buddha
Introduction
What does it mean to discover our true calling? Why did the Buddha
include right livelihood as an important aspect of his Noble Eightfold
Path? The Buddha’s opening quote emphasizes the importance of discov-
ering our work and doing it with the right attitude. This chapter highlights
the need and importance of meaning and purpose in life and leadership.
It begins with indicating a world-wide employee engagement crisis which
reveals that as high as 90 percent of workers are either “not engaged” with
or “actively disengaged” from their jobs. This has serious implications not
only for global economy but also for people’s personal sense of well-being
and fulfillment. This state of disengagement is not limited to workers
alone. Research also shows that “fewer than 20 % of leaders have a strong
sense of their own individual purpose” and that “articulating purpose and
finding the courage to live it is the single most important developmental
task” a leader can undertake.1 These findings show that engagement crisis
is germane to both the leaders as well as the followers. This chapter builds
1
Nick Craig and Scott A. Snook, “From Purpose to Impact: Figure Out Your Passion and
Put It to Work”, Harvard Business Review, 92, no. 5, (May 2014): 105–111.

DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-55571-7_8
182 S. DHIMAN
on the view that when the why of a leader’s work is clear, the task of how
becomes quite easy.
Work is not just a 9-to-5 thing that we do to pay our bills. It occupies a
central position in our quest for finding meaning in life. Given the fact that
most of us spend the majority of our waking hours at work, it is n atural
to seek meaning and purpose in work and at work. To succeed in the
twenty-first century, leaders of organizations must offer a greater sense of
meaning and purpose for their workforce. Holistic leaders seek fulfillment
through meaning, purpose and contribution. To inform a leader’s quest
for meaning and purpose, the first section of this chapter reviews at length
the work of Victor Frankl, Robert Emmons, and Michael Ray. In the sec-
ond section, we explore the concept of purpose-driven leadership—that is,
how leaders boldly live their purpose in making a difference.
Organizations and researchers are interested in understanding the factors
that contribute to meaningful work.2 What is the link between workplace
spirituality, meaningful work and employee engagement? As we learned
in the chapter on spiritual leadership, spirituality helps us to discover the
deeper, transcendental meaning in our work; while workplace spirituality
helps us find meaning at work. Recently, scholars have started making a
conscious link between workplace spirituality and employee engagement.3
The French writer, Albert Camus, artfully linked meaning at work and
meaning in work when he said: “Without work, all life goes rotten. But
when work is soulless, life stifles and dies.”4 Human life seems to be so
constituted that if work were not necessary for making a living, it will
still be necessary for living a fulfilling, meaningful life. Maslow has stated
that “the only happy people I know are the ones who are working well at
something they consider important.”5 Since meaning can only be found
in our social interaction, it is important that leaders strive to create a rich
organizational culture that enables individuals to come together to carry
out a meaningful common purpose. In his classic work, Man’s Search for
Meaning, Victor Frankl indicates that humans seek meaning in their lives
2
Christopher Michaelson, Michael G. Pratt, Adam M. Grant, and Craig P. Dunn,
“Meaningful Work: Connecting Business Ethics and Organization Studies”, Journal of
Business Ethics, 121 (71), (2014): 77–90.
3
Alan M. Saks, “Workplace spirituality and employee engagement,” Journal of
Management, Spirituality & Religion, 8 (4), (2011): 317–340.
4
E. F. Schumacher and Peter N. Gillingham, Good Work (New York: HarperCollins,
1980), 4.
5
Abraham H. Maslow and Deborah C. Stephens, Maslow Business Reader (New Jersey:
John Wiley & Sons, 2000), 12.
MEANING & PURPOSE IN LEADERSHIP: WHAT ARE YOU WILLING TO BET YOUR... 183
by committing to a cause outside themselves. Research has borne out the

conventional wisdom that meaning is important in life as well as at work.
This may be common sense but not common practice.
The Worldwide Employee Engagement Crisis

Work has ceased to be a source of fulfillment for many people and they feel
disengaged and disenfranchised at work. Studies after studies have shown
that people of all ages and across income levels, are unhappy with their
supervisors, apathetic about their organizations and detached from what
they do. The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, which has been polling
over 1000 adults every day since January 2008, shows that Americans now
feel worse about their jobs—and work environments—than ever before.
Gallup estimates the cost of America’s disengagement crisis at a staggering
$300 billion in lost productivity annually. After analyzing 64,000 specific
workday events reported in 12,000 electronic diary entries from 238 pro-
fessionals in seven different companies, these authors conclude “of all the
events that engage people at work, the single most important—by far—is
simply making progress in meaningful work.”6
A recent Gallup Report points out that the world has an employee-
engagement crisis, with serious and potentially lasting repercussions for
the global economy. According to this report, worldwide, only 13 % of
employees working for an organization are engaged.7 A 2014 Gallup sur-
vey found that almost 90 percent of workers were either “not engaged”
with, or “actively disengaged” from, their jobs. Commenting on the state
of employee disengagement worldwide, Barry Schwartz, observes wryly:
We are checked out, sleepwalking through our days, putting little energy
into our work. And the rest of us are actively disengaged. … Ninety percent
of adults spend half their waking lives doing things they would rather not be
doing at places they would rather not be.8
6
Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer, Do Happier People Work Harder? New York Times,
Sept. 3, 2011. Also see Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer, The Progressive Principle: Using
Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement, and Creativity at Work (Boston, MA: Harvard
Business Review Press, 2011).
7
Annamarie Mann and Jim Harter, The Worldwide Employee Engagement Crisis, Gallup
Business Journal, January 7, 2016. Retrieved March 17, 2016: http://www.gallup.com/busi-
nessjour nal/188033/worldwide-employee-engagement-crisis.aspx?g_source=
EMPLOYEE_ENGAGEMENT&g_medium=topic&g_campaign=tiles.
8
Barry Schwartz, Why We Work [A TED Book] (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2015), 3.
184 S. DHIMAN
This high degree of disengagement is quite alarming and has far reach-
ing consequences about workplace productivity and success. In his 1998
book, The Human Equation, the Stanford organizational behavior pro-
fessor, Jeffrey Pfeffer, contends that people-centered companies are usu-
ally more profitable in the long run. One could argue that this is just
plain common sense, that companies that treat their employees well have a
more engaged workforce which translates into more profits. Based on sev-
eral studies, Pfeffer found that companies which provided their employ-
ees work that was inherently meaningful, challenging and engaging were
more profitable. In fact, the “returns from managing people in ways that
build high commitment, involvement, and learning and organizational
competence are typically on the order of 30 to 50 percent substantial by
any measure.”9 In addition, people-centered companies were almost 20
percent more likely to survive for at least 5 years than those which were
not.
And yet, purposeful and meaningful work is becoming more and more
important worldwide. According to Youth Speak, the global millennial
insight survey, young people rated meaningful work as the second most
important factor in the first 5 years of their career.10 This presents an inter-
esting paradox: employees worldwide feel disengaged, while the youth
want more meaning at work. When leaders are able to create meaningful
opportunities for engagement at work, they address this paradox in the
most direct way.
Organizations are increasingly realizing the futility of achieving finan-
cial success at the cost of humanistic values. Employees are expecting to
get something more than just a pay check from the workplace. Many orga-
nizations have been reflecting upon discovering ways to help employees
balance work and family, and to create conditions wherein each person
can realize his/her potential while fulfilling the requirements of the job.
One writer has called such enlightened organizations “incubators of the
spirit.”11
Meaning is a valuable source for self-mastery and growth. Self-mastery
assumes self-understanding and self-knowledge. It also assumes a certain
9
Jeffrey Pfeffer, The Human Equation: Building Profits by Putting People First (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard Business Review Press).
10
The Value of Purpose-Driven Leaders. Retrieved March 27, 2016: http://aiesec.org/
value-purpose-driven-leaders/.
11
James Aurty, Life & Work: A Manager’s Search for Meaning (New York: William Morrow
& Company, 1994).
awareness of our purpose in life. Without formulating our aim, we drift

aimlessly amidst the sea of life, like a ship without a rudder.
Here are then the two most fundamental questions leaders can ask:
1. Who am I?
2. What am I doing here?
This chapter presents strategies to discover and create meaning in life

and leadership.
Meaning and Purpose: Same or Different?

Lou Marinoff in his delightful book entitled Plato, Not Prozac muses over
the difference between meaning and purpose by providing an excellent
metaphor. Imagine you go to a French restaurant to order some food. If
you do not understand French, the menu will not have any meaning for
you, even though it will still serve its purpose. Thus one can find purpose
without meaning. On the other hand, if you understand French just fine
but the prices are so high that you cannot afford to buy anything, then
the menu means something to you but serves no purpose. So you can find
meaning without purpose. Now imagine someone who has never been in
a restaurant and does not know French. The menu will have no meaning
for him and serve no purpose. And finally if a person instead of ordering
food begins to eat the menu, then it will be case of confusing meaning
with purpose.12
Self-Mastery and Growth Through Meaning:

Quest for Meaning in Life
Einstein was supposedly once asked: “If you could ask God one question, what
would that question be?” Einstein quickly responded that he would ask God how
the universe began, because after that, the rest would all be math. However,
after further reflection, he said that he would ask God why the universe began,
because then he would know the meaning of his own life.13
12
Lou Marinoff, Plato, Not Prozac! Applying Philosophy to Everyday Problems (New York:
Harper, 1999), 210.
13
Barry Z. Posner quoted in a Foreword to Robert A. Giacalone and Carole L. Jurkiewicz,
Handbook of Workplace Spirituality and Organizational Performance (London: Routledge,
2nd edition, 2015), xi.
186 S. DHIMAN
The Einstein story illustrates the importance of knowing the meaning

of one’s life as compared to knowing the origin of the world. Even if we
are able to know everything about the world, we will still yearn to know
the meaning and purpose of our own life. It is because unless we find the
meaning of our life, all the knowledge of the world will not help us in
addressing our existential predicament. After all, the knowledge of the
world is meaningful only to the extent it helps us live a meaningful life.
What sustains us in wake of life’s toughest challenges? What keeps us
from falling apart emotionally amidst life’s most trying situations? What
keeps us going in face of the inevitable suffering that life brings us through
illness, deprivation, and death? It is the knowledge, says Frankl, that
“human life under any circumstances, never ceases to have a meaning and
that this infinite meaning of life includes suffering or dying, privation and
death.”14 Now, Frankl was no armchair psychologist—he was the survivor
of four concentration camps! His father, mother, brother, and his wife died
in camps or were sent to gas ovens, so that, excepting for his sister, his entire
family perished in these camps. In his classic of hope and courage entitled,
Man’s Search for Meaning, Frankl provides the inside story of a concentra-
tion camp and presents a concrete guide to support his unshakable view that
“life holds a potential meaning under any conditions, even the most miserable
ones.”15 Frankl’s own life story is an ample testimony to his tragic optimism.
Could these trials and tribulations be seen as opportunities, as occa-
sions life presents us with to help us discover and realize our true des-
tiny, to fulfill our true purpose in life? Well, it depends upon how we
approach them. Seen as occasions for self-growth and fulfillment, these
challenges (= opportunities) provide us with the raw material to fashion the
garment of our life. Taken with a “why me” attitude, they can dampen our
spirit and stifle our soul. Says Frankl with a prophetic vision, “Everything
can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms—to
choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s
own way.”16 When we cannot change the situation, we are challenged to
change ourselves! And “it is this spiritual freedom—which cannot be taken
away—that makes life meaningful and purposeful.”17 Frankl c oncludes that
14
Victor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning (Cutchogue, NY: Buccaneer Books Inc.,
1993), 90.
15
Ibid., 12.
16
Ibid., 75.
17
Ibid., 75–76.
“there is nothing in the world, I venture to say, that would so effectively

help one to survive even the worst conditions as the knowledge that there
is a meaning in one’s life.”18 He who has a why to live, said Nietzsche, can
bear with almost any how.19 It is verily the ‘whys’ which provide sustenance
to the ‘whats’ and ‘hows’ of human life.
Search for Meaning in Life
Victor Frankl, in the preface to his now classic work, Man’s Search for
Meaning, states that it seemed to be both strange and remarkable that the
book he had intended to be published anonymously did in fact become
a success. This is one of the great paradoxes of life that things we chase
so vehemently escape us most intently. Frankl repeatedly admonishes his
students about the circuitous path to happiness and success:
Do not aim at success—the more you aim at it and make it a target, the
more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued;
it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one’s dedi-
cation to a cause greater than oneself …. Happiness must happen, and the
same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I
want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on
to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that
in the long run—in the long run, I say!—Success will follow you precisely
because you had forgotten to think of it.20
Frankl is alluding to what is popularly called the ‘by-product’ theory of

happiness. According to this theory, happiness does not lend itself to
direct pursuit; it is the by-product of working toward something impor-
tant, noble and meaningful. As David Mccullough Jr. rightly put it, “A
fulfilled life is a consequence, the gratifying by-product. It is what happens
when you are thinking about more important things.”21 Frankl’s work
serves as a beacon of light and clarion call to rise above life’s circumstances
and bear suffering with courage and dignity. The life examples of Mother
Teresa, Mahatma Gandhi, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr., and Nelson
18
Ibid., 109.
19
Cited in Ibid., 9. (emphasis in the original).
20
Ibid., 12.
21
David McCullough at Wellesley High School Commencement: ‘You Are Not Special’
(Video). Retrieved April 12, 2016: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lfxYhtf8o4.
188 S. DHIMAN
Mandela are testimonies to this discovery of meaning, to rise above life’s

conditions and make life worthwhile against all odds through dedication
to a selfless cause. When we immerse ourselves in our work, body, mind
and soul, we meet success in the most unexpected times. Victor Frankl
considers search for meaning to be the primary motivation in human life.
One of the basic tenets of Frankl’s philosophy is that our main concern
in life is not to gain pleasure or to avoid pain (as Sigmund Freud taught) or
to seek power (as Alfred Adler thought) but rather to find meaning in life.
This meaning is unique and specific: Each of us has to fulfill this meaning
for ourselves; nobody can discover it for us. For Frankl, self-actualization
is a process of realizing the meaning inherent in every situation, in every
moment. This, of course, presupposes that life is potentially meaningful
to begin with. This belief—the belief that life has meaning, uncondition-
ally—sustained Victor Frankl during his concentration camp experience.
He used to reflect, thus: “Has all this suffering, this dying around us, a
meaning? For, if not, then ultimately there is no meaning to survival; for
a life whose meaning depends upon such a happenstance—as whether one
escapes or not—ultimately would not be worth living at all.”22 Further
research on the survivors of concentration and prisoner-of-war camps has
shown that people who had something important yet to do in their lives—
or who had a task waiting for them to fulfill—were most apt to survive.23
Meaning is what does not let the human spirit fall apart even in the most
trying circumstances.
It is important to note that this search for meaning ‘may arouse some
inner tension’ which, according to Frankl, is indispensable to mental
health. This creative tension—tension between what one is and what one
wants to become—is the existential dynamics to keep our life moving for-
ward. Frankl suggests, “We should not be afraid to create a sound amount
of tension through reorientation towards the meaning in life.”24 He cites
the example of architecture to underscore the importance of such a ten-
sion: “If architects want to strengthen a decrepit arch, they increase the
load which is laid upon it, for thereby the parts are joined more firmly
together.”25 This is an important insight that reminds us that trials make
us strong and adversity builds our character.
22
Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning, 119.
23
Joel Barker, The New Business of Paradigms, DVD, 2001, Star Throwers, St. Paul, MI.
24
25
Ibid.
In the previous paragraphs, we reflected upon the importance of hav-

ing a meaning in our life and on the beneficial effects of meaning ori-
entation on our lives. What happens when our need to find meaning is
not met or is thwarted? It creates a sense of meaninglessness, a feeling of
inner emptiness. Frankl calls this feeling of utter meaninglessness as “inner
emptiness” and “existential vacuum”. It is a mode of existence in which
“people have enough to live by but nothing to live for; they have the means
but no meaning.”26 Frankl finds existential vacuum—this feeling of utter
meaninglessness—to be widespread in modern times and considers it to
be the root cause of depression, aggression and addiction in modern west-
ern society. In what ways can we discover meaning in life so as to avoid
Frankl’s “void within”?
Three Avenues to Finding Meaning in Life
According to Frankl, there are following three ways to discovering mean-

ing in life:
1. By creating a work or doing a deed;

2. By experiencing something or someone; and
3. By the attitude we take towards unavoidable suffering.27
The first avenue to finding meaning in life is through work. By devot-

ing ourselves to a task, to a cause bigger than ourselves, we create mean-
ing in our lives. This is the path of achievement and accomplishment
and requires hard work, commitment, perseverance and high sense of
responsibility. Frankl considers having a meaningful task to be an essen-
tial requirement for human happiness since we spend majority of our
waking hours at work. If we do not find meaning and value in our work,
we will miss a great part of our happiness which comes from doing valu-
able work.
The second way to discover meaning is “by experiencing something—
such as goodness, truth, and beauty—by experiencing nature or cul-
ture or, last but not least, by experiencing another human being in his
uniqueness—by loving him.”28 For Frankl, “Love is the ultimate and the
26
Ibid., 142 (emphasis added).
27
Ibid., 115.
28
Ibid.
190 S. DHIMAN
highest goal to which man can aspire …. The salvation of man is through
love and in love.”29
The third avenue to finding meaning in life is by formulating a right
attitude towards unavoidable suffering. This method is central to Victor
Frankl’s thinking since suffering is an inevitable, an undeniable part of
our life. By taking a right attitude towards unavoidable suffering, we have
the capacity to rise above it and to transform our tragedies into triumphs.
In some way, says Frank, suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment
it finds a meaning! However, suffering is not necessary to find meaning:
“Life’s meaning is an unconditional one, for it even includes the potential
meaning of unavoidable suffering.”30 If suffering is avoidable “then the
meaningful thing to do would be to remove its cause, be it psychological,
biological or political. To suffer unnecessarily is masochistic rather than
heroic.”31 We do not need to discover suffering; we just have to discover
meaning when confronted with unavoidable suffering.
Here Frankl rightfully speculates on the role of heredity and environ-
ment in shaping our lives. He says that we are not totally at the mercy
of either. We are not helpless creatures driven by our internal drives and
external influences, as psychoanalysts and behaviorists have made us
believe. We have freedom to change ourselves despite our biological con-
ditioning and situational limitations. It is ‘not freedom from conditions
but freedom to take a stand towards conditions’. (We cannot prevent the
birds of worry hovering over our heads; but we can prevent them from
making nests on our heads). Stephen Covey has written that by exercis-
ing our unique power of choice, “we can become a product of our decisions,
not our conditions.”32 This, says Frankl, is one of the glories of human
existence—the human capacity creatively to turn life’s negative aspects
into something positive or constructive. We are capable of changing the
world for the better, if possible, and of changing ourselves for the better,
if necessary. By bearing suffering with dignity and courage, we can turn
suffering into achievement and tragedy into triumph. Herein, then, lies
our ultimate freedom: to choose our attitude in every condition, in every
situation. And this freedom is forever ours and cannot be taken away
from us.
29
Ibid., 49 (emphasis added).
30
Ibid., 118.
31
Ibid., 117.
32
Cited in Alex Pattakos, Prisoners of our Thoughts: Victor Frankl’s Principles at Work (San
Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler, 2004), ix (emphasis added).
It must be noted that this freedom is only half of the truth and presup-
poses a high sense of personal responsibility. In fact, Frankl considers free-
dom to be the ‘negative aspect of the phenomenon whose positive aspect is
responsibleness’. He recommends that “the Statue of Liberty on the East
Coast be supplemented by a Statue of Responsibility on the West Coast.”33
For Frankl, every act of responsibility is an act of self-actualization. This
emphasis on personal responsibility forms the very essence of Frankl’s phi-
losophy, and his ethical imperative: Live as if you were living for the second
time and had acted as wrongly the first time as you are about to act now.34
Frankl further clarifies: “Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning
of his life is, but rather he must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word,
each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering
for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible.”35 In the
final reckoning, we are not in the pursuit of happiness but rather “in search of
a reason to be happy”—aspiring to be worthy of our happiness.
Victor Frankl concludes his book by advising that we should study the
examples of those human beings who seem to have found meaning in their
life through deeds done, loves shared and suffering borne with courage
and dignity. The life examples of Mother Teresa, Mahatma Gandhi, Rosa
Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Nelson Mandela are testimonies to
this discovery of meaning and to rising above life’s conditions and making
life worthwhile against all odds through dedication to a selfless cause.
Does Meaningful Life Equate with Happy Life?

What does it mean to live a happy and fulfilled life? Does it equate with
living a meaningful life? Robert A. Emmons, the world’s leading scien-
tific expert on gratitude, points out that there is a difference between a
meaningful life and a happy life. He states that in some cases the two may
be correlated, but in others they may not be. For example, some research
shows that having children predicts meaning in life but not necessarily
happiness. Emmons defines a meaningful life as “one that is characterized
by a deep sense of purpose, a sense of inner conviction, and assurance that
in spite of one’s current plight, life has significance.”36 He cites research to
33
34
Ibid., 151.
35
Ibid., 113–114.
36
Robert A. Emmons, The Psychology of Ultimate Concerns: Motivation and Spirituality in
Personality (New York: The Guilford Press, 2009), 138.
192 S. DHIMAN
underscore that “meaning and happiness are relatively independent com-

ponents of well-being that are often associated with different predictors
…. Meaningfulness appears to be a necessary yet insufficient condition for
long term happiness.”37 There may be instances for a life to be imbued
with perceived significance yet devoid of happiness (e.g., political mar-
tyrs) yet abiding happiness is not possible without meaning and purpose.
Emmons avers that “although meaningfulness may not guarantee high
levels of positive emotional well-being, an absence of meaning and pur-
pose portend unhappiness.”38
Positive Psychology, Meaning, and Well-Being
In the most general terms, positive psychology is the study of “what makes
life worth living.”39 What does research tell us about the relationship of hap-
piness to a life well-lived? During the last decade, positive psychology has
heralded a new research field called happiness research. Happiness is often
an indicator that one is living well, but it is not a perfect indicator. A lot of
things we do, like raising children, for example, may not make us happy in
the short run. We do them because it is the right thing to do, not because
they make us gleeful. Happiness is the byproduct of our pursuits—not nec-
essarily the pursuit of happiness, per se. Happiness depends upon feeling a
sense of meaning and purpose in life—in feeling connected to something
larger than yourself. For some people, their religion may provide a sense of
meaning and purpose. Positive psychology is not shy about acknowledging
the importance of religion. However, there are secular sources of meaning
and purpose also. If you pursue good in the domains of family, work and
community, you will be happy.40 This has not changed.
Although the pursuit of happiness is as old as human civilization, “only
recently has scientific evidence emerged to suggest a possible path to
37
Ibid., 137–138 (emphasis added).
38
Ibid., 138.
39
University of Michigan psychology professor Christopher Peterson, whose research
focused on strengths of character, used to tell his audiences that if they wanted to know the
essence of his talk about positive psychology in 5 seconds, it would be: ‘Positive psychology
is what makes life worth living.’ When asked what positive psychology is all about, Peterson
would often say, “Other people matter—that’s all!”
40
Christopher Peterson, “What makes life worth living?” (Part 1), UM News Service.
Video retrieved March 26, 2016: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRiIAqGXLKA.
lasting happiness that is effective for majority of people.”41 In response to

a self-posed question, whether happiness is a worthwhile goal, Jaime Kurtz
and Sonja Lyubomirsky cite previous research that suggests that, across all
the domains of life, happy people are energetic, creative and productive in
the workplace; cooperative; and motivated to help others. They have more
friends, more satisfying social interactions and stronger immune systems.
They cope more effectively with stress, and, most strikingly, even live lon-
ger. Positive psychology, a recently-conceived branch of psychology, aims
to understand and promote lasting well-being or authentic happiness.
Positive psychology is built on three pillars: positive emotion, positive
strengths and positive institutions. It has its roots in the works of human-
istic psychologists such as Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers and Eric Fromm,
who focused on personal fulfillment and well-being. In fact, Maslow was
the first psychologist to use this term in his 1954 classic, Motivation and
Personality. The contribution of positive psychology is that it has provided
scientific evidence consistent with what philosophers and humanistic psy-
chologists intuitively believed. Positive psychology focuses on character,
flourishing and fulfillment. It aims to explore how to live a happy and ful-
filling life, how to define and develop human strengths and how to build
character and resilience.
Seligman, one of the founders of positive psychology, explores the
concept of meaningful life in the context of authentic happiness. Greeks
defined happiness as the ‘exercise of one’s faculties along the lines of excel-
lence’. Building on Aristotle’s work, Seligman describes the good life as
the exercise of one’s “signature strengths”. In a meaningful life, we share
these strengths with a greater circle of humanity. Seligman believes that
authentic happiness is experienced when we optimally exercise our signa-
ture strengths and share them with others.
Seligman states that authentic happiness has three interrelated constitu-
ents—pleasure, strengths and meaning:
1. The pleasant life, in which we successfully pursue positive emotions

about the present, past and future.
2. The good life, in which we use our signature strengths to obtain
abundant gratification in the main realms of our life.
41
Jaime L.Kurtz and Sonja Lyubomirsky, Towards a Durable Happiness, The Positive
Psychology Perspective Series (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2008), 21.
194 S. DHIMAN
3. The meaningful life, in which we use our signature strengths and

virtues in the service of something much larger than we are—and the
larger that something is, the more meaning our lives have.42
To live all three lives, concludes Seligman, is to lead a full life.43 A

little reflection will show that both the pleasant and the good life are lim-
ited. Only a life lived in service of a cause larger than oneself holds true
meaning.
Meaning In and Through Suffering

Suffering is a universal fact of human condition, an inescapable conclusion
drawn by many philosophers and theologians. Emmons points out that
one of the fundamental truths that forms the cornerstone of virtually all
of the world’s great wisdom traditions is that life is full of suffering.44 For
example, the first of the Four Noble Truths taught by the Buddha states
that life inevitably involves suffering (dukkha).45 Is there some meaning in
human suffering or is human life, as the bard of Avon once said, just “a
tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury Signifying nothing?”46 Arthur
Schopenhauer, a German philosopher, wryly says, “Life is a business that
does not cover the costs.”47 Similarly the great Victorian novelist, Thomas
Hardy, states that happiness is “but the occasional episode in a general
drama of pain.”48
Albert Camus, the great French novelist, believed that the universe is
meaningless and any attempt to make sense of our lives is utterly absurd.
42
Martin Seligman, Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting
Fulfillment (New York: Free Press, 2002), 260–262 (emphasis added).
43
Ibid., 249.
44
45
This has led some to conclude that Buddhism must be a life-denying and pessimistic
approach to life. But the Buddha taught Four Noble Truths about life, not just one. After
analyzing the causes of suffering in the Second Noble Truth, the Buddha goes on to state
that it is possible to end this suffering (Third Noble Truth) and prescribes a path called The
Noble Eightfold Path to the cessation of suffering (Fourth Noble Truth). See Walpola
Rahula, What the Buddha Taught. Rev. and exp. ed. (New York: Grove Press, 1974), 17–19.
46
William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Folger Shakespeare Library (New York: Simon and
Schuster, 2003), 179.
47
Arthur Schopenhauer and E.F. J. Payne (tr.) The World as Will and Representation,
Volume 2 (New York: Dover Publications, 1966), 239.
48
Thomas Hardy, The Mayor of Casterbridge (New York: Dover Publications, 2004), 243.
In the final chapter of his philosophical essay, The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus
compares the absurdity of human life with the situation of Sisyphus, a fig-
ure of Greek mythology who was condemned to repeat forever the same
futile task of pushing a boulder up to the top of a mountain, only to
see it roll down again. Camus concludes the essay stating, “The struggle
itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imag-
ine Sisyphus happy.”49 Someone mused on the hopeless toil of Sisyphus
remarking that after all he was not wasting his time or energy. He was
building his muscles!
Emmons asks, “How can most people be happy given the pervasive-
ness of suffering, pain and adversity? Is it possible for this apparent para-
dox to be resolved?” While most of the world’s wisdom traditions point
out the fact of suffering, they also urge people to embrace suffering in
the name of spiritual growth. Psychologists point out the importance of
approaching suffering as a necessary part of the human growth and devel-
opment equation. And growth is possible to the degree to which a per-
son creates or finds meaning in suffering, pain and adversity.50 In Man’s
Search for Meaning, Frankl argues that suffering is not necessary to find
meaning, only that meaning is possible in spite of suffering: “I only insist
that meaning is possible even in spite of suffering—provided, certainly,
that the suffering is unavoidable.”51 If the suffering were avoidable, the
most meaningful thing to do would be to remove its cause. Only unavoid-
able suffering is heroic and meaningful. In the camp, to continue to be
“worthy” of his “suffering” and to keep discovering deeper meaning in
it, Frankl would often reflect upon Dostoevski’s words: “There is only
one thing that I dread: not to be worthy of my sufferings.”52 Frankl, the
felicitous apostle of tragic optimism, would keep hope (and himself) alive
by remembering that what is to give light must endure burning.53
The philosophical and psychological literature on meaning, suffering
and growth is vast and continues to grow. On the meaning of suffering
49
Albert Camus and Justin O’Brien (tr.), The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays (New York:
Vintage, 1991), 123 (emphasis added).
50
51
52
Ibid., 75.
53
This seems to be based on Nietzsche’s observation, “You admire the beauty of my spark,
but you don’t feel the cruelty of the hammer on the anvil that makes it happen”. Only
Nietzsche could have felt and written something so stark and vivid.
196 S. DHIMAN
in human happiness and growth at least, age-old wisdom and modern sci-
ence seem to be in perfect agreement:
… “the good life” is not one that is achieved through momentary plea-
sures and defensive illusions, but through meeting suffering head on and
transforming it into opportunities for meaning, wisdom and growth, with
the ultimate objective being the development of the person into a fully-
functioning, mature being.54
‘No pain, no gain’ is a universal principle of existence: Gold has to go through

the heat of fire to be transformed into beautiful ornaments; the acorn has to
hold its ground patiently for a long time before it develops into a mighty
oak; charcoal has to persevere for thousands of years before becoming a dia-
mond—and, even after that, it has to be cut to release its total splendor; and a
bamboo has to bear several holes in it before it can create the sweet melodies
of a flute. Why should the human being be an exception?
Living Our Highest Purpose in Life

Your highest purpose is the true embodiment of who you are at the very
core. It is the most authentic expression of your innermost nature, your
true Self. You are at your most creative when you are in tune with your
highest Self. It represents our inner truth that seeks expression through
myriad activities as life is happening to us. In Sanskrit language, this truth
of our innermost being is expressed by the word “dharma.” Quite sim-
ply, dharma means “that which sustains”. The Bhagavad Gītā, the most
important Hindu wisdom text, starts with the word dharma (chapter 1,
verse 1) and ends with the word mama (chapter 18, verse 78). Together,
they form the word “mama dharma” or “svadharma”, which stands for
my moral duty, my inner purpose. In the same text we are told: “Better
one’s own dharma, however imperfect, than the dharma of another per-
fectly performed”. Ramana Maharshi, an Indian Sage, used to say, “Be as
you are”. Martin Buber, the great Jewish philosopher, narrates the follow-
ing story in his book, Tales of Hasidism: Before his death, Rabbi Zusya
said, “In the coming world, they will not ask me, ‘Why were you not
Moses?’ They will ask me, ‘Why were you not Zusya?’”55

54
Martin Buber, Tales of Hasidism (New York: Knopf Doubleday, 1987), 251.
55
These texts tell us that only by being true to our real self can we ful-
fill our destiny, our true reason for existence. We cannot have fulfillment
any other way. We may not be always aware of our true purpose, but it is
always there ready to sustain us through the toughest challenges of our
life. Nature is not interested in “photocopies”; it loves originals! Only by
discovering our unique gifts and talents can we hope to polish them and
share them with our fellow beings.
How can we discover our true purpose in life that gives value and mean-
ing to our existence? There is no direct path or ready-made answer to this
vital question. There is no sure map or formula that can lead us to our
life’s true purpose. Nor can it be “given” to us by someone else. Besides,
nobody can spare us the journey, the alchemic process of self-discovery
and transformation leading to the unfolding and fulfillment of this pur-
pose. We all of us have to light our own candles.
Nobody Can Light Our Candles!

It is said that the last words of Buddha were: “Be light unto yourself!” The
following story illustrates the need and importance of Buddha’s advice:
Once a blind man went to visit his friend.

After dinner, when he asked to leave, his friend said, “Let me give you a
lantern.”
“But I can’t see! So why would I need a lantern?” asked the blind man.
“Oh, it is not for you. It is so that others can see you,” explained the host.
“In that case, I will take it,” said the blind man.
He had hardly gone 10 feet that someone bumped into him. The blind man
exclaimed, “Can’t you see my lantern?”
“Sir, your lantern has gone out!” replied the stranger.
No one can light our lantern for us. We all of us have to light our own
lanterns.56
Life is a journey that no one can undertake on our behalf. It cannot

be given to us. There are, however, some activities, some habits of mind
that seem to facilitate the process of finding our true goal in life. In the
following pages, we will explore some practical exercises as helpful hints in
discovering our highest purpose in life.
56
Author unknown.
198 S. DHIMAN
Living With the Highest Goal

For three decades, Michael Ray has taught Stanford University’s cel-
ebrated Personal Creativity in Business course. He soon discovered that
his creativity course had a more lasting and profound impact on students
than he had ever intended. Professor Ray came to realize that this impact
was mainly due to the fact that the creativity course was helping students
to discover what he calls their “highest goal”—something that gave a real
meaning to their lives, beyond the ordinary definitions of success and
achievement. The discovery of, and the living from, the highest goal had
a salutary effect on the personal and professional lives of the people who
took this course. Ray explains: “Students who discovered their essential
inner resources and the ultimate purpose of their existence found they
could do their work and live their lives in ways that contributed to positive
change in the world.”57 Living from our highest goal entails a feeling of
excitement and contribution: “You connect with your highest goal when
you awaken full of enthusiasm for the day and when you know you are
making a contribution.”58
As a first step toward finding one’s highest goal, Michael Ray rec-
ommends an exercise called ‘The Most Meaningful Thing Exercise’, as
described below.
The Most Meaningful Thing Exercise

To help discover our highest goal in life, Ray invites us to recall a situation
in which we experienced resonance with the highest goal. He suggests fol-
lowing preliminary steps to get an idea about the highest goal:
1. Recall the most meaningful thing you did during the last week or so.
Whatever it is, re-experience doing that activity. See it in your mind’s
eye and get the feeling of what made this activity so meaningful.
2. Answer the question, “How come this was so important, so mean-
ingful to me?”
3. Then answer the question, “Why is that (the reason you gave to the
previous question) so important to me?”
57
Michael Ray, The Highest Goal: The Secret that Sustains in every Moment (San Francisco,
CA: Berrett-Koehler, 2004), xx–xxi.
58
Ibid., 7.
4. Keep asking the question, “Why is that so important to me?” of

every answer you give until you get down to one word.
That word, if you dig below possible negative reasons (such as fear) or
external reasons (such as money) that you have for doing something, rep-
resents just one quality of your essence, your Self. When you see what that
word is—be it Love, Communication, Wisdom, Energy, Tranquility, Fun,
Creativity, Service, Silence, Connection, Peace, Joy, or any other qualities
that may be a part of who you are at core—acknowledge that quality as
being part of who you really are. Remember it. Revel in it. Contemplate
it. See how it has been a guiding quality in your life. Notice it coming up
as you deal with each new situation.59
Once we commit to living with the highest goal, Ray recommends the
following:
1. Go beyond passion and success. Living for the highest goal is radically
different from what is normally considered to be the highest: reach-
ing success in external terms and having passion for what you do in
life. Most of us “sub-optimize”, that is, we go for the short term and
transitory. Go beyond these lesser goals to use the gifts of life you
have been given.
2. Travel your own path. You can create your path by simply paying
attention to your own best performance—the critical incidents in
your life—when you feel most your Self and in tune with the highest
goal. Remember the experience of these times, apply what works to
new situations and keep improving your path to the highest goal.
3. Live with the highest goal. Because everything in the world is a con-
nected system, you cannot beat it, you can only join it. And the best
way of joining it is to live with heuristics—generalizations or rules of
thumb for learning and discovery. Enliven your journey with the
“live-withs”—such as Pay Attention, Ask Dumb Questions, See
with Your Heart, or Be Ordinary.
4. Find true prosperity. The more you express and experience your
highest qualities, the more you are filled with a rich feeling of self-
worth, and the wealthier you will become in the truest sense. Find
the prosperity that will sustain you through the ups and downs of
life and keep increasing, even through difficulties.
59
Ibid., 8–11.
200 S. DHIMAN
5. Turn fears into breakthroughs. When you have the grounding of the
highest goal, you can see your fears for what they are. Learn from
them, and turn their energy into breakthroughs and opportunities
of the most lasting kind.
6. Relate from your heart. I define “compassion” as seeing the highest
in your Self first and then seeing the highest in others. If you have a
full, rich feeling of self-worth, you have already taken the first step
towards having compassion. See others from this perspective, and
you begin to change the nature of your relationships for the better
and make connections that move you toward the highest goal.
7. Experience synergy in every moment. You can achieve synergy—a
much more dynamic state than balance—among the parts of your
life by developing organizing structures based on your highest goal
and by getting into the flow of intuitive decision-making.
8. Become a generative leader. Generative leaders pass along their expe-
rience of the highest goal and ignite creativity in others. Share the
fruits of your quest for the highest goal with others, and spread its
effects in a beneficial spiral.60
These are good guideposts posts for the leadership development jour-
ney, especially the guidelines about turning fears into breakthroughs and
becoming a generative leader. Michael Ray invites us to take a long-term
view of our goals in life. We should not evaluate our purpose in terms of
success alone. Striving and significance equally matter. We should discover
and travel our own path. This may prove to be quite challenging in a
society where we are constantly bombarded with messages from media
about what we should be. Ray recommends developing our own “live-
withs”, rules of thumb that serve us to live with our highest goal. Such
pithy reminders can go a long way to keep up our momentum—success is
a by-product not a buy-product; grow from being a consumer to becoming a
contributor; if you stumble, make it a part of the dance; an altar in your life
alters your life; smile, breathe and go slowly; when why is clear, how is easy;
the path is the hurdle; lost the lamp, but not the light; pain is inevitable, suf-
fering is optional; the winner is a dreamer who never gives up; to teach is to
learn twice; leave the reforms, mind the reformer; be nobody but yourself, and
so forth.
Ibid., 13–15.
60
Purpose-Driven Leadership
The world doesn’t need more profit-driven leaders, but purpose-driven leaders
who can solve real world issues.61 —Bill George
Bill George rightly points out that we need purpose-driven leaders who
see the bigger picture and are able to garner collaborative, meaningful con-
tributions in building a better world. “The key challenge for business is how
do we get more purpose-driven leaders that realize they are there to make
a difference in the world”, said Bill George of Harvard Business School at
The World Economic Forum.62 Bill George asks a very pertinent question:
How do we get more purpose-driven leaders who can act on the purpose?
Leadership is all about having impactful purpose and purposeful impact.
In their HBR article entitled “From Purpose to Impact: Figure Out Your
Passion and Put It to Work”, Craig and Snook state that the process of
articulating your purpose and finding the courage to live it is the single
most important developmental task you can undertake as a leader. Based
on their work training thousands of managers at organizations from GE to
the Girl Scouts, and teaching an equal number of executives and students
at Harvard Business School, they found that fewer than 20 % of leaders
have a strong sense of their own individual purpose. More so, even fewer
leaders can distill their purpose into a concrete statement.
In articulating your impactful purpose, the authors recommend that
the words in your purpose statement must be truly yours. They must cap-
ture your inner essence. And they must prompt you to action. We should
begin with our life story and find common leadership threads and major
themes—the “crucibles”. In their experience, they have found the follow-
ing three prompts to be most effective in discovering purpose to impact:
1. What did you especially love doing when you were a child, before
the world told you what you should or shouldn’t like or do? Describe
a moment and how it made you feel.
2. Tell us about two of your most challenging life experiences. How
have they shaped you?
3. What do you enjoy doing in your life now that helps you sing your
song?
61
The Value of Purpose-Driven Leaders. Retrieved March 27, 2016: http://aiesec.org/
value-purpose-driven-leaders/.
62
Ibid.
202 S. DHIMAN
Craig and Snook conclude their HBR article stating that “to be a truly
effective leader, clarify your purpose, and put it to work.”63 This then is
the essence of effective leadership: know your purpose and live it. The
meaning of life is to discover our purpose; the purpose of life indeed is to
live a life of purpose.
Concluding Thoughts
“The meaning of life”, said Pablo Picasso, “is to find your gift. The pur-
pose of life is to give it away”. The quest for meaning and purpose is
not just about having life goals. It is about realizing our total potential,
about self-actualization, as Maslow will put it. In his later years, he real-
ized the limitation of his own vision about the need for self-actualization.
The self only finds its fulfillment, he felt, in giving itself to some higher
purpose outside oneself, in self-sacrifice and spirituality. He called it self-
transcendence. He considered self-transcendence to be the highest need
and greatest aspiration and recognized self-transcendence as a step beyond
self-actualization.64 The less of self there is, said Meister Eckhart, the more
there is of the Self.
If happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and
end of human existence, as Aristotle so eloquently stated 2500 years ago,
then in discovering and living our purpose lies our true happiness. Mark
Twain put it succinctly, “The two most important days in your life are the
day you are born and the day you find out why.”65 Once we discover why
we are born, living our purpose is not an option.
We are put on this planet with a mission to accomplish and a purpose
to fulfill. That’s how nature intends us all to be. In the Bhagavad Gītā
this purpose is referred to as our allotted duty, our svadharma. It is our
soul’s mission and the reason we were born. It is our silent pact with the
63
Craig and Snook, “From Purpose to Impact,” HBR, May 2014, 111.
64
See Abraham Maslow, The Farther Reaches of Human Nature (New York: The Viking
Press, 1971). For a scholarly presentation of self-transcendence as the highest need, see:
Mark E. Koltko-Rivera, “Rediscovering the Later Version of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs:
Self-Transcendence and Opportunities for Theory, Research, and Unification”, in: Review of
General Psychology, 2006, Vol. 10, No. 4, 302–317. Retrieved March 25, 2016: http://
academic.udayton.edu/jackbauer/Readings%20595/Koltko-Rivera%2006%20trans%20self-
act%20copy.pdf.
65
While this quote has not been definitively sourced to Mark Twain, it still conveys a pow-
erful message.
universe. Unless we fulfill this purpose, this mission, we are not given to
experience the deepest joy of fulfillment that life has to offer, no matter
how successful, rich or famous we may become.
Meaning & Purpose: Reflection Questions

1. Why do majority of employees worldwide feel disengaged in the
workplace? What is the link between meaningful work and employee
engagement? What steps can holistic leaders take to enhance
employee engagement?
2. Do you believe that it is the bounden duty of every leader to create
a liberating work environment that fosters meaningful self-expression
for all employees?
3. What is the difference between meaning of life and purpose of life?
Discuss a few examples to illustrate this difference.
4. It has been said that to live a fulfilled life, it is essential to have an
abiding purpose and meaning. Why is it important for us to seek
meaning in and at work?
5. Does a meaningful life equate with a happy life? Or, are meaning
and happiness relatively independent components of well-being?
6. Why is it important to shift from being a consumer to becoming a
contributor in order to lead a meaningful life? What steps will you
take to move from a purpose-driven life to purpose-driven
leadership?
7. Why did Victor Frankl consider search for meaning to be the pri-
mary motivation in human life as opposed to pleasure or power?
What three main avenues did he discover to find meaning in life?
CHAPTER 9
Find Your Fulfillment: Winning Habits

of Highly Fulfilled Leaders
Fulfillment is not a journey but a home-coming.
Introduction
It has been observed that though material comforts have increased expo-
nentially during the recent times, there has not been a corresponding
increase in happiness. The ideals and creeds of the twentieth century that
promised happiness and welfare for all have left us intellectually, spiritu-
ally and morally barren and bankrupt. We believe that the problems of
desire (selfishness), violence, and greed that plague the planet can only be
resolved at the level of human spirit. We have tried all other means unsuc-
cessfully. A deep internal spiritual transformation is required to transform
the world around us. One can certainly sense a cautionary urgency in
André Malraux (1901–1976) enigmatic prophecy that “the 21st century
will be spiritual or will not be.”1 This pithy statement can be interpreted at
many levels. At its bare minimum, it underscores the importance of spiri-
tual dimension in understanding and approaching various issues confront-
ing our institutions and organizations today. It also represents a clarion call
for all leaders to cultivate what is really important in life and leadership.
1
This is at best a paraphrase of Andre Malraux’s ‘le vingt-et-unieme siecle sera religieux ou
ne sera pas.’ The closest translation of which would be something like: ‘Religion will be the
measure of humanity in the 21st century.’ Retrieved March 25, 2016: https://www.quora.
com/unanswered/The-21st-century-will-be-spiritual-or-will-not-be-What-do-you-think-
about-this-enigmatic-prophesy-Andre-Malraux-1901-1976.

DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-55571-7_9
206 S. DHIMAN
If holistic leaders are to foster a sense of well-being and fulfillment

among their team members, they first have to demonstrate it in their own
life example. As an unfolding of the self-mastery process of holistic leaders,
this chapter presents strategies for becoming a fulfilled person. It shows
the path pertaining to transforming a leader’s search for success into a
discovery of profound meaning and significance. This journey to “signifi-
cance”, which is cultivated from within, is not about “acquiring” anything
new; it is a matter of “re-discovering” and “harnessing” what we already
have. This voyage of discovery of fulfillment begins with knowing one-
self and culminates in living one’s deepest values in the service of others.
Anchored in Self-knowledge, fulfillment becomes more a matter of inner
transformation than fixing outer conditions; more a matter of being than
having; more a matter of belonging than belongings.
The lives of great leaders such as Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela,
Martin Luther King, Jr., and Mahatma Gandhi bear testimony to the fact
that the greatest fulfillment in life comes from serving others. As a US
Marine who handed out food and blankets to tsunami victims in 2004
said, “I have been serving my country for 34 years and this is the first day
I’ve gotten any fulfillment out of it.”
This chapter primarily draws upon two timeless streams of thought,
Vedānta and Buddhist psychology. Building upon the twin Vedāntic prin-
ciples of Self-Knowledge and Selfless Service, as supported by Buddhist
psychology’s teachings on compassion and mindfulness, this chapter pres-
ents the seven habits of mind and heart as gifts to find lasting happiness
and fulfillment in everything we do: the gifts of pure motivation, grati-
tude, generosity, selfless service, harmlessness, acceptance and presence. A
discerning reader will notice that all of these gifts have an internal locus.
They have to be cultivated within before they can be manifested in our
outer life. They have to do with inner conviction, discipline and attitude.
Since we are completely free to manage our inner world, they provide
an abiding avenue to mastery that is entirely within our control. We can
transform our self only and only we can transform our self.
Seven Habits of Highly-Fulfilled Leaders

Fulfillment is not a place we go to; it is a place we all come from.
As human beings, we are caught in the constant dichotomy of being

and becoming. The world of becoming operates outside and is swarmed
with competition, comparison and conflict. It is a race with no visible
FIND YOUR FULFILLMENT: WINNING HABITS OF HIGHLY FULFILLED LEADERS 207
finish line. The world of being lies within us and is infused with Self-
knowledge, contentment and contemplation. It is already within our
reach and ever- attained. Struggle for becoming eventually leads to
unhappiness, anxiety, stress, strain and strife. Steady abidance in our
being is the road that verily leads to happiness, peace, serenity and ful-
fillment. This, then, is the real irony: We squander our precious human
life in the sole servitude of the economic grind called “making a living”
without really finding much time to live—a classic case of all “becom-
ing” and no “being”, and a sorry sacrifice of abiding ends for transient
means.
In this chapter, I will briefly present seven habits of highly-fulfilled lead-
ers to mark the transition from success to significance. Personal fulfill-
ment follows Self-knowledge and understanding one’s true purpose in
life. Once those two pillars are in place, certain mental habits foster and
help create a profoundly significant life.
These habits of head and heart are:
1. Pure motivation.
2. Gratitude.
3. Generosity.
4. Harmlessness.
5. Selfless-service.
6. Acceptance.
7. Mindfulness.
The following figure provides a bird’s eye view of these habits highlight-
ing their integral nature (Fig. 9.1):
Cultivating Pure Motivation

Desire the good of all and the universe will work with you.2
Desiring the good of all is a prelude to fulfillment. The path to a fulfilled

life starts with the pure motivation of service because it serves as a neces-
sary foundation for all other gifts. If our motivation is impure, we will not
really be able to practice gratitude, generosity, harmlessness, and selfless
service because our self-interest will always be lurking in the background.
2
Maurice Frydman, tr., I am That: Conversations with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj (Durham,
NC: The Acorn Press, 2nd American revised edition, 2012), 50.
208 S. DHIMAN
Fig. 9.1 Adapted from Seven Habits of Highly Fulfilled People framework, Satinder
Dhiman (2012/2014)
Visual design adapted from Conceptual framework of leadership, Manoj Chandra
Handa (2015)
The gift of pure motivation, therefore, acts as a salutary check on the

deeply ingrained human tendency toward self-centeredness. It requires
that before every action we should mentally check our motivation for the
action. Pure motivation signifies that, whatever we do, our every action
should be motivated by our desire to help, to benefit others, without
expecting anything in return. In other words, our intention to help others
should be inspired by the pure motivation of just helping others.
This gift builds on the great German philosopher Immanuel Kant’s
Second Categorical Imperative: “Conduct is ‘right’ if it treats others as
ends in themselves and not as means to an end”. If we are helping oth-

ers in order to benefit ourselves—as means to our end—then it becomes
a business “transaction”, and our motivation ceases to be pure. The key
to fulfillment lies in freeing oneself from the shackles of this fundamental
human disability. All great spiritual traditions of the world and findings of
positive psychology are in agreement on this vital point.
The moral quality of our actions is determined solely by the purity
of our intentions. As Schoch states, “Modern science tells us that from
the standpoint of our brain activity there is no difference between hitting
a person and merely thinking about the act. Our brain’s limbic system,
the part of our brain that is responsible for controlling motor function,
releases all the muscle energy that would be required to actually hit some-
one just by thinking about it. Our brain just cannot tell the difference
between thinking about hitting someone and actually doing it!”3 To this
observation, the Buddha would add that if we think about hitting some-
one, its effect on our happiness will be similar to the effect of our actually
hitting someone.
This works both ways, that is, for good intentions as well as for bad
ones. Suppose you are getting off the freeway and you see a poor person
asking for some spare change for lunch. As soon as you try to reach for
your wallet to help this person, the light turns green and you have to
go quickly, without being able to give this person any money. Gurdjieff,
a Russian mystic, comments that since consciousness is interconnected,
someone will stop by later and help this person. By your mere intention to
help this person, you have triggered a series of events in the universe that
would finally result in someone actually helping this person with money
for lunch. This is how powerful our intentions are.
Therefore our intentions matter the most. When we act from the pure
intention of helping someone, we are in fact helping the universe. The
wisdom traditions have known this secret all along, as expressed in the
following set of refrains.
You are what your deep, driving desire is.

As your desire is, so is your will.
As your will is, so is your deed.
As your deed is, so is your destiny.4
3
Manuel Schoch, Bitten by Black Snake: The Ancient Wisdom of Ashtavakra (Boulder, CO:
Sentient Publications, 2007), 3.
4
Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad 4.4.5. A popular rendition capturing a similar theme is: “Watch
your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your
210 S. DHIMAN
The Best Rationale for Practicing Pure Motivation

It is said that Karma never loses an address. The operation of the law of
Karma perhaps presents the best rationale for practicing the gift of pure
motivation. The moment we commit to any action, the universal law takes
over and processes it according to its motivation. In its simplistic form,
this dynamic is generally presented as the law of action and reaction—or
popularly as “what goes around comes around”—yet it is a highly-devel-
oped and subtle principle of self-purification designed to put the seeker
right on the path that leads to self-realization. When our actions are dedi-
cated to a higher principle or a higher being, instead of being motivated
by mere personal gain, they act as a purifying force to enable us to work
selflessly for the benefit of all beings. This, in turn, prepares the heart to
receive—and the mind to understand—the subtler spiritual teachings that
are beyond the ken of an acquisitive mind that is always busy with the
business of “what is in it for me”.
Indian philosophy takes the doctrine of Karma to its utmost develop-
ment where it is seen as a highly sophisticated spiritual practice called Karma
Yoga. Karma Yoga emphasizes right action and right attitude toward action.
Under this scheme, the propriety of an action is not measured according
to its capacity for giving material gain—which is incidental anyway—but
according to its capacity for harnessing inner growth. It is a matter of com-
mon experience that the attitude with which an action is performed can
change the moral quality of our action as well as the quality of our response
to the outcome of the action. Therefore, attitude is at least as important as
the action itself—all the more reason to practice pure motivation!
Pure Motivation: What Is In It for Me?!

The reader must have realized by now that the moment we ask the ques-
tion “what is in it for me”, our motivation ceases to be pure! As stated
earlier, the whole idea about the practice of pure motivation is to act with
the intention of helping others without expecting anything in return. This
goes against our perennial conditioning that all actions are motivated by
some desire to benefit the doer. Otherwise, why would someone act in
the first place?
actions; they become habits. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your charac-
ter; for it becomes your destiny.”—Author Unknown, widely attributable to Lao Tzu.
Many spiritual traditions of the world provide ample guidance in this

regard. By and large, they urge us to dedicate all our actions to a higher
being or principle. For example, the Bhagavad Gītā teaches the gospel of
selfless action in an oft-quoted verse as follows:
Your right is to work only,

But never to its fruits;
Let not the fruits of action be your motive,
Nor let your attachment be to inaction.5
The Gītā clarifies that the wise ones do all actions selflessly (niṣkāma
karma) for the unification (lokasaṃgraham6) and for the well-being of
all beings (sarvabhūtahite7) without anxiety about the outcome of their
actions. It further exhorts us to dedicate the results of our actions to the
divine. Even if we take the spiritual import of this teaching out of the pic-
ture, it remains a highly pragmatic teaching to guide our life.
Only those who have subdued their self-centered tendencies can be
truly kind. Otherwise, the ulterior self-motive will always be lurking behind
every act of overt kindness. And every step toward self-centeredness is a
step away from self-fulfillment. All overt and covert acts of ostentatious
kindness may provide us temporary self-satisfaction but they are unable
to sooth our spirit with deep fulfillment in the long run. Only when our
actions are infused with pure motivation are our feet securely planted on
the path that leads to lasting inner peace, joy and fulfillment.
Pursuing our self-interest in everything we do comes naturally to all of
us. It is hard-wired into our psyche due to millions of years of biological
struggle for self-preservation. To a point, it has served us well, albeit in the
biological sense. However, even when our self-preservation is not at stake,
it remains operative in its myriad, subtle ways. It is responsible for much of
humanity’s suffering through deception, greed, exploitation and war. In
nature, however, cooperation plays at least as important a role as competi-
tion in the so-called struggle for existence. It is possible to outgrow our
rampant tendency of self-centeredness by practicing the gifts of gratitude,
generosity, harmlessness and selfless service. Paradoxically, in sharing these
5
Bhagavad Gītā: 2.47.
6
Bhagavad Gītā: 3.20.
7
Bhagavad Gītā: 5.25, 12.4.
212 S. DHIMAN
gifts with others, we ultimately bestow them on ourselves. Pure motiva-

tion is the master key that opens the door to all other blessings.
Gratitude: Master Key to Living a Fulfilling Life!

Everything is a gift.
We think it is reward.
Gratitude is the art of wanting what we have. It is the harbinger of all other
virtues. The great Roman philosopher, Cicero, once said, “Gratitude is
not only the greatest of the virtues but the parent of all others”. Gratitude,
rightly practiced, can change our orientation toward life beyond belief. It
can help us become happier and more content. As you start recognizing
the positive that already exists in your life, you will notice an inner shift
reflected in your outer reality. You will find yourself bumping into abun-
dance in situations and places where you least expected it or where you
had previously felt a sense of lack in your life. This shift from scarcity to
abundance will invariably create more opportunities to be grateful and will
slowly bring a more positive orientation to life’s overall journey.
Gratitude is our resounding tribute to the universe for all its anony-
mous blessings. This is how we show our appreciation to existence for
all its gifts, its bounties and its blessings. These simple yet profound gifts
include the gift of being alive; the marvel of our sensory apparatus; the
miracle of the incoming and outgoing breath; the wonder of the blood
circulating in our veins; the refreshing joy of a good night’s sleep; the
amazing gift of beauty of a sunset, a rainbow, and the majestic ocean with
its ever-surging waves; the beguiling beauty of a Beethoven symphony or
a Bach fugue or a Mozart concerto, and so forth. By appreciating these
gifts through gratitude, we also open our hearts to receive more that is
still to come our way.
If we study the lives of truly fulfilled people, we find one quality they
all share above all: contentment. They do not seem to suffer from the
“more-ism” syndrome. Without contentment, the pursuit of happiness
becomes a wild-goose chase. No matter what and how much we have, we
still pine for more of the same or for the next best thing/person/experi-
ence, ad infinitum. And there will always be people who already have
more of what it is that we want to have—people who are more smarter,
slimmer, wealthier, prettier, healthier and merrier than us. And things are
infinitely improvable, always leaving us with the sense of deep discontent.
Gratitude is the first and last step on the journey to contentment. Actually
gratitude and contentment are two sides of the same coin. We do not have
to do anything to enter the Palace of Contentment: We just have to want
what we have. And when we are thankful … thanksgiving leads to having
more to be thankful for!
One may ask: what if I do not perceive anything to grateful for? How
should I be thankful especially when bad things happen to me? The fol-
lowing story from the Hasidic lore provides the clue:
Once Shmelke of Nikolsburg asked Dov Baer of Mezritch to explain the

Talmudic commandment that we should praise God for evil as much as we
praise him for good. Dov Baer said, “Go to the House of study and ask my
student Zussya”. Shmelke went to the House of Study and found Zussya:
emaciated, filty, clothed in rags. Shmelke asked, “How can we praise God
for evil as much as we praise him for good?” “I can’t tell you,” said Zussya,
“because nothing bad has ever happened to me.”8
Gratitude and Positive Psychology

While gratitude has been studied by philosophers and theologians for cen-
turies as a moral virtue or excellence of character, it was not until the
beginning of this century that psychology finally began to give gratitude
its deserved empirical due.9 According to Dr. Emmons, the world’s lead-
ing scientific expert on gratitude, gratitude is a “chosen attitude”. The
word gratitude is derived from the Latin root gratia, meaning grace, gra-
ciousness or gratefulness.10 Gratitude is an emotion, the core of which is
pleasant feelings about the benefits received. At the cornerstone of grati-
tude is the notion of the undeserved merit. The grateful person recognizes
that he or she did nothing to deserve the gift; it was freely bestowed.11 We
must be willing to recognize and acknowledge that we are the recipients
of an unearned benefit.
8
Cited in Stephen Mitchell, The Enlightened Mind (New York: Harper), 207.
9
Robert A. Emmons, “The Psychology of Gratitude: An Introduction”. In Robert A
Emmons and Michael E. McCullough, (ed.) The Psychology of Gratitude (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2004), 3–18.
10
Robert A Emmons and Michael E. McCullough, “Counting blessings versus burdens:
An experimental investigation of gratitude and subjective well-being in daily life,” Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 84(2), (2003): 377–389.
11
Robert A. Emmons, “The Psychology of Gratitude: An Introduction”, p. 5 (emphasis in
the original).
214 S. DHIMAN
If we commit ourselves to becoming grateful, we will see that with grat-

itude comes abundance. The pioneering research conducted and reviewed
by Dr. Emmons and his colleagues shows that gratitude improves emo-
tional and physical health as well as boosts relationships.
Keeping a Gratitude Journal

Recent research on the salutary effects of gratitude upholds the practice
of keeping a gratitude journal or appreciation journal on a daily basis.
Psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky found that taking the time consciously to
count their blessings once a week significantly increased subjects’ overall
satisfaction with life over a period of six weeks, whereas a control group
that did not keep a happiness journal showed no such gain.12 The idea is
to consciously notice abundance in our life.
Gratitude exercises are more than just mood boosters. Robert Emmons
found these exercises to “improve physical health, raise energy levels, and
for patients with neuromuscular diseases, relieve pain and fatigue”. He
further noted that “the ones who benefitted most tended to elaborate
more and have a wider span of things they are grateful for.”13
The recommendations for a gratitude journal are quite simple:14
1. Have a small notebook readily available by the bedside.

2. Write 5 things you are grateful for each night before going to bed.
These can be simple things such as family, friends, health, sunshine,
nighttime, and the like.
3. Throughout the day, take mental notes of happenings from the
standpoint of gratitude.
4. Start each day with a positive mindset, always taking note of simple
joys that life brings. Every simple act of life holds some joy.
5. Focus on the positive side of things, even in situations normally
considered negative. Remember, it can always be worse. This is the
best way to deal with the “slings and arrows of outrageous
fortune”.
12
Claudia Wallis, “The New Science of Happiness”, Time Magazine, January 9, 2005. Retrieved
March 31, 2016: http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1015832,00.html.
13
Ibid.
14
Adapted from Emmons and McCullough, “Counting blessings versus burdens”, Jason
Marsh, “Tips for Keeping a Gratitude Journal”. Retrieved March 20, 2016: http://greater-
good.berkeley.edu/article/item/tips_for_keeping_a_gratitude_journal.
The Science Behind Gratitude and Happiness
Happiness comes when we stop complaining about the troubles we have and
offer thanks for all the troubles we do not have.
A 2003 study conducted by Emmons and McCullough on the benefits of

counting blessings showed that a conscious focus on blessings may have
emotional and interpersonal benefits. The study found that keeping a daily
gratitude journal leads to an increased sense of well-being (positive affect
and life satisfaction), better sleep, more willingness to accept change,
greater optimism and a sense of connectedness to others, and even helped
to lower symptoms of pain.15 This is a part of the mounting evidence over
the last 30 years of research in positive psychology that focusing on the
positive emotions dramatically improves our overall sense of well-being.
Studies show that gratitude is one of the strongest contributors to hap-
piness, self-esteem, and meaning in life. Keeping a gratitude journal is
the simplest, most effective thing you can do to boost your happiness.
Emmons found that people who kept a consistent gratitude journal were
actually able to raise their level of happiness over time. Interestingly, he
also found that in contrast to people who wrote down 5 things they felt
stressed by, the people who wrote down their blessings they slept better,
had more energy, suffered less illness, exercised more, were more optimis-
tic about their future, and felt better about their lives.16 Emmons strongly
recommends keeping a gratitude journal “if you want to dramatically
improve the quality of your life.”17 This might come across as a tall claim,
but there is mounting research to support it.
A 2012 study involving 224 patients examined the possible mediating
role of sleep in the relationship of gratitude with depression and anxiety
in patients with chronic pain and found that higher levels of gratitude
were associated with better sleep, and with lower anxiety and depression.
The study showed that the gratitude had a direct effect on depression
(the more gratitude, the less depression) and an indirect effect on anxiety
15
Robert A Emmons and Michael E. McCullough, “Counting blessings versus burdens”,
386.
16
Ibid.
17
Robert A. Emmons, Thanks!: How the New Science of Gratitude Can Make You Happier
(New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2007), 35.
216 S. DHIMAN
(increased gratitude led to improved sleep, which led to lower anxiety).18

This goes to show that gratitude bring tangible gains for the health of our
body as well as for the peace of our mind.
It is also responsible for the creation of new learning pathways. In a
2008 study, subjects experiencing gratitude were studied under fMRI
(functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) and it was found that the “higher
individual frequency of gratitude was solely correlated with the hypothala-
mus in the whole brain analysis.”19 The ‘hypothalamus’ is the tiny part of
our brain that directly influences heart rate and blood pressure, appetite
and body weight, and sleep cycles. Gratitude also stimulates that part of
the brain which is associated with the release of neurotransmitter dopamine
that helps control the brain’s reward and pleasure centers and is also respon-
sible for the creation of new learning pathways.20 All these myriad benefits
accrue simply by counting our blessings.
In his book entitled The Upward Spiral, Alex Korb notes that expressing
gratitude also activates serotonin production, which improves our mood
and enables us to overcome bad habits. Krob recommends that, while
trying to be grateful, we should not compare ourselves to others. Studies
show that comparing yourself to the less fortunate does not have the same
benefits as gratitude.21 With regard to writing a gratitude journal, Krob
recommends that it should focus on what is right, positive and working,
even though things are not perfect. Even if the situation is 90 percent
what we do not want, we can still be grateful for the other 10 percent.
How does expressing gratitude harness happiness? First, it fosters the
savoring of positive life experiences by enabling people to extract maximum
possible enjoyment and satisfaction from their life circumstances. Secondly,
counting one’s blessings might directly counter the effects of hedonic
adaptation—the process by which our happiness level returns again and
18
Mei Yee Ng and Wing S Wong, “The Differential Effects of Gratitude and Sleep on
Psychological Distress in Patients with Chronic Pain”, Journal of Health Psychology, 18(2),
March 2012: 263–271. Also see Alex Korb, The Upward Spiral: Using Neuroscience to
Reverse the Course of Depression, One Small Change at a Time (New York: New Harbinger
Publications, 2015), 156.
19
Roland Zahn, Jorge Moll, Mirella Paiva, Griselda Garrido, Frank Krueger, Edward
Huey, and Jordan Grafman, “The Neural Basis of Human Social Values: Evidence from
Functional MRI”, Cereb Cortex, 19(2), February 2009: 276–283.
20
Arias-Carrión O and Pöppel E, “Dopamine, learning and reward-seeking behavior”, Act
Neurobiol Exp, 67(4), (2007): 481–488.
21
Korb, The Upward Spiral, 159.
again to its genetic set-point. Emmons recommends that we should culti-

vate a disposition of gratitude over time. One has to hone the grateful life
orientation constantly and the gratitude journal has to be kept consistently
over longer periods of time for this practice to take root and to provide
its abiding benefits. Aristotle was right: “We are what we repeatedly do.
Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”22 When gratitude becomes a
habit, we reap its benefits more by receiving more to be grateful for.
When we approach our life with a deep sense of gratitude, it turns into
a privilege and ceases to be a problem or a burden. Similarly, when we
recognize that the whole universe of sight and sound manifests itself as
soon as we open our eyes in the morning, we realize how privileged our
position happens to be; our heart is overwhelmed with untold gratitude.
Finally, at the interpersonal level, when we realize that our life depends
entirely upon the kindness of others, our heart wells up with the expres-
sion of gratitude and goodwill for everyone and everything.
How lucky we are to have this precious human life full of freedom and
opportunity, freedom to practice goodness and opportunity to have access
to the teachings on Self-knowledge and personal transformation. Let us
reflect and be grateful about the rarity of being in a place and time and
circumstance in which we are presented with real opportunities of devel-
oping self-wisdom and compassion.
Generosity: Magic Pill for Fulfillment
“For it is in giving that we receive.”—ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI
Howsoever paradoxical it might seem, life experience and research bears

out the math behind St. Francis’s wisdom: to give is to get. A gener-
ous heart is doubly blessed in the sense that it bestows goodwill on both
the receiver and the giver. Researchers in the field of positive psychology
note that if there is a magic pill for happiness and longevity, we might
have found it. Countless studies have found that the benefits of practicing
generosity are substantial: lower blood pressure, lower risk of dementia,
less anxiety and depression, reduced cardiovascular risk and overall greater
22
Actually, this is not an exact quote but a paraphrase of Aristotle’s thoughts by the great
American Pulitzer prize winner writer, Will Durant. See Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy:
The Lives and Opinions of the World’s Greatest Philosophers (1926) (New York: Simon &
Schuster/Pocket Books, 1991), 76.
218 S. DHIMAN
happiness. Research shows that when people think about helping others,
they activate a part of the brain called the mesolimbic pathway, which is
responsible for feelings of gratification.23
The gift of generosity flows directly from the gift of gratitude. Through
this gift we share our bounties and blessings with others as a direct expres-
sion of our gratitude toward them as well as toward the universe. Churchill
is reported to have said, “We make a living by what we get, but we make a
life by what we give”. Ever wonder why it is so fulfilling to share our gifts
with others and to help others? Recent studies show practicing generos-
ity is, in fact, good for us. When we act generously toward someone, it
leads to deep, lasting fulfillment in an unexpected way. There is nothing
mysterious about it. It is a common experience of everyone. But we have
to check our motivation here—is it pure, or are we masking an ulterior
motive with the guise of generosity?
In their groundbreaking study about the what, how, and why of gener-
osity, Patricia Snell Herzog and Heather E. Price, sociologists who focus
on philanthropy, describe generosity as follows: Generosity is giving good
things to others freely and abundantly.
Generous behaviors are intended to enhance the well-being of others.
However, the giver can benefit, which distinguishes generosity from
“pure” altruism.
Generosity can be actualized through various forms of giving.24
Combining a nationally representative survey of adult Americans with
in-depth interviews and case studies, these authors found that the most
prominent forms of giving are: giving money (donations to charities),
giving time (volunteering), and giving action (taking political action for
charitable purposes).
Generosity is a condition of the heart. The gift of generosity is the
best antidote to the inveterate human tendencies of acquisitiveness and
the resultant greed. It is motivated by a deep conviction that it is noble
to give and to share. It flows directly from the gift of gratitude. When we
reflect on our life and recount what we have and what we have been given,
we realize how the generosity of our parents, relatives, teachers, friends,
neighbors and society at large has empowered and enriched our life. Our
heart wells up with untold gratitude at the very thought of it and we feel
23
Terri Yablonsky Stat, “Be generous: It’s a simple way to stay healthier”, Chicago Tribune,
August 6, 2015. Retrieved March 31, 2016: http://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/
health/sc-hlth-0812-joy-of-giving-20150806-story.html.
24
Patricia Snell Herzog and Heather E. Price, American Generosity Who Gives and Why
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), 11 (emphasis in the original).
inspired to return the favor. Through the gift of generosity, we get to

share our abundance with others as a direct expression of our gratitude.
Quite simply, the gift of generosity signifies giving more than we get, for
the more we give the more we grow in fulfillment.
It is not necessary to have a lot to spare in order to practice generosity.
As pointed out earlier, it is more a condition of the heart that wants to
share regardless of one’s means or ability to give. More often than not,
those who have less to spare are observed to be keener to share. It is all
about the sheer joy of giving.
The Buddha speaks of three kinds of generosity or giving:
(a) Stingy giving, which is giving something you were going to throw
out anyhow.
(b) Ordinary giving, which is giving something of value, but still
expecting a return of some kind.
(c) Kingly giving, which is giving what is most precious to you with no
expectation of any kind of return—no favors or any particular
response. It is just something that is given in a completely open-
handed way.25
Generosity Boosts Happiness

There is tremendous happiness in making others happy despite our own
situations. Research in positive psychology reveals that lasting happiness
comes from making others happy. A life devoted to making only one’s own
wishes come true makes a very small, insignificant package. According to
the findings of positive psychology, giving boosts happiness. Generosity,
it seems, brings more happiness than selfish indulgence. Giving just a few
dollars or a few minutes to someone else may help you live longer, hap-
pier and healthier. LiveScience Managing Editor, Jeanna Bryner, reported
on this research, “Statistical analyses revealed personal spending had no
link with a person’s happiness, while spending on others and charity was
significantly related to a boost in happiness.”26 While earning money

might or might not make you happy, spending it indeed can. However,
there is one caveat: you must spend the money on others, not on yourself.
25
Compilations from personal interviews with Buddhist teachers: Bhikkhu Bodhi,
Thanissaro Bhikkhu, and Ajahn Amaro. Unpublished Interviews Transcripts, 2009–2011.
26
Jeanna Bryner, “Key to Happiness: Give Away Money,” Live Science, March 19, 2008.
Retrieved March 31, 2016: http://www.livescience.com/2376-key-happiness-give-money.
html.
220 S. DHIMAN
The alchemy of giving seems to work like this: when we share some-
thing with others, the joy of sharing takes our attention away from our
preoccupation with little worries and petty annoyances. Too much self-
focus and self-brooding can lead to constriction of spirit. Often, the best
way to transcend our worries is to help others overcome their worries.
A young man once approached a Zen master with this question: “I feel
very discouraged, what should I do?” The Zen master replied, “Encourage
others who are discouraged”. When we encourage others, we see our pos-
sibilities instead of being mired by our worries. This is no mere glib cli-
ché, it is backed by science. As Stephen G. Post, founding director of the
Center for Medical Humanities, Compassionate Care, and Bioethics at
Stony Brook University School of Medicine in New York, states: “Many
studies show that one of the best ways to deal with the hardships in life
is not to just center on yourself but to take the opportunity to engage in
simple acts of kindness.”27 When we share with others words of hope and
encouragement, they also uplift our spirits. It has been rightly said that
“shared grief is half the sorrow, but happiness when shared, is redoubled”.
As the following wisdom tale amply demonstrates, true generosity is
born of a deep understanding about the true means and ends of life.
Preciousness Within and Preciousness Without

A wise woman who was traveling in the mountains found a precious stone
in a stream. The next day she met another traveler who was hungry and the
wise woman opened her bag to share her food. The hungry traveler saw the
precious stone and asked the woman to give it to him. She did so without
hesitation.
The traveler left, rejoicing for his good fortune. He knew the stone was
worth enough to give him security for a lifetime. But a few days later he
came back to return the stone to the wise woman. “I’ve been thinking”, he
said, “I know how valuable the stone is, but I give it back in the hope that
you can give me something even more precious: Give me what you have
within you that enabled you to give me the stone.”28
This is a wonderful story indeed with multiple layers of deep meaning.

It tells us that the wise woman had something in her—a deeper under-
standing—that enabled her to part with what was considered precious in
27
Terri Yablonsky Stat, “Be generous”.
28
A traditional teaching tale. Author unknown.
the worldly sense. At best, the message is symbolic: Unless we have that
something precious inside us, we are not able to share precious things
outwardly!
The story also portrays that the wisdom of the wise lies in under-
standing the impermanence and precariousness of human valuables and
structures. We are told that we cannot take anything with us. But we can
certainly leave something behind. Only a life guided by a wise mind and a
generous heart is a life capable of leaving something worthwhile behind.
When the Buddha was asked to describe the hallmarks of an awakened
person, he simply said: “Cool mind and a warm heart!”29 By cultivating a
cool mind and a warm heart, we may discover a genuine way to pass on
our gifts to others.
This is then the ultimate paradox: By giving we receive, by grasping we
lose. Generosity surely helps the recipient; it also bestows health, happi-
ness and meaning upon the giver.
Harmlessness: Our Best Gift to the Universe
If you truly loved yourself, you could never hurt another.—The Buddha
The gift of harmlessness is borne out of our understanding of the previ-

ous two gifts, the gift of pure motivation and gift of gratitude. When all of
our actions are inspired by pure motivation and we are mindful of our great
gratitude for everything and for everyone, we gently come upon the gift of
relating to all existence in a harmless way. At its very bare minimum, this
gift means not causing any physical harm to anything that exists. The gift
of harmlessness, however, goes much deeper than non-harming just in the
physical sense. In its deeper meaning, it represents cultivating deep compas-
sion, and honoring and celebrating the preciousness of life. As Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr. once said, “At the center of non-violence stands the principle
of love.”30 In essence, harmlessness signifies non-harming by thought, word
and deed. However, it must start with us, one person at a time. Harmlessness,
like charity, also begins at home. The Dalai Lama said, “The atmosphere
29
This is at best a paraphrase of the Buddha’s famous teachings about cultivating wisdom
within and compassion without. Like many sayings attributable to the Buddha, these may not
after all be his exact words.
30
The Martin Luther King, Jr. Papers Project: “Nonviolence and Racial Justice”. Retrieved
March 25, 2016: https://swap.stanford.edu/20141218225500/http://mlk-kpp01.stan-
ford.edu/primarydocuments/Vol4/6-Feb-1957_NonviolenceAndRacialJustice.pdf.
222 S. DHIMAN
of peace must first be created within ourselves then gradually expanded to

include our families, our communities and ultimately the whole planet.”31
Such is the compassion of a wise person: it envelops the whole universe.
The gift of harmlessness represents the perfect embodiment of the
Golden Rule and can serve as a sound foundation to any ethical and spiri-
tual practice. When we understand that a harm done to others is essentially
a harm done to ourselves—since there are no others—we have understood
the real import of harmlessness. Rabindranath Tagore, India’s poet
Laureate, put is so well, “He alone knows Truth who realizes in his own
soul those of others, and in the soul of others, his own.”32 Realization of
oneness is both the means and the end of compassion.
It is true that the very process of living involves a certain amount of vio-
lence and that it is perhaps not possible to eliminate violence completely.
What we have to do is to seek to minimize its extent as much as possible.
Only then we can truly claim our heritage as evolved beings. Thomas
Edison put it well: “Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the
goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are
still savages.”33
Nonviolence is a Supreme Virtue

The precept of nonviolence is present in every religion, but in Jainism,
Buddhism, and Hinduism its practice is cultivated into a science of mind
and an art of living. Nonviolence as a religious principle represents belief
in the oneness and, therefore, sacredness of all life. The ultimate purpose
of practicing nonviolence is to lessen the overall suffering in the world
31
Dalai Lama, address given in San Jose, Costa Rica, Buddhist Peace Fellowship Newsletter
(Fall 1989).
32
As quoted in Louis Fry and Mark Kriger, “Towards a theory of being-centered leader-
ship: Multiple levels of being as context for effective leadership,” Human Relations, 62(11),
(2009): 1667–1696.
India’s poet Laureate is drawing upon the wisdom of the Bhagavad Gītā, 6.29:
sarvabhūtastham ātmānaṃ sarvabhūtāni cātmani /
̄ ate yogayuktātmā sarvatra samadarśanaḥ //
ikṣ
Established in the oneness with Totality,
the Illumined sage sees with equanimity
the Self in all beings, and all beings in the Self..
33
As quoted in Michael J. Gelb, Sarah Miller Caldicott, Innovate Like Edison: The Five-
Step System for Breakthrough Business Success (New York: Dutton/Penguin Group Inc.,
2007), 67.
and foster peace, amity and harmony. Nonviolence presents an integral

approach to human interaction in which every thought and every inten-
tion matters. It signifies noninjury in thought, word and deed.
Nonviolence in deed can be expressed as a principle to “not kill any liv-
ing being”. This principle is expressed in the Hindu dictum: “Nonviolence
is the supreme virtue” (ahiṁ sā parmodharma). In Jainism and Buddhism,
the importance of nonviolence is emphasized significantly as their key
defining spiritual value. The Buddha, for example, denounced all forms of
violence and preached that loving kindness should be extended not only to
humans, but to all animals. Nonviolence in speech or verbal nonviolence
is practiced by eschewing words that are harsh, insulting, disempowering,
demeaning, untrue and unkind. Most violence starts at the mental level
and slowly finds expression at the verbal level. The Bhagavad Gītā regards
verbal discipline (tapas) to be most important and explains that speaking
words that are truthful, agreeable, beneficial and non-agitating constitute
such discipline (anudvegakaraṃ vākyaṃ satyaṃ priyahitaṃ: 17.15).
It is said that the Greek philosopher, Socrates, had a triple test for ver-
bal discipline: Before you speak, let your words pass through three gates:
1. Is it true? 2. Is it necessary? 3. Is it kind? Applying Socrates’s triple-filter
test of truth, goodness and usefulness to our own speech in workplace
interactions can save lot of anger and heartburn and help foster an envi-
ronment of mutual respect and affirmation. Nonviolence in thought is
about not entertaining violent thoughts about others. All thoughts that
breed anger, hatred, jealousy, divisiveness, aggression, conflict or self-
conceit are myriad forms of violence in thought. Harboring thoughts that
others are bad or evil or regarding others as bad or evil is another form
of violence in thought which is perhaps the most destructive of all. What
makes nonviolence in thought more destructive is the fact that while there
are limits to causing physical violence to others, nonviolence in thought
knows no bounds.
Psychology of Violence
There are four primary reasons that prod people to violence. The first reason
seems to be ignorance. The person causing the harm is not aware that his or
her actions are causing harm to others. Most mental harm takes place when
the person supposedly causing such harm is ignorant of the real impact of his
or her actions. This brings us to the second cause of violence, insensitivity.
Most religious violence emanates from a certain lack of sensitivity toward
224 S. DHIMAN
other people’s belief systems. Developing empathy and understanding can

go a long in addressing such violence. The third reason for violence is anger,
and the fourth is hatred; unaddressed anger leads to hatred. Both anger and
hatred are responsible for most of the harm done in the world. Cultivating
compassion seems to be the best antidote to violence borne of anger and
hatred.
If we carefully look at the psychology behind these four causes of vio-
lence, we discover that they all emanate from a common factor of self-
centeredness. It is a direct cause of insensitivity toward others and the
operative cause of anger leading to hatred. Developing patience, under-
standing, kindness, forgiveness and compassion can go a long way in deal-
ing with violence at the personal as well as global level. However, it must
be noted that nonviolence is not a cover for cowardice. Gandhi, the great
apostle of nonviolence, once said “where there is only a choice between
cowardice and violence, I would advise violence.”34
Help Ever—Hurt Never

The great Indian epic, Mahābhārata, contains 100,000 verses and is con-
sidered to be the world’s longest epic poem (it is more than seven times
the combined size of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey).35 Its claim to greatness,
however, does not rest only on its quantity but also in the quality of its
message. It has been rightly said, “Whatever is here, on Law, on Profit,
on Pleasure, and on Salvation, is found elsewhere. But what is not here is
nowhere else.”36 The Bhagavad Gītā, the world’s loftiest spiritual poem,
forms a part of this epic.
The legendary author of this epic, Veda Vyāsa, presents all conceiv-
able human tendencies in the form of certain characters. When someone
asked him to select the most important single verse that represented the
essence of this work, he is reported to have stated, “The gist of a million
treatises is expressed in half a verse: The highest merit is helping others;
34
Young India (August 11, 1920), as quoted in Joan V. Bondurant, Conquest of
Violence: The Gandhian Philosophy of Conflict (New Jersey: Princeton University Press,
1958/1988), 28.
35
See: Krishna Maheshwari, Mahabharata, Hindupedia, retrieved March 31, 2016,
http://www.hindupedia.com/en/Mahabharata#cite_note-0.
36
J. A. B. van Buitenen, trans., The Mahabharata, Volume 1: Book 1: The Book of the
Beginning (Chicago, IL: University Of Chicago Press, 1980), 130.
the highest wrongdoing is hurting others.”37 It is important to reflect

why the learned author of this great work singled out hurting others as
the highest possible spiritual demerit. Since we are inseparably one with
the rest of existence, to hurt others is to hurt ourselves. That is why
sages of humanity have always insisted on helping others, because they
understood that, essentially, there are no others, and all life is inseparably
interlinked and interconnected.
Why is this simple existential fact not obvious to everyone? Why are we
not naturally able to sense it and warm up to this view of reality? Perhaps
in the perennial fight for self-preservation, this type of thinking does not
further any evolutionary agenda. Perhaps by some sort of optical illu-
sion, we are not able to see beyond the façade of self-centered, separately
existing objects vying for their survival and flourishing. This leads to self-
defeating strategies that disempower at best and seriously impinge upon
the mutual preservation of everyone’s interest, the mutual maintenance of
the universe. Albert Einstein captures the issue succinctly and suggests a
solution to come out of this prison of separateness, as follows:
A human being is part of a whole called by us “Universe”, a part limited

in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as
something separated from the rest … a kind of optical delusion of con-
sciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our per-
sonal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must
be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to
embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.38
David Bohm, Einstein’s colleague and successor at Princeton, believed that

the quantum theory reveals the “unbroken wholeness of the universe.”39
According to Bohm, this is the natural state of the human world—separa-
tion without separateness.
37 “Shloka-ardhena pravakshyaami yad-uktam grantha-kotibhih;Paropakaraya pun-

yaya, papaya para peedanam.”
(The gist of a million treatise expressed in half a verse: Highest merit is helping others;
highest wrongdoing is hurting others.)
38
From a compilation of Einstein quotes published from multiple online sources and
credited to Kevin Harris, 1995.
39
See David Bohm, Wholeness and the Implicate Order (London: Routledge Classics,
2002). For general background, see also Ken Wilber, Ed., Quantum Questions: Mystical
Writings of World’s Great Physicists (Boston: Shambhala, 1984).
226 S. DHIMAN
However, we continue to delight in differences and fail to see that which

is essentially the same in all of us. It is abundantly evident that the divisions
of race, religion, color, creed and culture have contributed to the most
heinous horrors of humankind. This will continue unabated, as history tes-
tifies, until we see the tyranny of our disempowering stance. Let’s seek and
share the underlying truth of mutuality that does not lead to unnatural
differences and disharmony. That is the truth of our identity behind diver-
sity—the essential oneness of all that exists. By seeking the truth that is
equally good to all, we will be able to revere all life and truly redeem our
human existence. Only then can we ensure equally the happiness and wel-
fare of all beings. That will be our true gift of harmlessness to the universe.
Our planet is plagued by mindless exploitation, rampant destruction,
dogged self-centeredness and unbridled greed that has been manifested
in terrorism, war and violence. If there is one thing that can save our
species from the mad self-destruction of war and violence, it is the gift of
harmlessness.
Gift of Selfless Service: The Highest

Spiritual Principle
The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.—Gandhi
As noted at various points in this book, selfless service is the royal road to
fulfillment. This gift flows naturally from the gift of gratitude and the gift
of generosity. When we truly understand the interconnectedness of all life,
we devote ourselves to finding joy in selfless service. It has been observed
that life is like the game of tennis; in order to win, we have to be good
at service. Our desire to serve must be pure; it should emanate from the
sheer joy of service without expecting any reward, self-recognition or self-
gratification. When service emanates from a self-centered motive, it ceases
to be service and becomes a business transaction.
Under the guise of the Darwinian struggle for survival, we frequently
discern that self-interest is placed before service in the relentless race to
accumulate wealth, possessions, power and fame—all geared entirely
toward personal benefit alone. This unbridled pursuit of self-gratification
inevitably leads to excessive greed, competition and materialism that reign
supreme in the world today. As an antidote to rampant self-centeredness,
selfless service is absolutely paramount, individually and collectively, with-
out which there can be no real progress or harmony in society.
The present world is plagued by undue self-centeredness and ram-

pant devotion to pursuing narrow selfish ends, frequently at the cost of
others. Until we move away from this extreme preoccupation with our
self, we will remain strangers to the deeper avenues of fulfillment. The
urge to serve others is an innate need vitally tied to our happiness. Albert
Schweitzer, the philosopher, physician, and Nobel Peace Prize winner,
expressed so eloquently, “I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one
thing I know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those
who have sought and found how to serve.”
Selfless service to others can be offered in numerous ways, ranging
from financial assistance to physical help. Real self-growth depends upon
transcending the ego, ennobling the spirit and revering all life, expressed
in actions guided by selfless service without any thought or expectation of
reward whatsoever—always working selflessly in oneness of spirit for the
common good. In fine, service is a way of being according to which one
approaches life as an offering rather than viewing it from the standpoint
of entitlement.
The lives of moral leaders, such as Mahatma Gandhi and Mother Teresa,
bear ample testimony to the power of selfless service. Gandhi devoted all
his life to serving his country and its people and found deepest fulfillment
through serving. His life serves as a beacon of light to all humanity. Likewise,
Mother Teresa was a prime example of selfless service. Her entire life revolved
around helping others in need—the poorest of the poor. As a result, she
experienced a great deal of affection and self-fulfillment in her life.
True Service: 11 Principles

1. True service happens when the finite ego gets “dissolved”.
2. In true service, the giver, not the receiver, is humbled.
3. Only those truly serve selflessly, who have realized in themselves
the “Self” of “all”.
4. Humble, selfless service is the most potent means to
Self-Realization.
5. Selflessness is the best thing you can do for yourself! It is also the
best gift you can offer to the universe.
6. Those who have greater understanding, have greater responsibility
to serve.
7. When you get some opportunity to serve, know that “Existence”
is very pleased with you.
228 S. DHIMAN
8. When you find yourself constantly amidst opportunities to serve,

consider yourself to be especially fortunate.
9. In fact, there are no sacrifices; only opportunities to serve!
10.
In true service, the server has disappeared; only the service
remains.
11. And when your every act has spontaneously become an “offering”
to the “Supreme”, know that you have arrived at a path that natu-
rally leads to inner peace, virtue and liberation.
Selfless Service and Servant Leadership

The gift of selfless service has a great application in the realm of leadership.
First and foremost, leadership is a responsibility—a call to serve—and not
a position to wield power or influence. The power that is bestowed upon
the leader by the followers is of the nature of trust and good faith. In other
words, it is a fiduciary relationship. Viewed in this manner, the only rea-
son a leader exists is to enable and empower the followers. Great leaders
approach their work as a contribution, as a service, without any sense of
entitlement whatsoever.
Practicing servant leadership is deceptively simple: one is led by the
deep desire to serve others. It is also about putting others’ interest first.
History is a testimony to the fact that true leaders, above all, are servant
leaders. There is no human ideal higher than the gift of selfless service. For
in serving others, we find our true joy and fulfillment.
Gift of Total Acceptance:

Happiness can exist only in acceptance.—George Orwell
True acceptance is borne out of understanding life’s profound reality and

entails surrendering to its wisdom. We cannot find true happiness with-
out accepting life, root, branch and all. Acceptance is about realizing our
proper place in the universe—our relative existence with all its vulnerabil-
ity, precariousness and transience. Suzuki Roshi, a remarkable Soto Zen
master, said it well: “Without accepting the fact that everything changes,
we cannot find perfect composure. But unfortunately, although it is true,
it is difficult for us to accept it. Because we cannot accept the truth of
transiency, we suffer.”40
Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind (New York: John Weatherhill, 1970), 122.
40
It is important to remember that the gift of total acceptance, more

often than not, pertains to accepting ourselves and others as such so as
to bring peace and harmony in human relationships. A careful reflection
on the human plight reveals that two things that most spoil our peace
and harmony are self-regret and blame for others. We keep on blaming
ourselves for something we did not do that we could have or should have
done. Likewise, we tend to blame others for something they should have
or could have done for us. As long as we remain trapped in the cocoon of
resentment and blame, there is no possibility of any real peace and hap-
piness. So the real secret of bringing true peace and harmony in our rela-
tionship is just this: total acceptance—accepting ourselves as we are and
accepting others as they are.
Strangely enough, accepting ourselves as we are may be the hardest
part of the equation. As long as there is any aspiration to become some-
thing different than what we are, life remains a struggle. Krishnamurti
(1895–1986), a modern sage, once surprised his audience by saying,
“Let me tell you my secret: I do not compare and I do not mind what
happens.”41 In the short space of a sentence, Krishnamurti has provided
the secret to the art and science of fulfillment: non-comparison and accep-
tance of what is. It is important to note that acceptance does not mean
resignation: to “accept” the way things are, is to stop resisting reality; or
wishing it to be otherwise.
By relinquishing the need to be different from what we are, we step
out of the cycle of becoming and enter into the peaceful abode of being,
which is always available to us in the present. Being ourselves involves no
struggle; it is the most easy and natural thing in life and requires no time.
It is always available to us right here and now, effortlessly, through the
medium of acceptance.
Total Acceptance: Letting Things Be!

Total acceptance also means letting things be or, as Chinese wisdom puts
it, not legging the snake. As the story goes, participants in a painting com-
petition were asked to paint a snake. One participant finished his painting
rather quickly and as he looked around, he realized that everyone else was
still busy with their paintings. Wondering if he had left something out, he
started drawing legs under the snake without realizing that a snake has no
41
Oliver Burkeman, “J. Krishnamurti: The Guru who didn’t believe in Gurus”, The
Guardian, August 10, 2013. Retrieved March 24, 2016: http://www.theguardian.com/
lifeandstyle/2013/aug/10/stop-minding-psychology-oliver-burkeman.
230 S. DHIMAN
legs! The Chinese wisdom tradition, called Taoism, refers to this principle
as wu-wei—non-doing—which means doing nothing unnaturally or force-
fully. It is about refraining from an undue interference with the natural
flow of things. In his book Zen in the Art of Archery, Eugen Herrigel was
gently reprimanded by his Zen master for trying to force the results too
willfully, thusly: “What stands in your way is that you have a much too
much willful will. You think that what you do not do yourself does not
happen.”42
The gift of total acceptance also serves as the best antidote to impa-
tience. Sometimes, in our bid to hasten the process of life, we end up hurt-
ing it permanently, not unlike the farmer who, in order to help the plants
grow faster, ended up killing them by trying to pull them up a bit. As they
say in Zen, “Don’t push the river.”
The gift of total acceptance means accepting ourselves as we are and
accepting others as they are. By relinquishing our constant need to be dif-
ferent from what we are, we step out of the cycle of becoming and enter
into the peaceful abode of being that is always available to us in the pres-
ent. Yet total acceptance means much more than resigning ourselves to
life’s inevitabilities, which can leave us trapped in a cocoon of resentment
and blame, with no possibility of any real peace and happiness; rather, total
acceptance fosters composure, courage, and discernment—three virtues
that accompany fulfillment and pave the road to Self-knowledge.
Acceptance Out of Helplessness or Understanding

Acceptance can happen in one of two ways: acceptance due to utter help-
lessness in the wake of the inevitable or acceptance borne out of deep
understanding about life as it really is. In the first case, there is a sense
of helplessness or disillusionment that creates inner resistance and acts
as a constant drain on our energies. This is called unhealthy acceptance
because there is an unaddressed, nagging sense of victimization, injustice,
or even hatred in the face of the inevitable.
Acceptance of what has happened, said William James, the great psy-
chologist, is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfor-
tune. It is possible only when there is acceptance without resistance or
expectation. It is a common fact of life that we soon adapt to whatever
experience life brings to us. Psychologists call this tendency of becoming
42
Eugen Herrigel, Zen in the Art of Archery (New York: Vintage, 1999), 31.
accustomed to our experiences “hedonic adaptation”. According to this

theory, we tend to maintain a relatively stable level of happiness despite
major positive or negative events.43
The second type of acceptance is the result of clear understanding of
the real nature of our existence and its props—finite, precarious and time-
bound. The idea is not just growing accustomed to life conditions, help-
lessly, but accepting their inevitability without preference or denial. This is
called happy acceptance. It has a transformative power that transmutes the
misfortunes into opportunities of self-growth and development. It is per-
haps this type of acceptance that Katherine Mansfield (1888–1923) had
in mind when she observed that “everything in life that we really accept
undergoes a change.” The most important point to remember here is that,
with some reflection, the first type of acceptance can be transformed into
the second type of acceptance. However, it is not always the case that pain
in our life gives way to understanding; but when it does happen, the inner
resistance is replaced by life-affirming wisdom.
Healthy acceptance is beautifully expressed in what is known as the “Serenity

Prayer”:
O Lord…
Grant me the serenity to accept what I cannot change,
Grant me the courage to change what I can change; and
Grant me the wisdom to know the difference.
The prayer bestows the three virtues of acceptance, courage and discern-
ment: equanimity of mind to accept what cannot be changed, courage to
transform what can be changed and the discerning wisdom to know what
can or cannot be changed in life.
Healthy acceptance is based on the understanding that somehow what-
ever happens, happens for good and that things have a way of working out
in the end. There may be an invisible cosmic hand guiding the course of
our destiny and choreographing the events of our life. The Serenity Prayer
represents a healthy form of acceptance. Composure, courage, and dis-
cernment are three virtues that accompany fulfillment and pave the road
to Self-knowledge. Healthy acceptance is borne out of understanding
life’s profound reality and entails surrendering to its unfolding wisdom. It
43
Stephanie Rosenbloom, “But Will It Make You Happy?”, New York Times, August 7,
2010.
232 S. DHIMAN
is about realizing our proper place in the universe—accepting our relative

existence with all its vulnerability, precariousness and transience. As long
as we are not happy with what is, and pine for what is not, the supreme joy
of contentment will elude us.
Presence: Be Wherever You are

With All Your Mind!
“Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet.”44
—THICH NHAT HANH
It is said that the Buddha’s walking was not any different from his sitting.
Likewise, Thich Nhat Hanh is illustrating the high art of living mindfully
in every part of our life. The gift of presence is the culminating gift in
the sense that it facilitates the practice of all other gifts by reminding us
to remain alert from moment to moment. Only when we are awake to
our inner and outer reality can we ensure the observance of the gifts of
pure motivation, gratitude, generosity, harmlessness, selfless service, and
total acceptance. Practices such as mindfulness and silence can bring about
greater awareness in everything we do and enable us to share the gift of
our presence. This section provides a brief overview of the essential ele-
ments of Buddhist psychology as a mental discipline, the Buddhist practice
of mindfulness as it is found in the earliest Buddhist writings.
Right mindfulness, right concentration, and right effort constitute
Buddhist mental discipline. The mind is trained, disciplined and developed
through these three practices, which aim at cleansing the mind of impuri-
ties and disturbances, such as lustful desires, hatred, ill-will, indolence,
worries and restlessness, skeptical doubts, and cultivating such qualities as
concentration, awareness, intelligence, will, energy, the analytical faculty,
confidence, joy and tranquility; leading finally to the attainment of the
highest wisdom which sees things as they are, and realizes the Ultimate
Truth, Nirvana.45
Research shows that meditation is not just a feel good activity, it actu-
ally rewires our brain. A recent study at Harvard shows that meditation
44
Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life (New
York: Bantam, 1992), 28.
45
Walpola Rahula, What the Buddha Taught. Rev. and exp. ed. (New York: Grove Press,
1974), 68.
literally rebuilds our brain’s gray matter in 8 weeks. This study found that
an average of 27 minutes of a daily practice of mindfulness exercises results
in a significant boost in gray matter density, regulates anxiety and stress
responses and improves overall well-being and quality of life.46
How does Buddhist philosophy and psychology help us attain lasting
happiness and fulfillment? As must be evident by now, Buddhism is more
a way of life, a philosophy, than a religion in the traditional sense. It is a
“do-it-yourself psychology” by way of “to whom it may concern”. The
Buddhist viewpoint aims at achieving abiding happiness through mind
training, development and control, irrespective of our external circum-
stances. Through the wisdom of seeing things as they are, it helps us in the
cultivation of unconditional loving kindness toward all existence.
A sign in Las Vegas says, “In order to win, you have to be present.”
Likewise, in order to be successful at the game of life, we have to be
alertly present in everything we do. Being present a special faculty called
self-awareness. In the previous chapters, we have noted the role of self-
awareness in various ways, including its primacy in emotional intelligence.
No matter how exalted our experience is, if we are not present to it, it is
virtually lost to us for all intents and purposes. In this sense at least, the gift
of presence is truly primal to all our emotions, thoughts, and experiences.
Quite simply, by being alertly present in the now, we savor life’s bounties
and benedictions to the fullest extent.
If we observe our mind we discover that it hops from past to future
and from future to past, endlessly. It rarely, if ever, dwells in the present.
This phenomenon can be called, half-jokingly, the Law of Elsewhere: our
mind always likes to be elsewhere! Interestingly, “now” is rightly called
“present”—it truly is a “gift” from gods. As with our other gifts of fulfill-
ment, we must make a habit of this one by learning to be alertly present
in the present moment—to be keenly attuned to the current reality. It is
a strange realization that even past and future can only be experienced
in the now, the eternal present moment. The ability to be in the present
moment, from moment to moment, is the master key to enjoy the small
46
Harvard Unveils MRI Study Proving Meditation Literally Rebuilds the Brain’s Gray
Matter in 8 Weeks, Feelguide, November 19, 2014, Health, Spirituality, the Human Brain.
Retrieved March 31, 2016: http://www.feelguide.com/2014/11/19/harvard-unveils-
mri-study-proving-meditation-literally-rebuilds-the-brains-gray-matter-in-8-weeks/. Also
see Sue McGreevey, “Eight weeks to a better brain; Meditation study shows changes associ-
ated with awareness, stress”, Harvard Gazette, January 21, 2011. Retrieved March 31,
2016: http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2011/01/eight-weeks-to-a-better-brain/.
234 S. DHIMAN
pleasures that life accords us unexpectedly. Most of the time our mind is
roaming elsewhere when we outwardly seem engaged in an activity. For
example, when taking a shower or eating our breakfast, our mind may be
worrying about a meeting that is not going to happen until later during
the day. So if we are thinking about our meeting while eating our break-
fast, we are actually eating our meeting and not our breakfast! Perhaps
that is why we have modern day reminders such as “Live the moment!”
or “Seize the day!”
The Art of Paying Attention to Attention
A modern Zen story talks about a novice approaching a Zen master,

inquiring about the most important thing in life. “Attention”, said the
master. The student persisted: “What is the second most important thing?”
“Attention”, replied the master. “And the third thing?” asked the student.
“Attention”, the master added firmly. “Anything else?” continued the stu-
dent. “You do not seem to be paying attention!”, roared the master.
The faculty of self-awareness has been prized by various wisdom and
spiritual traditions. While Hindu, Sufi, Hassidic, and Christian religions
employ some form of awareness to attune to current reality, it is the
Buddhist meditative practice in which mindfulness has really played a key
role in developing awareness of the present moment. Perhaps in no other
tradition has mindfulness received such a comprehensive treatment as it
has in Buddhist doctrine and discipline, both in ancient manuals and in
modern Buddhist writings.
The term mindfulness has come to be used in a variety of ways and con-
texts in modern times. Starting as a meditation technique more than 2500
years ago, mindfulness has found its way in recent times into health clinics,
prison houses, wellness centers, government offices, law firms and corpo-
rate boardrooms. In its original Buddhist form, the practice of mindful-
ness refers to the technique of developing awareness of the body and the
mind in the present moment.
Underscoring the universal importance of mindfulness, Buddha
observed, “Mindfulness, I declare, is helpful everywhere.”47 Various
other wisdom traditions of the world also underscore the importance of
garnering a heightened sense of awareness of present reality by focusing
47
As cited in Bhikkhu Khantipalo, Practical Advice for Meditators (Kandy, Sri Lanka:
Buddhist Publication Society, 2006), 8.
on a chosen object with intense absorption, meditation, contemplation,

concentration, remembrance and recollection. For example, Sufi masters
use a special form of meditation called Zikr to develop “yearning for the
divine” through constant remembrance and recollection.
Christian desert fathers likewise used the royal art of “the prayer of the
heart” to garner the knowledge of the divine. The Philokalia, a collection
of texts written between the fourth and fifteenth centuries by masters of
the Greek Orthodox tradition, speaks of the virtue of developing mental
silence and inner attention in the service of the divine. In modern times,
Russian mystics Gurdjieff and Ouspenksy have placed special importance
on “self-remembering” as a unique way to psychological self-evolution.
And Jiddu Krishnamurti popularized the phrase “choiceless awareness” to
denote a state of pure alertness where we are fully aware of the moment-
to-moment reality “as it is”, yet our awareness is not focused on any par-
ticular physical or mental object.
The best gift we have to offer our fellow human beings is the gift of
our presence, our attentive listening, our empathy, our kindness and com-
passion. This is possible only if we are truly present in all our engage-
ments and interactions. Being present requires the cultivation of a special
faculty called self-awareness. Intrinsically, our being is of the nature of
pure awareness—of the nature of “wisdom-seeking wisdom”. And this
wisdom is always available to all of us right here and now, whenever and
wherever we need it, if only we open ourselves to it unconditionally. The
key here is to be alertly present in the present moment. This culminating
gift facilitates the practice of all other gifts, as we mindfully remain alert
from moment to moment.
The Integral Nature of the Seven Gifts

of Fulfillment
It is important to understand the integral nature of these seven gifts/

habits. When we cultivate one gift completely, the other six gifts come
along by themselves. For example, cultivating pure motivation requires
that we draw on our self-awareness—the gift of presence—to recognize
life’s interconnectedness, which motivates us to practice gratitude, gen-
erosity, harmlessness and selfless service. When we are truly grateful, our
motivation becomes pure, and we are more likely to share our gifts gen-
erously with others and to serve them selflessly. When our motivation
becomes pure, we work selflessly for the common good of others without
236 S. DHIMAN
expecting anything in return. All this, however, presupposes a degree of

Self-knowledge and self-insight. By seeking perennially who we truly are
and serving selflessly, we truly fulfill our existence.
Additionally, these gifts should be approached as seven offerings that
highly-fulfilled leaders share with others. The good news is that when we
give these gifts to others, we end up receiving many more blessings in
return. To quote Emerson, “It is one of the most beautiful compensa-
tions of life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping
himself.” In the similar vein, a Chinese adage says, “A little perfume stays
with the hand that gives flowers to others.” And when we do good, we
feel good. All of the seven habits of highly-fulfilled people are founded on
the simple principle: Be Good, Do Good. Perhaps, the highest good lies
in being good. As a modern Indian saint, Swāmi ̄ Sharnānandji,̄ has put it
rightly: “When we ‘do’ good, we help the society; when we ‘be’ good, we
help the whole humanity.”48
Fulfillment and the Art of Leadership
Exemplary leaders approach their work as an offering. Khalil Gibran, the

great Lebanese poet, defined work as “love made visible”. He explains:
“Work is love made visible. And if you cannot work with love but only
with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the
gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.”49 By
approaching our work as a gift of love, we make the art of leadership truly
sacred. The Bhagavad Gītā states that a wise person only acts for the pur-
pose of bringing communities of people together (lokasaṃgraham: the
Gītā 3.20, 3.25) and is delightfully and constantly immersed in working
toward the well-being of all beings (sarvabhūtahite ratāḥ: the Gītā 5.25,
12.4). This is a wonderful lesson in the art and science of leadership.
When we lead with a desire to bring people together and to ensure their
well-being, we create a healthy work environment worthy of human
habitation. In turn, we ensure harmony for others and fulfillment for
ourselves.
48
Swami Sharnānandaji,̄ Humanity’s Own Sharnānandaji:̄ A Short Introduction and
Precious Sayings (Karnal, Haryana, India: Karnal Manav Seva Sangh Publication, 2016), 50.
49
Khalil Gibran, The Prophet (New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1977), 28.
It all boils down to how one approaches one’s daily work, from big proj-
ects to small matters. Maybe extraordinary things are meant for extraordinary
people. That may be! However, what we all can aspire to is to do ordinary
things with extraordinary love and care. Even the smallest act or gesture
deserves due importance and holds great significance. We thus approach our
work as something sacred and try to live our entire life this way.
A holistic leader’s greatest gift is to help others connect with their inner
greatness, to help others discover their authentic voice and to help others
be fulfilled. In the chapter entitled Creativity and Flow, we saw that this
quality of “going out of your way to help others succeed”, is the secret
behind design leader IDEO’s success. There comes a time when one starts
focusing more on helping others achieve their goals rather than build-
ing one’s own professional profile. Jack Welch, former CEO of GE, is
reported to have said that “before you become a leader, your focus should
be on developing yourself; after you become a leader, your focus should
be on developing others.”
After all, success is doing what one loves to do to the best of one’s ability.
It is about having just enough time and money to savor the beautiful gift
called life. A person’s success can be measured by how fulfilled he or she
feels from moment to moment. One can be very successful in the worldly
sense of the word and have all the wealth of the world and still feel impov-
erished, empty inside. It is an inner thing. Our experience will show that to
seek wisdom and to serve others makes us truly happy. To seek fulfillment
and inner joy by helping others is the key here. Nothing makes us happier
than the feeling that we have been able to contribute to others’ happiness.
Our leadership style is an expression of who we are. Leadership has
been rightly described as a journey into one’s soul. So, one has to start
very near—that is, to one’s own self—to go very far in leading oth-
ers. No wonder Confucius, the Chinese sage, believed that, in order to
become a great leader, we have to be a good person first. Building on
what has been said earlier, business leaders would do well to focus more
on self-development, self-awareness and Self-knowledge. When leaders
go astray, it is almost always a case of failure of personal leadership or
self-leadership.
Let us remember that the journey from success to significance (and
from happiness to peace and harmony) is not only essential for personal
mastery, it is also critical in developing and leading others.
238 S. DHIMAN
Concluding Thoughts
The chapter presented the calculus of becoming a fulfilled leader in
terms of “Know-Do-Be” continuum: Know yourself. Do good. Be ful-
filled. Self-knowledge furnishes the necessary foundation for fulfillment.
Anchored in Self-Knowledge, fulfillment becomes more a matter of
being than having, more a matter of belonging than belongings. Effective
leaders know that their strength resides in the richness of their being,
not in the multitude of their possessions. And acting for the good of
others serves as the True North on the path of such leaders. Fulfilled
leaders enjoy happiness of a life lived well in the pursuit of a worthwhile
cause. They are well aware that fulfillment comes from Self-knowledge
and living our life’s true purpose in the service of others. Holistic leaders
understand that replacing self-centeredness with “other-centeredness”
increases a person’s contentment in the community, the workplace, the
family, and ultimately the self.
Highly fulfilled leaders act with fulfillment and not for fulfillment.
Moral virtue, which Aristotle considered as the “activity of the soul,”50
is the foundation of their life. These leaders are guided by a strong life-
positioning system, a dependable moral compass. While in the old GPS
system Greed, Power and Selfishness reign supreme, the new GPS aspires
to Generosity, Passion and Service. Living our life’s passions gratefully and
generously in the service of humanity is what fulfillment is all about. As the
following Gandhi story illustrates, in the matters virtuous, choosing the
right from the wrong seems less a matter of conformance to conventional
standards—of what is ‘right’ and ‘wrong’—and more a matter of ‘being’—
a spontaneously natural flowering of our intrinsic goodness:
A story is told about Gandhi in which, as he was boarding a train, one of his
sandals slipped from his foot and landed near the track. Suddenly the train
began pulling away, leaving him no time to retrieve it. Immediately, Gandhi
removed the other sandal and tossed it back to lie with the other along the
track. When his astonished fellow passenger asked why he had done this,
Gandhi replied, “Now the poor man who finds it will have a pair he can use.”51
J.O. Urmson, Aristotle’s Ethics (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 2001), 11.

50
As quoted in Donald McCullough, Say Please, Say Thank You (New York: G. P. Putnam’s
51
& Sons, 1998), 140.

The seven habits of head and heart presented in this chapter need to be
approached as “gifts” that leaders essentially cultivate within themselves.
In order to live a profoundly significant life, leaders need to share these
gifts with others. Paradoxically, in sharing these gifts with others, leaders
ultimately bestow them on themselves and unexpectedly discover a life
infused with true significance and lasting fulfillment. Living these gifts,
leaders inspire fulfillment in others, and by harnessing the radiating good-
ness and greatness in others, they touch the future and make it come alive
as a field of infinite potentials and possibilities. For, as the Indian sage,
Chanakya, reminds us, “the fragrance of flowers spreads only in the direc-
tion of the wind; but the goodness of a person spreads in all directions.”
Highly Fulfilled Leaders: Reflection Questions

1. What is the difference between living a life of success and living a life
of significance? How do holistic leaders make the shift from success
to significance?
2. What are the characteristics of highly-fulfilled people? How do these
characteristics contribute to a person’s quest for holistic leadership?
3. Out of the 7 Habits of highly-fulfilled leaders discussed in this chap-
ter, which one is your favorite and why? Which habit (s) have you
been practicing already?
4. How do holistic leaders harness these habits in others? Why do we
need to share these gifts/habits with others?
5. What makes the 7 Habits discussed in this chapter integral in nature?
Which habit serves as a basis for all, and why?
6. It has been said that the journey to holistic leadership begins with
Self-knowledge and culminates in serving others. Explain why Self-
knowledge is considered an essential pre-condition to serving others
selflessly?
7. It has been observed that if holistic leaders are to foster a sense of
well-being and fulfillment among their team members, they first
have to demonstrate it in their own life example. How do holistic
leaders ensure workplace harmony and fulfillment?
CHAPTER 10
Being the Change: A Hero’s Journey

and Legacy
“My life is my message.” —GANDHI
Introduction
What are the distinguishing marks separating holistic leaders from ordinary
ones? How are great leaders fashioned at the hands of destiny? Are there
any visible outer signs? Or is it an intangible presence that defines their
abiding influence? How do they carry out the fourfold process of learn-
ing, living, loving and leaving a legacy? What milestones and crucibles do
they encounter on their journey from self-mastery to self-fulfillment? How
do they forge their authentic self in the “crucibles” they face? And finally,
how do they consciously “triumph” various human frailties and “trans-
mute” them through self-discipline into strengths? In short, what are the
defining moments on a hero’s journey towards self-leadership? These are
some of the questions that we will explore in this chapter with reference
to Gandhi’s development as a leader.*
We all need heroes who can awaken us to the best in people and who
can inspire us to be what we know we can be. Given the current leader-
ship crisis, there is a greater need for the role models that embody and
illustrate value-based, holistic leadership. In this chapter, we explore the
leadership journey of Mahatma Gandhi, the quintessential holistic leader.
*This chapter is partially based on the author’s recent book, Gandhi and Leadership: New
Horizons in Exemplary Leadership (New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015).

DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-55571-7_10
242 S. DHIMAN
From the pages of recent history, Gandhi emerges as a grand strategist

and exemplary leader with a keen understanding of human nature. His
life and leadership embody the synergistic energy fashioned by the coming
together of the self, spirit and service—the three foundational dimensions
of holistic leadership.
This chapter traces the alchemy of Gandhi’s greatness and highlights
the important crucibles in Gandhi’s development as a leader. Applying
a values-based holistic approach, it explores and unravels the leadership
secrets of Gandhi based on the tenets of truth, nonviolence, humility, self-
discipline and selfless service. Effectively weaving together biography, his-
tory and anecdotes, it offers practical steps and advice for applying the
spiritual and moral principles that brilliantly defined Gandhi’s leadership.
His leadership style was “follower-centric” and “contextual”. The chap-
ter explores the moral and spiritual-philosophical mainstay and context of
Gandhi’s approach to leadership and reveals how Gandhi, beginning as a
“one-man boundary force,”1 became “a century’s conscience.”2
Alchemy of Exemplary Leadership

What are the hallmarks by which exemplary leaders should be identi-
fied and judged? John Quincy Adams, the nineteenth-century American
President, provides a succinct touchstone of judging a leader: “If your
actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become
more, you are a leader.” Judged against these criteria and in terms of his
abiding influence, Gandhi emerges as one of the most remarkable leaders
of all time. He led the greatest anti-colonial movement in history peace-
fully, showed how to lead successful political life without compromising
integrity, revealed a rare model of morally sensitive political leadership and
provided politics a much-needed spiritual basis.
Nature gives very few the great honor of becoming legends in their
own lifetime. In 1930, Gandhi was named Time magazine’s Man of the
Year. Seven decades later, he was second only to Albert Einstein as a favor-
ite for Person of the Century. On the occasion of Gandhi’s 75th birth-
day, Einstein paid tribute to Gandhi by noting, “Generations to come will
1
As quoted in The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (Electronic Book), New Delhi,
Publications Division Government of India, 1999, 98 volumes, Vol. 96, p. 303. Retrieved:
March 12, 2016: http://www.gandhiserve.org/e/cwmg/cwmg.htm.
2
Cited in Rajmohan Gandhi, Gandhi: The Man, His People, and Empire (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 2008), xii.
BEING THE CHANGE: A HERO’S JOURNEY AND LEGACY 243
scarce believe that such a one as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon
this earth.”3 Originally a timid and taciturn soul, he grew into a paragon
of visionary leadership, helping to secure the liberation of a fifth of the
world’s population from the rule of the largest empire on earth. As Martin
Luther King, Jr., wrote in 1958, “Gandhi was probably the first person in
history to lift the love ethic of Jesus above mere interaction between indi-
viduals to a powerful and effective social force on a large scale.”4
Simply put, Gandhi’s legacy became the harbinger of freedom to many
countries in Southeast Asia and the rest of the world. In addition to
Dr. King, he inspired exemplary leadership in other historic figures, rang-
ing from Nelson Mandela and Aung San Suu Kyi to US President Barack
Obama. While receiving the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1989, the Dalai
Lama accepted it as a tribute to “the man who founded the modern tradi-
tion of non-violent action for change, Mahatma Gandhi, whose life taught
and inspired me.”5 The measure of Gandhi’s gentle influence transcends
all logical explanations. He lived, suffered and gave his life to the noble
cause of peace—perhaps the most important source of his greatness.
Defining Moments of Gandhi’s Life and Leadership
How are great leaders fashioned at the hands of destiny? What milestones
and crucibles do they encounter on their path to holistic leadership? This
section will chronicle some of the defining moments of Gandhi’s life and
leadership. Since Gandhi’s development as a leader is inexplicably linked
to his unique set of life events, this chapter will carefully trace the key
guideposts in Gandhi’s life and make explicit their leadership relevance.
It draws largely upon Gandhi’s autobiography which contains a detailed
and honest “self-portrait of his mind, heart, and soul.”6 Gandhi aptly sub-
titled his autobiography as The Story of My Experiments with Truth. Gandhi
clarified that the nature of these experiments was essentially moral since he
considered morality to be the very basis of spirituality: “The experiments I
am about to relate”, Gandhi wrote, “are spiritual, or rather moral, for the
3
See Contribution to “Gandhi: His Life and Work”, July 1944, AEA, arch. no. 28-608.
Also see Yogesh Chadha, Gandhi: A Life (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1997), 1.
4
Martin Luther King, Jr., Stride Toward Freedom (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1958),
97.
5
The fourteenth Dalai Lama—Acceptance Speech. Nobelprize.org. Nobel Media AB
2014. Retrieved: March 12, 2016: http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laure-
ates/1989/lama-acceptance.html.
6
Louis Fischer, Ed., The Essential Gandhi (New York: Vintage Books, 2002), 1.
244 S. DHIMAN
essence of religion is morality.”7 This seminal quote represents the defin-

ing paradigm of Gandhian ethics and spirituality. Gandhi used these two
frames as lenses to examine the existential realities of life and leadership.
In the following sections, we recount the milestones on Gandhi’s journey
to leadership.
Early Formative Years (1869–1888)

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born on October 2, 1869, at
Porbandar, a coastal town in western India. Gandhi was the fourth and
the last child of his father’s fourth and last marriage.8 His saintly, aus-
tere and religiously devout mother, Putlibai, and his equally devout nurse,
Rambha, were major spiritual influences on him. Gandhi inherited his pro-
foundly religious nature, devotion and asceticism from her. His father,
Karamchand, was honest, generous and fair but shorttempered. He had
little formal education, but had “rich experience of practical affairs.”9 He
served as prime minister of the small princely state of Porbandar.
Gandhi grew up in a household of austere discipline and religious tol-
erance. In his autobiography, Gandhi wrote that at school, from the age
of six or seven through sixteen, he was taught “all sort of things except
religion.”10 The religious tenor of his home, however, made up for the
lack of such instruction at school. In school, Gandhi was a “mediocre stu-
dent” and earned average grades. He did not enjoy the usual sports such
as cricket or football. For exercise, he liked to take long walks—a habit he
kept throughout his life, which contributed to his sturdy frame. He would
walk straight home from school to be with his ailing father. He was a shy,
diffident lad, as he himself reported in his autobiography:
I used to be very shy and avoided all company. My books and my lessons
were my sole companions. To be at school at that stroke of the hour and to
run back home as soon as school closed—that was my daily habit. I literally
ran back, because I could not bear to talk to anybody. I was even afraid lest
anyone should poke fun at me.11
7
Mohandas K. Gandhi, Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth (New York:
Dover Publications, 1983), viii (Emphasis added).
8
Fischer, The Life of Mahatma Gandhi, 13.
9
Ibid., 2.
10
Ibid., 28.
11
Ibid., 4.
During an annual inspection of the school, twelve-year-old Gandhi refused

to copy the correct spelling of the word “kettle” from his neighbor’s slate
even though his teacher tried to prompt him with the point of his boot.
As a result, everyone else in the class, except for Gandhi, spelled every
word correctly. Later on, the teacher tried, albeit unsuccessfully, to bring
home the point of expediency to Gandhi. “I could never”, Gandhi said,
“learn the art of ‘copying.’”12 This “moral rectitude”—of placing means
above desired ends—would become a cornerstone of Gandhi’s character
and defined his approach to every action that he undertook in his personal
and professional lives.
During this time, Gandhi also learned about the Rāmāyaṇa, one of the
two major Hindu epics centering on the life of Rama, the quintessential
embodiment of dharma (duty) in the Hindu theistic pantheon. Gandhi
̄ s to be “the greatest book in all
later described the Rāmāyaṇa of Tulsidā
̄ sa, presented the
devotional literature.” The poet par excellence, Tulsidā
13
ideal of a saint as a person who does good to those who do harm to him:
Uma sant kai ihai badaai |

Mand karat jo karai bhalaai ||
—Sundarkand, Doha 40.8
This verily is the majesty of a saint—
That he returns good for the evil.14
This principle of returning good for evil would become a core value for
Gandhi in the form of nonviolence—one of the two most important tenets
of his life and thought.
Playing the Tough Husband

Gandhi was married to Kasturba when they were both 13 years of age,
an experience which later made Gandhi a bitter critic of child marriage.
Initially, Gandhi was a passionate and possessive husband. In his own way,
he wanted to make Kasturba an ideal wife. This was normal and no differ-
ent from other Indian couples of the same age. What was unusual was that
Ibid., 4.
12
Ibid., 29.
13
14 ́ ̄
Srirāmacaritamānasa, Sundarkānd, doha 40.8, author’s translation. Literally,
Rāmacaritamānasa means “the lake of life and deeds of Lord Rama”.
246 S. DHIMAN
Kasturba was illiterate and Gandhi would soon become a British-trained

barrister. In order to make good his authority as a husband, Gandhi felt
that it was his duty to teach her. Despite his persistent efforts through-
out their long marriage of 66 years, Kasturba never learned to read or
write anything but elementary Gujarati, her native language.15 This cre-
ated constant tension in their relationship. Later on, Gandhi realized and
acknowledged his own “folly” and confessed that it was actually Kasturba
who had been his teacher by example through service, humility, simplicity
and patience.16
Father’s Death: The Beginnings of Transformation

Gandhi was also a devoted son. Throughout his father’s illness in 1885,
Gandhi would rush home to spend time with him. At night, he would
massage his father’s legs. One night as he was taking care of his father,
his uncle who was visiting, sent Gandhi to bed. Gandhi left his dying
father under his uncle’s care to go to bed with his wife. His father’s death
during that brief absence hurt him profoundly. As he poignantly wrote
in his autobiography: “I felt deeply ashamed and miserable. I ran to my
father’s room. I saw that, if animal passion had not blinded me, I should
have been spared the torture of separation from my father during his last
moments.”17 Gandhi felt a deep sense of remorse over this incident. He
thought that he had failed in discharging his allotted duty to his father.
Gandhi never forgave himself for this mistake. As he regretfully noted,
“It was a blot I have never been able to efface or forget, and I have always
thought that, although my devotion to my parents knew no bounds and I
would have given up anything for it, yet it was weighed and found unpar-
donably wanting because my mind was at the same moment in the grip
of lust.”18
To make matters worse, his wife was pregnant at the time of his father’s
death and the child did not survive. This sense of shame and guilt would
not leave Gandhi until he was 36 and took a Hindu vow of celibacy in
1906 for reasons of spirituality, self-discipline and commitment to public
15
Fischer, The Essential Gandhi, 16.
16
Jad Adams, Gandhi: The True Man Behind Modern India (New York: Pegasus, 2012),
33.
17
18
Gandhi, Autobiography, 27.
service. However, to “get free from the shackles of lust”, Gandhi “[would]
have to pass through many ordeals.”19
If exemplary leadership is forged in a “crucible”, then his father’s death
and the existential angst he experienced over it represented the first major
“crucible” in Gandhi’s life that affected him to the very core of his being.
Gandhi resolved that since he had not been a good son to his father,
he could at least try to be a good son to all of humanity. This habit of
consciously “internalizing” the human frailties and “transmuting” them
through self-discipline into strengths formed a cornerstone of Gandhian
life and leadership.
London Years (1888–1891)

After giving a pledge to his mother that he would stay away from wine,
women and meat, Gandhi left India for London to study law in 1888.
The practice of taking a vow to sustain one’s determination and keep one
steadfast in discipline was a serious commitment, something which would
define Gandhi’s difficult undertakings in later life. In England, among
other things, he tried to live the life of an English gentleman and took
lessons in dancing, elocution and violin. His friends tried to compel him
to eat meat, but he abstained, adhering very rigidly to a vegetarian diet
and upholding his pledge not to eat meat. He joined vegetarian clubs
and very soon became an advocate of vegetarianism. He was also elected
to the Executive Committee of the Vegetarian Society, but he always felt
tongue-tied at its meetings. But this brief and modest experience did pro-
vide Gandhi some training in organizing and leadership.
Here we get yet another important clue to the Gandhian modus ope-
randi: he was not content just to abstain from meat himself; he wanted
to champion the cause of vegetarianism. This habit of universalizing a
personal virtue or hurt would remain at the core of Gandhi’s leader-
ship and served him well throughout his life. It was in England that two
Theosophists first introduced Gandhi to Edwin Arnold’s English render-
ing of the Bhagavad Gītā, a text that became his “spiritual dictionary” and
provided the basis for his moral and social actions.
Gandhi joined the bar in 1891 and returned to India immediately to
practice law. Although Gandhi tried to establish his own practice, his legal
career in India was unsuccessful. He was too shy to speak in court, and his
Ibid.
19
248 S. DHIMAN
first case was a complete disaster. As Gandhi was struggling to establish his
career, help came from a totally unexpected quarter that led him to take
up a case in Durban. He sailed for South Africa in 1893 with a plan to
live there for one year, but he eventually remained for 21 years.20 Gandhi
could have never guessed what the future held for him in South Africa.
South Africa Years (1893–1914)

In 1893, a 23-year-old, British-trained Indian lawyer arrived on the shores
of South Africa. He did not know then that he would stay for 21 years,
during which he would encounter humiliation and injustice on a scale that
would force him to challenge not only the oppressive power and author-
ity of the South African government but also himself. Nor did he know
that this would serve as a testing ground, a laboratory, for his struggle for
independence later on in his home country. Throughout his life, Gandhi
would look back on South Africa as the “God-forsaken continent where I
found my God.”21
This period of Gandhi’s life (1893–1914) set the stage for what he
would accomplish in the remaining years of his life. It was in South Africa
that he discovered his most powerful weapon of nonviolent resistance—
satyāgraha—and put it to several rigorous tests; it is also here that he
experimented with his idea of community living (āshram), discovered the
power of journalism as a powerful ally, and fashioned himself into a future
leader of India’s independence movement.
Within a week of his arrival, he had an experience that changed the
course of his life. The lawsuit required Gandhi’s presence in Pretoria,
the capital city of Transvaal. A first-class ticket was purchased for him at
Durban, where he boarded the train for the overnight journey. According
to Gandhi, this trip led to a “conversion experience,”22 which he later
dubbed as “the most creative experience of my life.”23
The train reached Maritzburg, the capital of Natal, at about 9 p.m. …

[an] official came to me and said, “Come along, you must go to the van
20
Bhikhu Parekh, Gandhi (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 2.
21
Krishna Kripalani, Gandhi: A Life (New Delhi: National Book Trust, India, 2013,
reprint edition), 18.
22
See: Arvind Sharma, Gandhi: A Spiritual Biography (New Haven, CT: Yale University
Press, 2013), 54–56. Sharma devotes a whole chapter to the theme of Gandhi’s conversion
experience. For its details in Gandhi’s own words, see Gandhi, Autobiography, 92–98.
23
Louis Fischer, The Life of Mahatma Gandhi (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1950), 41.
c ompartment”. “But I have a first class ticket,” said I. “That doesn’t m

atter,”
rejoined the other. “I tell you, you must go to the van compartment”. “I tell
you, I was permitted to travel in this compartment at Durban, and I insist
on going on in it”. “No, you won’t,” said the official. “You must leave this
compartment, or else I shall have to call a police constable to push you out”.
“Yes, you may. I refuse to get out voluntarily.”24
Gandhi’s refusal to leave the first-class compartment of the train revealed

two important things about his nature. First, as a trained barrister, he
knew his legal rights. Second, and even more important, his spirit revolted
against anything unfair and unjust. Eventually the constable was called,
and Gandhi was removed from the train. Gandhi spent the extremely cold
winter night in the train station’s waiting room. His luggage was outside,
but he did not dare ask for it for fear of being insulted again.
Without a blanket, and shivering, Gandhi thought about his duty and
contemplated his options. To quit and go back to India would be an act
of cowardice. On a superficial level, it was merely a personal hurt, but
Gandhi felt that it was also symptomatic of a deeper racial prejudice. As a
result, Gandhi formulated a game plan: “I should try, if possible, to root
out the disease and suffer hardships in the process. Redress for wrongs I
should seek only to the extent that would be necessary for the removal of
the color prejudice.”25
What is significant about Gandhi’s take on this defining experience of
his life is that he did not view it just in terms of a personal insult. Instead,
he was able to perceive the problem’s universal dimension, which is nor-
mally hidden to ordinary people. Above all, he did not want to press his
point further than what was necessary.
The Chrysalis of Gandhi’s Transformation

as a Leader
The cold night that Gandhi spent at the railway station became the most
significant experience of his life. Gandhi became a different man after
this transformative incident at the Pietermaritzburg railway station. He
resolved to stay and fight against racial prejudice, not for personal reasons
but on behalf of all and only to the extent that would be necessary. He
wrote in his autobiography that he had made it a rule not to go to court

24
Ibid., 96–97.
25
250 S. DHIMAN
in respect of any personal grievance.26 According to Eknath Easwaran, it

would take years for Gandhi to forge this “matchless weapon” of nonvio-
lence, based on his dogged determination “never to retaliate but never to
yield”. Gandhi discovered first-hand that strength does not come from
brute force but from an indomitable will. On that night in Maritzburg,
“faith entered his heart.”27 This is the chrysalis of Gandhi’s transformation.
Gandhi took the next available train to Pretoria in the morning. On
the way to Pretoria, he experienced further insult and humiliation—the
driver of the stagecoach that carried him to Johannesburg humiliated
Gandhi and even beat him.28 Some months later, he was kicked into a
gutter by a sentry for daring to walk past President Kruger’s house in
Pretoria.29 Gandhi was always intrigued by the vicarious enjoyment that
humans derived from the abject humiliation of their fellow beings. His
tender spirit could not understand this sadistic tendency. “It has always
been a mystery to me”, wrote Gandhi in his autobiography, “how men
can feel themselves honored by the humiliation of their fellow beings.”30
In April 1894, after almost twelve months in South Africa, Gandhi
was about to return to India for good. At his farewell party, however, his
friends urged him to stay and to lead the fight against the Natal govern-
ment’s proposed bill that would have taken away Indians’ right to vote.
Gandhi consented to stay for a month and remained 20 years fighting the
battle for Indian rights.31 Although he eventually won, triumph was slow
in coming. His mostly successful campaigns in South Africa taught Gandhi
how to motivate the masses, and, as noted before, it was in South Africa,
that he found his “vocation in life.”32 Although such triumphs were slow
in coming, these hard-won victories provide ample evidence of Gandhi’s
effective leadership and organizational abilities.
It was in South Africa that Gandhi honed his strategy of peaceful resis-
tance in the form of satyāgraha. When Gandhi left South Africa for good
in 1914, he wrote nostalgically: “it was a great wrench for me to leave
South Africa, where I had passed twenty-one years of my life sharing to the
Ibid., 113.
26
Cited in Fischer, The Essential Gandhi, xx.

27
28
29
Ibid., 100.
30
Ibid., 135.
31
32
M. K. Gandhi, Satyagraha in South Africa (Ahmedabad, Gujarat: Navajivan Publishing
House, 2008, reprint), 308.
full in the sweets and bitters of human experience, and where I had real-
ized my vocation in life.”33 Gandhi believed that the method of satyāgraha
that he had developed in South Africa was India’s best chance at indepen-
dence from Great Britain.
Inspired by a broad range of readings—including the Bhagavad Gītā,
the New Testament, Tolstoy’s The Kingdom of God is Within You, and
Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience—Gandhi launched a movement of nonviolent
resistance against the oppressive government of South Africa and the soci-
ety’s widespread bigotry and racial injustice against darker-skinned people.
Back in his homeland, he came to the attention of the country’s politi-
cians and multitudes of pious souls who had begun to regard him as the
political and moral leader of India in its long road to Independence.34
The hero had won a decisive victory and was ready to come back from
this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons (gifts) on his
fellow beings!
Gandhi’s Momentous Years in India (1915–1948)

Gandhi’s work in South Africa had made him famous back in India, and
he was warmly welcomed by old friends at home. The Bengali poet, Sir
Rabindranath Tagore, the first Asian to win a Nobel Prize, bestowed on
him the title of “Mahatma” (meaning “Great Soul”) and “the crown sat
forever on the politician-saint’s head.”35 Gandhi’s “political guru”, G. K.
Gokhale, greeted him warmly and “commanded” him to spend a year
travelling throughout India with “his ears open but his mouth shut”36 and
“to feel the pulse” of the country he had been away from for 21 years.37
Gandhi heeded the advice to travel but did so with both ears and mouth
open.
As a result of Britain’s response to the atrocities in Punjab, Gandhi
became increasingly convinced that the colonial government system that
33
M. K. Gandhi, Satyagraha in South Africa, 306.
34
Timothy Conway, Mahatma Gandhi, Life and Teachings. Retrieved March 11, 2016:
http://www.enlightened-spirituality.org/Mahatma_Gandhi.html.
35
Fischer, Gandhi: His Life and Message for the World, 50.
36
Ibid., 53.
37
See: Bella Jaisinghani, “Centenary celebrations to retrace Bapu’s arrival in India from
SA”, Times of India, January 9, 2015, Retrieved February 16, 2016: http://timesofindia.
indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/Centenarycelebrations-to-retrace-Bapus-arrival-in-India-
from-SA/articleshow/45816953.cms.
252 S. DHIMAN
he had been trying to improve needed to end. He was now ready to move
to the next level of his strategy: seeking complete independence for India
through a nonviolent, noncooperation movement.
The Power of Salt: The Famous 1930 Dandi March

The British had placed a high tax on salt, and it was illegal to use salt
not sold directly by the British government. All Indians were adversely
affected by this tax since salt was frequently used due to India’s tropical
heat. Gandhi, who had not used the spice in six years, called it a “nefari-
ous monopoly”38 of the colonial government. Gandhi chose salt for other
strategic reasons as well. It affected all Indians—Hindu and Muslims—
equally, burdened the poor most heavily, and highlighted the inhumanity
of the colonial government in the cruelest way. This shows the genius of
Gandhi in choosing his battles, a trait that helped Gandhi to gain leverage
against his opponent.
On the eve of launching the salt march, Gandhi made a strong appeal
for a truly nonviolent struggle to an assembly of more than ten thousand
people during his evening prayer meeting at the Sābarmati Ā shram. The
next morning, on March 12, Gandhi, then 61 years of age and oldest
among the group, along with 78 followers, started his 24-day march on
foot to the sea coast of Dandi, a total distance of 241 miles. Everyday
Gandhi walked between 10 and 15 miles while keeping his daily routine
of waking up at 4 a.m., conducting prayer meetings, spinning for an hour,
writing for weekly magazines, and keeping his daily diary—and requiring
each āshramite to do the same. Walking on the winding dirt roads from
village to village, Gandhi kept reminding the protesters, “We are marching
in the name of God.”39
As the marchers approached the seashore on April 5, people from all
over India joined the march, and by the time Gandhi arrived in Dandi,
the Salt March procession numbered several thousand. In the early morn-
ing of April 6, Gandhi picked up a handful of salt in a symbolic gesture
of defiance of the mighty empire. The entire nation was galvanized by
Gandhi’s dramatic act and followed his exhortation to break the salt law.
Men and women, young and old, marched in thousands in an attempt to
get arrested. Gandhi, too, was arrested on May 4, shortly after midnight,
38
39
Ibid.
in violation of the salt tax laws—for touching salt he had not purchased
and on which he had not paid a tax. Within a few weeks, as many as 60,000
men and women were in jail, and the people had initiated a mass boycott
of British goods. Gandhi continued to exert influence even while he was
in prison, and the campaign remained nonviolent. With his consummate
political skills, the Mahatma had peacefully elevated his campaign to the
international level and sparked global sympathy for his cause. His move
was simple, dramatic, and symbolic, and ultimately, it sounded the death
knell of British rule in India.
Gandhi learned that properly executed civil disobedience could be a
formidable force, and the colonial government realized that India’s inde-
pendence was inevitable. Gandhi was featured on the cover of Time maga-
zine for two years in a row, 1930 and 1931. The magazine also named him
as its 1930 “Man of the Year.”40 A success 35 years in the making, Gandhi
had emerged as a powerful moral force both within India and around the
world. Eventually, the colonial government could not cope with the mass
protests and its declining revenues.
The British realized that they were once again facing mass protests
in India and began deliberating possible ways to create an independent
India. Although Winston Churchill vehemently opposed the idea of los-
ing India as a British colony, the British announced in March 1941 that it
would free India at the end of World War II. This was not acceptable to
Gandhi, and he organized a “Quit India” campaign in 1942. In response,
the British once again imprisoned him. When Gandhi was released from
prison in 1944, Indian independence seemed well in sight.
Disagreements, Division and the Tragedy
Unfortunately, as before, there were fierce disagreements between Hindus

and Muslims. Since the majority of Indians were Hindus, the Muslims
feared not having enough political power if there were an independent
India. Therefore, the Muslims proposed that the six provinces in north-
west India with a majority population of Muslims should become an inde-
pendent country. Gandhi greatly opposed the idea of partition and tried
his best to bring both sides together. In the end, however, the decision
was beyond his control.
40
“Saint Gandhi”: Time Man of the Year 1930. Retrieved February 21, 2016: https://
sites.google.com/site/mahatmagandhionthenet/time-manof-the-year-1030.
254 S. DHIMAN
On August 15, 1947, India’s first day of freedom, Gandhi was con-
spicuously absent from the public ceremonies. He was deeply troubled, for
independence had brought in its wake the partition of India and terrible
Hindu-Muslim riots. Much of his life’s work appeared to be in vain. “Yet”,
as Whitman rightly states, “ahead of these days of tragedy lay his pilgrimage
of reconciliation to the blood-soaked riot areas and his fasting for commu-
nal harmony.”41 This is the beginning of a very sad period of Gandhi’s life
as his worst fears about Hindu-Muslim hostilities were soon to be realized.
Gandhi saw most of this coming and greatly despaired. It pained him
deeply to see 32 years of his selfless work come to “an inglorious end”
and “to watch India being torn apart into two bleeding fragments.”42 He
could not prevent the partition of India because religious divisions were
stronger than nationalistic cohesion.43 Massive violence ensued, includ-
ing widespread slaughter, rape and the burning of entire towns. Gandhi
toured India, hoping his mere presence could check the violence.
Although violence did stop where Gandhi visited, he could not be every-
where at once. “Yet without Gandhi”, writes Rajmohan Gandhi, “the violence
would have been even greater, the parts more than two, and the future unity,
pluralism and democracy of the Indian part far more vulnerable.”44 This is
not a small achievement by any standard. Even when Gandhi did not succeed
in preventing the partition, he was certainly able to contain its destructive
power. The British, apprehensive of what seemed sure to become a violent
civil war, decided to leave India in August 1947. Before leaving, the British
were able to get the Indian National Congress, against Gandhi’s wishes, to
agree to a partition plan. On August 15, 1947, Great Britain granted inde-
pendence to India and to the newly-formed Muslim country of Pakistan.
As 15 million Indians became uprooted from their homes, Hindus and
Muslims attacked each other with a vengeance. At no other time in history
have so many people become refugees in so short a period.
The lines of refugees stretched for miles and miles, and countless peo-
ple died along the way from illness, hunger and dehydration. To stop this
41
Hazel Whitman, “Toward an Understanding of Gandhi”, review of The Life of Mahatma
Gandhi, by Louis Fischer, Commentary Magazine. Retrieved October 20, 2016: http://
www.commentarymagazine.com/article/the-life-of-mahatma-gandhi-by-louis-fischer/.
42
Robert Payne, The Life and Death of Mahatma Gandhi (New York: Konecky & Konecky,
1969), 14.
43
44
Rajmohan Gandhi, Gandhi: The Man, His People, and Empire (Berkeley, CA: University
of California Press, 2008), xi.
widespread violence, Gandhi once again went on a fast. He would only eat
again, he stated, once he saw clear plans to stop the violence.
The fast began on January 13, 1948. Realizing that the frail and aged
Gandhi could not survive a long fast, both sides worked together to create
a peace plan. On January 18, a group of more than a hundred representa-
tives approached Gandhi with a promise for peace and ended Gandhi’s last
and perhaps “greatest fast.”45
Unfortunately, this final fast also alienated many among his own com-
munity of Hindus who resented what seemed to them as Gandhi’s unjust
treatment of Hindus and his unfair concessions to Muslim interests. There
were even a few radical Hindu groups who believed that India should
never have been partitioned and partially blamed Gandhi for the Indo-Pak
separation. “How is one to explain the fact”, asks Krishna Kripalani, “that
the Mahatma’s many fasts, sublime penances, to use Tagore’s words, not
unoften embarrassed and irritated those for whose moral benefit they were
undertaken?”46
Gandhi’s Assassination
Gandhi spent his last day discussing issues with various parties and individ-
uals as usual. At a few minutes past 5 p.m., when it was time for the prayer
meeting, Gandhi began his last walk to the Birla House in Delhi, where
he had spent the last 144 days of his life. A crowd had surrounded him as
he walked, supported by two of his grandnieces. In front of him, a young
Hindu named Nathuram Godse stopped and bowed. Gandhi bowed back.
Then Godse rushed forward and fired three shots point-blank at Gandhi’s
chest. Two bullets passed right through and the third was found lodged in
his right lung. Gandhi sank to the ground. The only sound that escaped
his lips was the word, “Rama”, his favorite name for God. Before the
crowd realized what had happened, he was dead.47
On hearing the news of Gandhi’s assassination, E. Stanley Jones, the
well-known missionary evangelist to India who had worked with Gandhi
for over 40 years, said that it was “the greatest tragedy since the Son of God
45
See: G. D. Khosla, Stern Reckoning: A Survey of the Events Leading Up To and Following
the Partition of India (Delhi/Bombay/Calcutta/Madras: Oxford University Press, 1989),
114–244.
46
Krishna Kripalani, Gandhi: A Life (New Delhi: National Book Trust, India, 2013,
reprint edition), 190.
47
Kripalani, Gandhi: A Life, 196.
256 S. DHIMAN
died on a cross.”48 Even Gandhi’s assassin, Nathuram Godse, stated at his

trial at which he was sentenced to be hanged: “Before I fired the shots I
actually wished him well and bowed to him in reverence.”49 Thus ended the
life of perhaps the greatest champion of peace that the world has ever seen.
The real tragedy of Gandhi’s life, as Lelyveld, one of his recent biog-
raphers, maintains, was “not because he was assassinated, nor because his
noblest qualities inflamed the hatred in his killer’s heart. The tragic element
is that he was ultimately forced, like Lear, to see the limits of his ambition to
remake his world.”50 Perhaps as humans we can never truly succeed in fash-
ioning the world to fit our personal designs and desires. Lao Tzu was right:
As for those who would take the whole world

To tinker as they see fit,
I observe that they never succeed:
For the world is a sacred vessel
Not to be altered by man.51
Lao Tzu’s words emphasize the poignancy of human life and the vainness
of human effort to mold the world. Perhaps, the glory of the human is not
in the conquest of the universe but in being an integral part of it.
Gandhi’s life shows that by the force of divinity inherent within all of
us, it is possible to live a life of total selflessness and harmlessness, a life
completely dedicated to the service of the divine through the service of
humanity. Selflessness, obviously, comes at a price—an ultimate price at
that—of the giving up of the self. Perhaps Gandhi’s greatest legacy is that
he became the voice of social conscience for the world through his s ingular
selflessness and steadfastness to truth and nonviolence. The strength of
Gandhi’s moral conviction lay in his understanding that “morality is the
basis of all things and truth is the substance of all morality.”52
Gandhi lived and died as he had always wished to—without a groan
and with God’s name on his lips. Less than 20 hours before he was shot on
January 30, 1948, Gandhi had said:
Note down this also that if someone were to end my life by putting a bullet
through me—as someone tried to do with a bomb the other day—and I met
E. Stanley Jones, Gandhi: Portrayal of a Friend (Nashville: Abingdon, 1993), 11.

48
49
50
Lelyveld, Great Soul, 27.
51
Raymond B. Blakney, trans., The Way of Life Lao Tzu: A New Translation (New York:
Mentor Books, 1960), 81.
52
Louis Fischer, ed., The Essential Gandhi (New York: Vintage Books, 2002), 30.
his bullet without a groan, and breathed my last taking God’s name, then
alone would I have made good my claim.53
God heard his prayer and honored his wish, and Gandhi now belongs to
all humanity. “His legacy is courage, his lesson truth, his weapon love.”54
“Gandhi was prepared to die: this was his most powerful weapon.”55 The
assassin’s bullets did not and could not kill the Gandhi who had the name of
God on his lips at the time of death—“Ram, Ra … m.” That Gandhi lives on.
I close this section with the tribute of E. Stanley Jones in the following
memorable words: “I bow to Mahatma Gandhi and I kneel at the feet of
Christ. … A little man … has taught me more of the spirit of Christ than
perhaps any other man in East or West.”56 No higher tribute can be writ-
ten for the man who is as great in death as he was in life. Indeed, “[m]en
like Gandhi do not happen very often—no oftener perhaps than men like
Buddha, Jesus, and Mohammed.”57 Nature will most likely have to wait a
few centuries to send one like him again.
The Alchemy of Gandhi’s Greatness

The history of humankind is testimony to the fact that the making of great
leaders requires them to make great sacrifices. “What is to give light”, said
Victor Frankl, “must endure burning.”58 For Nelson Mandela it meant
a struggle of over 50 years, 27 of which were spent in jail. For the Dalai
Lama, the struggle continues after 56 years in exile from his homeland,
Tibet. “Give me six hours to chop down a tree”, Abraham Lincoln said,
“and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe”. Gandhi worked long
and hard in sharpening his axe—3 years in England, 21 years in South
Africa, and 33 years in India!
In his book Greatness: Who Makes History and Why, Dean Keith
Simonton states, “To achieve success of the highest order, a person
may have to suffer first.”59 He further points out that orphanhood has
53
Pyarelal Nayyar, Mahatma Gandhi: The Last Phase (Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing
House, 1956), Vol. 2, p. 766.
54
55
Payne, The Life and Death of Mahatma Gandhi, 14.
56
57
Opinion cited, Whitman, “Toward an Understanding of Gandhi.”
58
Victor Frankl, The Doctor and the Soul: From Psychotherapy to Logotherapy, Revised and
Expanded (New York: Vintage, 1986, 3rd edition), 67–68.
59
Dean Keith Simonton, Greatness: Who Makes History and Why (New York: Guilford
Press, 1994), 153.
258 S. DHIMAN
been seen to spur the development of eminent people in world history.

Biographies of a number of historic figures show upsetting circumstances,
such as parental loss, in the early part of their lives.
Simonton quotes a study of 699 historic figures, of whom 61 percent
lost a parent before the age of 31; Gandhi lost both of his parents early—
his father died when he was 16 and his mother when he was 22. However,
two other groups, juvenile delinquents and depressive or suicidal psychiat-
ric patients, show similar orphanhood rates. This shows that some people
are able to rise above their early traumatic experiences while others lack
the inner strength to cope; in other words, orphanhood is not a precondi-
tion for achieving greatness.60 It all depends upon what we do with what
happens to us. The same fire that purifies gold also burns down wood.
Guiding Lights On Gandhi’s Leadership Journey

Holistic leaders mature slowly and steadily amidst the vicissitudes of life
through myriad interactive processes of nature and nurture. Where did
Gandhi draw his inspiration about life and leadership? Which role-models
did he revere? Which books served as the fonts of wisdom for him?
Gandhi’s saintly and devout mother, Putlibai, and his equally devout
nurse, Rambha, were early spiritual influences. Stories of three legend-
ary figures from the Purānas61—Shravana Kumar, Harishchandra, and
Prahlada—instilled in him the values of parental devotion, unconditional
adherence to truth and steadfast faith in the Lord.
Among the key influences on Gandhi’s life and thought, pride of place
must go to the Bhagavad Gītā—the moral and spiritual anchorage of
Gandhi. Gandhi’s firm and sustained belief in mokṣa (spiritual liberation)
and self-realization were almost entirely shaped by the teachings of the Gītā.
The key Gandhian concepts of selfless service (niṣkāmakarma), nonviolence
(ahiṁ sā), steadfastness in truth (sthitaprajñatā), and nonpossession (apari-
graha) proceed directly from his unique interpretation of the Gitā ̄ .
60
Ibid., 153–155.
61
Purānas (Sanskrit: “of ancient times”) denote sacred lore of Hinduism that depict vari-
ous myths about various Hindu deities. According to the online Merriam-Webster Dictionary,
Purānas represent “a class of Hindu sacred writings chiefly from AD 300 to AD 750 com-
prising popular myths and legends and other traditional lore”. Retrieved February, 12, 2016,
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/purana.
Gandhi tells us that the Gītā “opened to me a new view of life … I had
found at last, as I believed, the light I needed.”62 Gandhi was convinced
that self-realization is “the only ambition worth having”, and to him the
Gītā appeared to show “the most excellent way to attain self-realization.”63
The Gītā soon became the guiding star of Gandhi’s life and leadership.
From the Gītā, Gandhi also learned to approach every act in a spirit of
sacrifice that aims for the welfare of all beings, in a spirit of offering to the
Supreme.
Of all the heroes in Gandhi’s pantheon, Gujarati jeweler and saint–
philosopher, Raychand, would unquestionably rank first—the only liv-
ing example to inspire Gandhi in the spiritual realm. Gandhi regarded
Raychand as his friend, philosopher and guide. Gandhi writes about him
in his autobiography: “In my moments of spiritual crisis … he was my
refuge.”64 Gandhi further tells us that Raychand had been a constant influ-
ence on him all his life and that among the religious people that he had
met, he had not found another person to equal Raychand in religious
perception.65 Gandhi revered him for “his wide knowledge of the scrip-
tures, his spotless character, and his burning passion for self-realization. I
saw later that this last was the only thing for which he lived.”66 These spiri-
tual qualities combined to become a light in Gandhi’s life and the founda-
tion for his future role as a leader. Gandhi’s own quest for self-realization
was inspired by Raychand’s.
What were some other formative influences on Gandhi? Gandhi was a
practical moralist and imbibed his ethical values from many sources. He
was influenced by religious and moral writings from both East and West.
Gandhi imbibed the virtues of both cultures, by-passing their vices for
the most part. He read abundantly during his days in England as a law
student and later during his long stay in South Africa as a political activ-
ist. In particular, he was influenced by the writings of Leo Tolstoy, John
Ruskin and Henry David Thoreau. In his autobiography, Gandhi tells us
about his heroes:
62
Cited in Kripalani, Gandhi: A Life, 9.
63 ̄ According to
M. K. Gandhi, Introduction, in John Strohmeier, Ed., The Bhagavad Gitā
Gandhi (Berkeley, CA: Berkeley Hills Books, 2000), 17–18.
64
65
Satish Sharma, Gandhi’s Teachers: Rajchandra Ravjibhai Mehta (Ahmedabad: Gujarat
Vidyapith, 2005), 4.
66
260 S. DHIMAN
Three moderns have left a deep impress on my life and captivated me.
Raychandbhai by his living contact; Tolstoy by his book, The Kingdom of
God is within you; and Ruskin by his Unto this Last.67
Elsewhere he tells us that of these three great influences, “I give the first
place to Raychandra Kavi, second to Tolstoy and third to Ruskin.”68
All of Gandhi’s teachers in life and spirit hold one thing in common—
they had the courage to live according their convictions. There was no
distinction between what they preached and what they practiced. This
quality—living the teachings—became the hallmark of Gandhi’s life and
leadership. If there is one characteristic that sets him apart from most
leaders of the past and the present, it is this. Since Gandhi practiced what
he preached, he did not have to preach it. His very life became the per-
sonification of his ideals—a living testimony to steadfastness in truth and
nonviolence. He became the living embodiment of the change he wanted
to see in the world. “To be or not to be” was never an option for Gandhi.
Lessons From the Hero’s Journey

Joseph Campbell, the renowned American mythologist and author of
The Hero with a Thousand Faces, held that various myths from different
times and places share certain fundamental stages and patterns, which
he described as follows: “A hero ventures forth from the world of com-
mon day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there
encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this
mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons [gifts] on his fel-
low man.”69 Campbell’s theory divides the journey of the archetypal hero
found in world mythologies into a schema of 17 distinct steps. These
steps are commonly organized into three classic stages or rites of passage:
Separation, Initiation, and Return.
The first stage of the journey is about the separation or departure of the
hero from the normal world. Separation has the figurative echo of an infant
transitioning away from the mother. During the primary part of the journey,
the hero is initiated into true heroic stature and cleansed by various trials,
tribulations, and rites. Persevering courageously through inner battles, the
67
68
Cited in Sudarshan Iyengar, Foreword in Satish Sharma, Gandhi’s Teachers: Leo Tolstoy
(Ahmedabad: Gujarat Vidyapith University, 2009), vi.
69
Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1948), 30.
hero’s true character emerges, and the hero receives the ultimate boon of
his quest: self-mastery. After the rite of initiation, the hero returns home in
triumph to share with his fellow travelers the knowledge and gifts acquired
during the journey, although this stage may have its own challenges.
The life stories of mythological characters such as Prometheus and spiri-
tual leaders like Moses, Jesus and the Buddha follow this sequence of a soul’s
journey quite closely. We can perhaps add Gandhi to this select list. The three
stages fit neatly into Gandhi’s story as well in terms of his years in England
(1888–1891), South Africa (1893–1914), and India (1915–1948). Gandhi
left for London to study law at the age of 18, and shortly before his return
to India from England in 1891, his mother died. This formative period,
which laid the foundation for his life’s spiritual quest, may be regarded as
the phase of departure or separation in his journey. It was in England that
Gandhi discovered, for the first time, vegetarianism, the Bhagavad Gītā, the
Sermon on the Mount, and the teachings of the Buddha.
The 21 years that Gandhi spent in South Africa represent the vital phase
of his initiation, where he was fashioned into true heroic stature. As we
saw earlier in this chapter, it was in South Africa that Gandhi had what may
be called a spiritual conversion experience.70 The final phase—the 33 years
Gandhi spent in India, until he was assassinated—marks the hero’s return
to his homeland to share the knowledge acquired during the transforma-
tive phase of the journey. Thus, we see that Gandhi’s leadership develop-
ment follows the three stages of a hero’s journey—Separation, Initiation,
Return—that Campbell described.
Gandhi had embarked upon a hero’s journey in England, conquered
his demons in South Africa, and returned to India in a state transformed,
to bestow his gifts on his brothers and sisters. Gandhi was beset with chal-
lenges through all three phases, but he persevered courageously every day
in his quest for truth and self-realization. “Gandhiji, it has been well said”,
wrote J. M. Upadhyaya, “could fashion heroes out of common clay. His
first and, undoubtedly, his most successful experiment was with himself.”71
It is true that self-exploration is the greatest journey that we take. This is
a journey of self-realization in which we thoroughly become who we are.
This is the journey Gandhi avowed to take, eventually paying the price
with his own life.
70
See: Arvind Sharma, Gandhi: A Spiritual Biography (New Haven, CT: Yale University
Press, 2013), 54–56.
71
J. M. Upadhyaya, Ed., Gandhi as a Student (New Delhi: Publications Division, 1965), 3.
262 S. DHIMAN
Gandhi’s Legacy
Gandhi viewed his life as an undivided whole, and his political work was an
extension of who he was as a person. He practiced what he preached and
struggled relentlessly to live up to his principles. He “humanized politics”
by approaching his life-work in an utterly selfless manner, renouncing the
usual trappings of outer title, authority and position. Every time Gandhi
confronted human frailties in the outer world, he turned his search light
within (a phrase Gandhi loved using) to find answers in the deeper recesses
of his soul. This spiritual and moral anchorage was the key to Gandhi’s
political potency and innovation, and it became his most important dis-
covery: a person’s capacity for self-control enhances his capacity to influ-
ence the environment around him. And no power on earth can make a
person do a thing against his or her will. He who disciplines himself gains
the strength to shape the environment.
These are all valuable lessons for modern leaders to emulate.
“He did not preach about God or religion”, writes Louis Fischer,
Gandhi’s pre-eminent biographer, “he was a living sermon … His great-
ness lay in doing what everybody could do but doesn’t.”72 What sets
Gandhi apart from most leaders of the present and the past is the spiritual
and moral anchorage of his leadership. Gandhi chose politics for deeply
spiritual reasons. He viewed his life as an undivided whole. In fact, his
“politics” was deeply rooted in morality and spirituality.
Gandhi relied on the power of inner resources to effect change out-
side. By his own life’s example, he showed that a person’s capacity for
self-control enhances his capacity to influence the environment. He main-
tained that indomitable individual will can bring about social and political
change. His innovation as a leader lies in placing the right means above
the desired ends.
Dispelling Some Myths About Gandhi

Myths about Gandhi abound. While he possessed many unusual qualities
of head and heart, there was no mystery about his faults and failings. We
need to reclaim Gandhi as a human being apart from the myriad myths sur-
rounding him. At least two of those myths require some active dispelling.
72
Louis Fischer, The Life of Mahatma Gandhi (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1950), 369,
379.
Myth 1: Gandhi was a Saint

Perhaps one of the most common (and most dangerous) myths about
Gandhi is that he was a saint. First, “Mahatma”—or great soul—was not
Gandhi’s first name. “Mahatma” is an honorific he received from the poet
and Nobel laureate Sir Rabindranath Tagore. Commenting on Gandhi’s
role in India’s independence movement, Will Durant wrote: “We have the
astonishing phenomenon of a revolution led by a saint.”73 But was Gandhi
really a saint? Gandhi did not like to be regarded as a “saint”, a charac-
terization implicit in the title “Mahatma”. He noted in his autobiography
that the title “Mahatma” often pained him deeply; in fact, he writes with
characteristic humility, “There is not a moment I can recall when it may
said to have tickled me.”74
In the West, it has become a fashion to put Gandhi on a pedestal as a saint
and thereby deny the practical significance of his vital contribution in the
political arena. We need to reclaim Gandhi in totality—in moral, spiritual,
and practical realms all at once. In Gandhi’s view, the term “Mahatma”
was too sacred to be applied to a simple seeker of truth. Writing for the
weekly journal that he published, Young India, he explained: “I myself do
not feel a saint in any shape or form. But I do feel I am a votary of Truth
in spite of all my errors of unconscious omission and commission.”75
Gandhi never felt comfortable being viewed as a saint. In fact, he
objected when people called him “a saint trying to be a politician”. He
said that he was instead “a politician trying to be a saint”. We ought to
take his word for it. Religious conviction was an integral part of Gandhi’s
being, but to call him a saint would be to do him a disservice: it would
make his virtues too lofty to be emulated and his vices too glorified to
be instructive. “If we label Gandhi a perfected being”, observed Mark
Shepard in his book Mahatma Gandhi and His Myths, “we lose our chance
to view his life and career critically and to learn from his mistakes.”76
73
Durant is reported to have said this during his visit to India.
74
Gandhi, Autobiography, viii. It is generally believed that the honorific title “Mahatma”
was first applied to Gandhi by Tagore. “‘Great Soul in peasant’s garb’, the poet wrote,” says
Louis Fischer, “and the crown sat forever on the politician-saint’s head”. Louis Fischer,
Gandhi: His Life and Message for the World (New York: A Mentor Book, 1982), 50.
75
Young India, January 20, 1927, 21.
76
Mark Shepard, Mahatma Gandhi and His Myths (Los Angeles, CA: Shepard Publications,
2002), 6.
264 S. DHIMAN
Myth 2: Gandhi Single-Handedly Wrought the Miracle of India’s

Independence
Before Gandhi arrived on India’s political scene, the struggle for India’s
independence had been progressing for several decades, and this very
likely would have borne tangible results of its own accord. That is why it
isn’t accurate to say that Gandhi wrought the miracle of India’s indepen-
dence. However, “the extraordinary manner in which it was achieved can
be pointedly ascribed to him.”77 It is one of the great ironies of history
that the country that Gandhi led peacefully to freedom in 1947 came to
be brutally divided amid communal chaos and violence into two nations,
India and Pakistan. Gandhi did not want this “two-part independence”
achieved in August 1947 and announced that he “cannot participate in
the celebrations.”78 How could he?
It pained him deeply to see 32 years of selfless work come to “an
inglorious end”—“to watch India being torn apart into two bleeding
fragments.”79 He could not prevent the partition of India because religious
divisions were stronger than feelings of nationalistic cohesion.80 This writer
has spoken with countless people who witnessed the inhuman slaughter
that took place during partition. Those bloody days are some of the most
minutely documented facts in the history of the Indian subcontinent. “Yet
without Gandhi”, writes Rajmohan Gandhi, “the violence would have
been even greater, the parts more than two, and the future unity, pluralism
and democracy of the Indian part far more vulnerable.”81 The following
tribute by Lord Mountbatten , the last Viceroy of British India and first
Governor-General of Independent India, sent in a letter to Gandhi, is liv-
ing testimony to the saving grace of Gandhi’s nonviolent power:
My dear Gandhiji, in the Punjab we have 55 thousand soldiers and large-

scale rioting on our hands. In Bengal our forces consist of one man, and
there is no rioting. As a serving officer, as well as an administrator, may I be
allowed to pay my tribute to the One-man Boundary Force.82
77
Yogesh Chadha, Gandhi: A Life (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1997), vii.
78
79
Robert Payne, The Life and Death of Mahatma Gandhi (New York: Konecky & Konecky,
1969), 14.
80
81
Rajmohan Gandhi, Gandhi: The Man, His People, and Empire, xi.
82
The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (Electronic Book), New Delhi, Publications
Division Government of India, 1999, 98 volumes, Vol. 96, p. 303. Retrieved: October 27,
2014, http://www.gandhiserve.org/e/cwmg/cwmg.htm.
Learning from Mistakes
Perhaps Gandhi underestimated the toxicity of warring religious factions.

Perhaps he let his idealism and optimism get the better of him. Perhaps his
constant use of Hindu symbolism alienated Muslims irrevocably. Perhaps
he pushed his dietary practices and his experiments with celibacy beyond
scrupulously reasonable limits. Or perhaps humanity was not evolved
enough genuinely to embrace Gandhi’s creed of love and nonviolence. It is
no wonder that none of Gandhi’s campaigns of civil disobedience won by
bringing about a “change of heart” in his adversaries—not directly at least.
A “change of heart” they did bring—but of the public, not his opponents.
There are some great leadership lessons to be learned here. For example:
1. Not all people share the same values. Leaders need to understand
their own and others’ values and intentions. It is not always wise to
be good to a fault; discretion is indeed the better part of valor.
2. When dealing with racial diversity, it is not prudent to overplay cer-
tain ethnic themes. And one needs to be moderate about moderation,
too. To know when enough is enough is the hallmark of wisdom.
3. Perfection is not given to us mortals; nor does nature give us the
ability to see our flaws as others see them.
Perhaps, in our yearning for perfect heroes, we place our leaders on

a pedestal and thereby do them a great disservice. “Perhaps he will not
succeed”, Tagore wrote of Gandhi. “Perhaps he will fail as the Buddha
failed, as the Christ failed, to wean men from their inequities, but he will
always be remembered as one who made his life a lesson for all ages to
come.”83 History has borne out the wisdom of Tagore’s precise assess-
ment of Gandhi the leader. And unquestionably, “no myth raking can rob
Gandhi of his moral force or diminish the remarkable importance of this
scrawny little man”, as Time magazine declared in its millennium issue on
December 31, 1999. How so? Because by the very definition, myths can-
not match, let alone surpass, the truth. Gandhi’s moral truth will always
sparkle brighter than any scathing myth.
Today Gandhi’s critics call him idealistic, impractical, and even politi-
cally naïve. But much of what is written today about Gandhi by his most
bitter critics reveals more about the critics than it does about Gandhi. The
83
Louis Fischer, Gandhi: His Life and Message for the World (New York: A Mentor Book,
1982), 143.
266 S. DHIMAN
propensity to find faults with others—by trying to light one’s torch on

others’ candles—should eventually bring one back to contend with one’s
own faults. Great leaders, like great teachers, act only as mirrors, faithfully
revealing the truth, goodness and beauty that dwell in the hearts of us all.
After all, the image reflected by the mirror cannot be any different or bet-
ter than the original.
Providing an essential key to the understanding of Gandhi as both a
person and a leader, E. Stanley Jones wrote: “After you have looked at him
through a microscope, you have to look at him through a telescope to get
the total man. For he stands against a background of the ages and must be
interpreted with that background to get the full stature and meaning of
the man. … Many get caught in subsidiary statements and miss the sum
total of the meaning of his teaching.”84 Future researchers and readers of
Gandhi would be well served by this advice.
We can learn some key leadership lessons from Gandhi’s successes and
failures. “I have worked hard”, said the great composer J. S. Bach, “any-
one who works just as hard will go just as far.” Gandhi agrees: “I claim to
be an average man of less than average ability. … I have not the shadow
of a doubt that any man or woman can achieve what I have, if he or she
would make the same effort and cultivate the same hope and faith.”85 The
life example of Gandhi shows us that we can also achieve what great lead-
ers have achieved, if we are willing to put forth the necessary effort and to
cultivate the values that such exemplary leaders embodied. Herein lies the
real purpose of studying the lives of great leaders.
Lives of great men all remind us

We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time.86
84
85
Harijan, October 3, 1936, as quoted in R. K. Prabhu and U. R. Rao, Eds., The Mind of
Mahatma Gandhi (Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House, 1996), 24.
86
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “A Psalm of Life,” The Complete Poems of Henry
Wadsworth Longfellow, Kindle Edition, Amazon Digital Services. Retrieved February 11,
2016: http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Poems-Henry-Wadsworth-Longfellow-ebook/
dp/B0084761KO/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1410108836&sr=1-1&keywords
=Poems+Of+Henry+Wadsworth+Longfellow.
Gandhi’s life and thought embodied a truth applicable to humanity as a

whole. His leadership effectiveness proceeded from his categorical adher-
ence to his ideals and principles. It was a value-based, principle-centered
leadership. Commenting on the uniqueness of the living fire that was in
this man of peace and humility, India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal
Nehru, wrote, “The amazing thing about Gandhi was that he adhered,
in all its fullness, to his ideals, his conception of truth, and yet he did suc-
ceed in molding and moving enormous masses of human beings.”87 The
amazing thing was not that Gandhi succeeded. The really amazing thing
was that he strove to be steadfast and to adhere to his ideals and principles
without compromise or concession.
In the foreword to D. G. Tendulkar’s eight-volume magnum opus
Mahatma: Life of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Nehru wrote, “No man
can write a real life of Gandhi, unless he is as big as Gandhi.”88 Perhaps
even when an author is as exalted as his subject, the truth of the subject’s
greatness will always elude him. This is true of the life and work of all great
masters. Artur Schnabel, an Austrian pianist, having played Beethoven’s
piano music all his life, is reported to have said: “This music is better than
it can ever be played.” Gandhi’s majestic harmonies likewise have a quality
that exceeds all accounts of them.
Leading Holistically: Seven Exemplary

Gandhian Values
Values represent the heart of leadership and guide behavior and per-
formance. As Samuel Blumenfeld has clearly pointed out, “You have to
be dead to be value-neutral.”89 Values are like a lighthouse; they do not
change. It is the ship of practices that has to find its way guided by the
lighthouse of values. Can an evil leader be an effective leader? The answer
to this question depends on whether we consider ethics to be a necessary
condition for leadership. It also begs the fundamental question, “What
good is leadership if it is not ethical?.”
87
Cited in D. G. Tendulkar, Mahatma: Life of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (New
Delhi: The Publications Division, Government of India, 1961), Vol. 1, p. 8. E-book edition.
Retrieved January 10, 2016: http://www.mkgandhi.org/imp_bks_mahatma.html.
88
Ibid.
89
Cited in Christina Hoff Sommers, “Teaching the Virtues: A Blueprint for Moral
Education”, Chicago Tribune Magazine, September 12, 1993, 16.
268 S. DHIMAN
In his seminal essay titled “Notes toward a Definition of Values-Based

Leadership”, James O’Toole calls Gandhi the “most manifestly values-
based of all leaders.”90 Besides Gandhi, the author’s shortlist of such lead-
ers includes Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson Mandela,
Vaclav Havel, Mother Teresa, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Jean Monnet.91
Since leadership is an expression of who we are, in discovering, living, and
sharing our deepest values lies the fulfillment of our life and leadership.
Gandhi consistently embodied the perennial values of authenticity/
personal integrity, transparency, harmlessness (ahiṁ sā), truthfulness
(satyāgraha or truth-force), humility, self-discipline and selfless service in
and through his life and death. He believed that the universe is not amoral
and that it has a structural bias toward good. His leadership effectiveness
proceeded from his categorical adherence to these values and his openness
to learn from his own mistakes. Gandhi’s innovation lies in extending them
from the personal to the public arena. His was essentially a values-based,
principle-centered approach to leadership. Despite his faults, or perhaps
because of them, we find there is much to learn about Gandhi’s develop-
ment as a leader—who lived and died for the values he held most dear.
Authenticity and Transparency
An authentic leader operates from a strong personal and moral stance
embodying the unity and purity of thoughts, words, and deeds. Gandhi
underscores this alignment by noting: “I say as I think and I do as I say”.
He viewed his life and work as an undivided whole and approached his
lifework in an utterly selfless manner, renouncing the usual trappings of
title, authority, and position. If true living or leadership is an expression of
who we are, authenticity becomes the most essential value in life and lead-
ership. According to Warren Bennis, “The ‘Dean’ of Leadership Gurus,”92
the real task of becoming a leader boils down to becoming an a uthentic
90
James O’Toole, “Notes Toward a Definition of Values-Based Leadership”, The Journal
of Values-Based Leadership, 1(1), Article 10 (2008): 4.
91
Ibid., 6–7.
92
See: Rob Asghar, “The ‘Dean’ of Leadership Gurus Passes At 89,” Forbes (August 1,
2014), accessed February 10, 2016, http://www.forbes.com/sites/robasghar/2014/08/01/
the-dean-of-leadership-gurus-passesat-89/.
individual first: “At bottom, becoming a leader is synonymous with

becoming yourself. It’s precisely that simple, and it’s also that difficult.”93
Authenticity does not mean being perfect. It is accepting oneself (and
others) as one truly is, warts and all. It is about being aware of one’s flaws
and learning from them. In fine, it is about leading from within. Gandhi
led from within—from the deep moral and spiritual core of his being. His
life and leadership were inseparably one. His life was an open book for all
to see. His autobiography is an exemplary model of candour and transpar-
ency. Such a level of “transparency” has not been observed in the life of
any other public leader before or after.
Harmlessness or Nonviolence
Gandhi believed that the only test of truth is action based on the refusal
to do harm—ahiṁ sā. The commonly used English equivalent “nonvio-
lence” may be misleading as it seems to give the impression that ahiṁ sā
is just a negative virtue. Ahiṁ sā is not mere abstention from injury in
thought, word and deed; it also implies the positive virtues of compassion
and benevolence.
For Gandhi, ahiṁ sā was a positive force of love. In addition, nonvio-
lence is not a cover for cowardice. Gandhi has said that “where there is
only a choice between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence.”94
Gandhi’s distinctive contribution in this area lies in his unique interpreta-
tion of “passive” forms of violence such as hatred and anger. The passive
violence that we commit consciously and unconsciously every day causes
the victims of passive violence to get angry, and their anger eventually
leads to physical violence.
We have been told by experts that anger instigates almost 80 percent of
the violence that we experience either in our personal lives or as a society
or nation. Anger leads to conflict and conflict to violence. Learning how
to use the powerful energy of anger intelligently and effectively is the
foundation of Gandhi’s philosophy of nonviolence. When used properly,
rightly channeled anger can go a long way to reducing the passive violence
93
Warren Bennis, On Becoming a Leader (New York: Basic Books, 2009, Fourth Edition),
xxxvii.
94
Young India (August 11, 1920, as quoted in Joan V. Bondurant, Conquest of Violence: The
Gandhian Philosophy of Conflict (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1958/1988), 28.
270 S. DHIMAN
at the workplace. Nonviolence is both the end and the means. For Gandhi,
nonviolence was the means and truth was the end.
Truth
Truth and nonviolence are interrelated; for there is no spirituality without
morality. Taken together, truth and nonviolence constitute the alpha and
omega of Gandhi the man, as well as Gandhi the leader; every form of
discipline or vow that Gandhi observed in his life was just a variation on
these themes. And based on all the available evidence, Gandhi remained
true to both of these vows in both letter and spirit.
For Gandhi, there was the “relative truth” of truthfulness in human
interactions, and the “absolute truth” of the Ultimate Reality. This ulti-
mate truth is God (as God is also Truth) with ethics as expressed in the
moral law as its basis. Gandhi was humble enough to acknowledge that the
truth we experience at the level of human interactions is “relative, many-
sided, plural, and is the whole truth for a given time. Pure and absolute
truth should be our ideal.”95 This humility gave Gandhi the understanding
to be on the side of the truth rather than insisting for the truth to be on his
side. Such humility and courage of conviction are object lessons for con-
temporary leaders. Even while committing to truth and nonviolence as the
absolute ideals, leaders should remain open to the fact of many-sidedness
of truth encountered at the level of human interactions.
Humility
Many spiritual traditions speak about the need to “be poor in spirit and
pure in heart”. Of all the leadership qualities, humility is perhaps the most
difficult to develop. Ben Franklin tells us in his legendary Autobiography
that the reason humility as a virtue is hard to cultivate is because by the
time one gets to be good at it, one becomes proud of it!
Gandhi strongly believed that the “truth is not to be found by anybody
who has not got an abundant sense of humility. If you would swim on the
bosom of the ocean you must reduce yourself to a zero.”96 In fact, humil-
95
Cited in Raghavan Iyer, The Essential Writings of Mahatma Gandhi (New Delhi: Oxford
University Press/Oxford India Paperbacks, 2012), 236.
96
Young India (December 31, 1931), 427, as quoted in Nirmal Kumar Bose, Selections from
Gandhi: Encyclopedia of Gandhi’s Thoughts (Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House, 1950), 7.
ity is both the means and the goal. In the field of leadership, the impor-
tance of humility can hardly be overemphasized. Only humble leaders can
serve a cause higher than themselves. Howard Schultz, the founder and
chairman of the Starbucks chain of coffee shops, says that the great leader-
ship expert, Warren Bennis, once told him that to become a great leader
you have to develop “your ability to leave your own ego at the door, and
to recognize the skills and traits that you need in order to build a world-
class organization.”97
“True humility”, said C.S. Lewis, “is not thinking less of yourself;
it is thinking of yourself less.” The power of humility and gentleness is
illustrated through the life of this “little brown man in a loincloth”98 who
brought the mightiest empire on earth to its knees.
Self-Discipline
Gandhi once said, “Our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake
the world as being able to remake ourselves.”99 Every time Gandhi con-
fronted human frailties in the outer world, he turned his moral searchlight
within (a phrase Gandhi loved using) to find answers in the deep recesses
of his soul. This spiritual and moral anchorage was the key to Gandhi’s
political potency and innovation and became his most important discov-
ery: A person’s capacity for self-discipline enhances his capacity to influ-
ence the environment around him. And no power on earth can make a
person do a thing against his will. He who disciplines himself gains the
strength to shape the environment. Peter Senge concurs and regards self-
mastery to be the key aspect of growing as a leader.
“The call to lead India”, Gandhi tells us, “did not come to me in the
nature of a sudden realization. I prepared for it by fasting and self-discipline.
My political work grew out of my spiritual preparation.”100 Through prayer,
contemplation, self-abnegation and self-purification, he cultivated his
97
“Guru: Warren Bennis”, The Economist, July 25, 2008, Online extra. Retrieved: January
30, 2016, http://www.economist.com/node/11773801.
98
John B. Severance, Gandhi: Great Soul (New York: Clarion Books, 1997, Reprint edi-
tion), 100.
99
Quoted in Eknath Easwaran, The Compassionate Universe: The Power of the Individual to
Heal the Environment (California: Nilgiri Press, 1989), 20.
100
The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (Electronic Book), New Delhi, Publications
Division Government of India, 1999, 98 volumes, Vol. 48, p. 63. Emphasis added. Retrieved
January 20, 2016: http://www.gandhiserve.org/e/cwmg/cwmg.htm.
272 S. DHIMAN
being to such an extent that it emanated a gentle soul-force that endeared

him even to his severest critics and detractors. Even Gandhi’s critics agree
that his strength lay in his towering spirit that resided in his frail frame.
With his indomitable spirit Gandhi was able to win his ideological wars in
the long run, even when he seemed to be losing his battles in the short run.
Selfless Service
A leader’s true inspiration comes from doing selfless work. Selfless work
brings equanimity of mind which in turn contributes to leadership effective-
ness. Exemplary leaders are not motivated by personal desires or interests.
They recognize that selfless service is the highest principle of life and lead-
ership. They become instruments of the Whole and selflessly work for the
well-being of all beings. This is where their true fulfillment lies. Gandhi
was right: the best way to find oneself is to lose oneself in the service of others.
Gandhi believed that only by not regarding anything as their own can
leaders truly devote themselves, body and soul, to the selfless service of
others. For, unless mind is purged of personal desire and attachment, even
service is but an inflation of the ego. These are all valuable lessons for
contemporary leaders to emulate. The path to leading others starts with
self-awareness through self-discipline and ends with self-transcendence
through selfless service. It is paved with authenticity, humility and
compassion.
Gandhi’s Talisman
This was Gandhi’s advice to a fellow seeker, given five months before his
assassination:
I will give you a talisman. Whenever you are in doubt, or when the self
becomes too much with you, apply the following test. Recall the face of the
poorest and the weakest man [woman] whom you may have seen, and ask
yourself, if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him [her].
Will he [she] gain anything by it? Will it restore him [her] to a control over
his [her] own life and destiny? … Then you will find your doubts and your-
self melt away.101
101
Cited in Narayan Desai, My Gandhi (Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House, 2011),
189.
This admirably sums up Gandhi the humanist. Gandhi lived his life by
this acid test of whether an action would benefit the poorest of the poor.
The Bhagavad Gītā talks about a person of steady wisdom who is deeply
immersed in the welfare of all beings. Such a person no longer has any per-
sonal desire or ambition left to fulfill. His very existence becomes a boon
to society. Gandhi was one such person.
Concluding Thoughts
History bears testimony to the distinctive and authentic voice of Gandhi.
Even his greatest critics agree that Gandhi was one of the handful of
human beings in history to experiment with the application of nonvio-
lence on such a large scale. At a time when the human conscience was
tarnished by the holocaust and nuclear war, his was a solitary voice vehe-
mently opposing the horrors of violence in any form. Gandhi has come to
be recognized as the archetypical moral force whose appeal to humanity is
both universal and lasting.
Gandhi’s greatness lies in stirring the conscience of humanity, in dem-
onstrating the power of spirit over material things, in turning his moral
searchlight inward, and in extending the gospel of love and peace from
personal level to the social arena. “Perhaps never before”, writes Robert
Payne, “on so grand a scale has any man succeeded in shaping the course
of history while using only the weapon of peace.”102
Gandhi believed that life is one single unitary movement. The moral
and spiritual reality that we encounter is but a reflection of who we are.
The world we live in is a grand existential mirror, faithfully reflecting our
very own reality:
We but mirror the world. All the tendencies present in the outer world are
to be found in the world of our body. If we could change ourselves, the ten-
dencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature,
so does the attitude of the world change towards him. This is the divine
mystery supreme. A wonderful thing it is and the source of our happiness.
We need not wait to see what others do.103
Robert Payne, The Life and Death of Mahatma Gandhi, 16.

102
M. K. Gandhi, Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (New Delhi: Publications Division,
103
Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, Government of India, 1994), Vol. 13, 241.
274 S. DHIMAN
Thus, if we want to bring about any change in the world, we have to

begin with ourselves: We have to be the change that we wish to see in the
world. This was Gandhi’s most important discovery and his greatest gift
to humankind. He inspired emulation not so much by his professed set of
values and beliefs as by the exemplary nature of his life and conduct. He
made his life his message.
Gandhi had his failings and favorites. Yet for his abiding passion con-
stantly to “remake” himself until his last breath, his dogged determination
to walk the straight and narrow path of truth and nonviolence, his excep-
tional ability to reduce his personal self to zero, his disarming humility,
and his excruciating self-honesty, he will continue to shine as a beacon for
humanity as long as might oppresses right.
Aldous Huxley once said that the central technique for humans to learn
is “the art of obtaining freedom from the fundamental human disability of
egoism.”104 Gandhi achieved that freedom. Only those who dare achieve
this freedom can truly serve.
Being Change: Reflection Questions

1. What qualities or traits you admire in a leader and why? How are
these qualities important in contemporary organizations?
2. Are these traits inborn or developed? Take an example of a leader
that you admire and briefly discuss these traits.
3. From the various defining moments of Gandhi’s life discussed in this
chapter, select two “crucibles” that directly contributed to Gandhi’s
development as a leader.
4. Was Gandhi really a saint? How effectively did he address his fail-
ings? What did you learn from Gandhi’s mistakes?
5. How did Gandhi succeed in shaping the course of history while
using only the weapon of peace? What was the real source of his
moral and spiritual mainstay?
6. How relevant is Gandhi’s leadership message today? Briefly discuss
how contemporary world leaders might secure peace through his
primary method of nonviolence?
7. Did Gandhi succeed in his life’s mission? What is his greatest legacy
to humanity?
104
As cited in Jacqueline H. Bridgeman, Ed., Aldous Huxley: Huxley and God, Essays (New
York: HarperSanFrancisco, 1992), 4.
CHAPTER 11
Epilogue: From Position-Power
to Self-Power—Integrating the Lessons
of Holistic Leadership
“Leadership’s First Commandment: Know Thyself …

No tool can help a leader who lacks self-knowledge.”
—Harvard Business Review editorial, December, 2001.
Introduction
Holistic leadership is a moral and spiritual journey whose guiding compass
is found within a leader’s soul. The first step in that journey begins with
self-knowledge, as the opening quote succinctly demonstrates. In this cul-
minating chapter, we distil the key holistic leadership lessons presented
throughout this book. In the first part, we will focus on self-leadership,
an emerging paradigm that underscores the vital importance of authentic-
ity and responsibility in developing exemplary leaders.1 It is built on the
simple premise that it is hard to lead others if one is not able to manage
oneself. If we want to be effective leaders, we first need to be able to lead
ourselves effectively.
By way of summing up, the chapter consolidates the emergent lessons
of holistic leadership as presented in the previous chapters around key
leadership themes for the sake of clarity, conciseness and convenience. It
presents key self-leadership competencies starting with Self-knowledge
and culminating in self-transcendence. In the final reckoning, leadership
Charles C. Manz, “Taking the Self-Leadership High Road: Smooth Surface or Potholes
1
Ahead?”, The Academy of Management Perspectives, 29 (1), (2015): 132–151.

DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-55571-7_11
276 S. DHIMAN
remains an art of self-expression and our leadership style is an extension of

who we are. It is about discovering our authentic voice and expressing it
in influencing others in a wholesome manner.
Self-Knowledge in Life and Leadership
As noted in the chapter on emotional intelligence, self-awareness is consid-

ered to be a foundational leadership competency. This chapter takes as axi-
omatic that leadership is a voyage of inner discovery and that self-knowledge
is the key to leading from within. This journey begins with knowing one-
self and culminates in living one’s deepest values at the personal, team
and organizational level. For without Self-knowledge one can overlook
one’s essential reality, even when completely immersed in it! All wisdom
traditions of the world have upheld the importance of self-knowledge as
a prelude to every pursuit of happiness and fulfillment. In the Greek wis-
dom tradition, Socrates framed it succinctly as “know thyself”. It is consid-
ered the alpha and omega of all searching. Since happiness or fulfillment is
sought for the sake of the self, it stands to reason that the journey should
begin with knowing the self.
The following story demonstrates the power of knowledge and its rela-
tion to peace and security:
A certain billboard pictured a dog and a cat looking at each other.

The ferocious dog was trying to pounce at the cat, yet the cat seemed unper-
turbed and even amused, sitting quietly in front of the dog.
The caption simply read: The Power of Knowledge!
The dog was on a leash. The cat was aware of this fact.
This knowledge gave the cat the freedom to enjoy the moment with great
peace of mind.2
Such is the power of knowledge!
If mere knowledge of our surroundings confers such security, imagine

what level of security Self-knowledge can engender. This, then, is the true
fulfillment of the Delphic Oracle (gnothi seauton): get to know yourself!
Socrates, however, did not care to elaborate precisely on how to go about
this search. One common pitfall here is to take Socrates’ injunction to know
thyself to mean to know oneself intellectually or emotionally. Those in the
know have repeatedly pointed out that one has to know oneself in the very
2
This vignette is based on a discourse of Swami Paramarthananda, a contemporary teacher
of Vedānta.
EPILOGUE: FROM POSITION-POWER TO SELF-POWER—INTEGRATING... 277
depth of one’s being, exactly as one really is, with diligence and without
any masks whatsoever. And this requires some serious work on oneself that
calls for self-insight, sincerity, courage, patience, and discernment. It seems
that the faculty of self-awareness serves as both the cause and effect of Self-
knowledge. Self-knowledge is born of self-reflection and blossoms as a cer-
tain unmistakable quality of self-awareness that accompanies and pervades
everything one does—a sort of glow that illuminates all our activities. This
condition is often referred to as the faculty of mindfulness.
One may ask at this stage, know oneself at what level—at the body/
physical level or at the mind/intellectual level? Or is there something
more lurking behind these intuitively obvious categories? In our com-
mon usage, we tend to refer to these as “my body”, “my mind”, and “my
intellect”. We do not say “I-body”, “I-mind”, “I-intellect”. This is not
just a linguistic contrivance or convenience but a fundamental distinction
that goes to the very root of who we are. To refer to our body as “my”
body and our mind as “my” mind is to say that I am not my body, nor my
mind. For example, we are used to saying “my body is strong/weak” or
“my mind is sharp/clear”. In other words, “I” and “my body/mind” are
two separate things. After all, I “experience” my body and mind. It is a
fundamental principle that “I am different from whatever I experience.”
This intuiting of separation between “I” and my “body-mind-senses”
apparatus is sometimes referred to as the awareness of “I-Amness”, the
awareness of our innermost being or felt presence. Come to think of it,
this feeling of “I-Amness” is our only true capital. Everything else is either
borrowed or construed knowledge/information. That we exist is the only
thing we know beyond any shadow of doubt, for no one can deny one’s
own existence. To say that “I do not exist’ is illogical for it presumes that I
had to exist in order to claim that I do not exist! So this awareness reverses
the Cartesian logic of Cogito ergo sum, “I think, therefore I am,” into Sum
ergo cogito, “I am, therefore I think.” It is not that “I think therefore I
am”; rather, “I am, therefore I think!” This is the most essential point to
grasp in approaching the question “who am I?” It is also a master key that
opens the door to the abode of meaning and fulfillment.
The following tale illustrates this point succinctly:
Just as the Great Revolution was getting under way in Russia, a rabbi on his
way to the synagogue was stopped at gunpoint by a soldier. With his rifle
pointed directly at the rabbi, the soldier said in a gruff voice, “Who are you,
and what are you doing here?”
278 S. DHIMAN
The rabbi replied with a question of his own: “How much do they pay you
for doing this job?”
The soldier replied, “Twenty kopecks.”
Then the rabbi said, “I will pay you twenty-five kopecks if every day you
stop me right here and ask me those two questions.”3
If a leader knows the answer to those two questions, “Who are you?”
and “What are you doing here?” all else will follow in good time and
good measure. These two fundamental questions capture the essence of
Self-knowledge and personal meaning and mastery and furnish the nec-
essary foundation for the development of purpose-driven leadership. It
must be noted that discovering one’s highest purpose in life presupposes
Self-knowledge and self-understanding. Warren Bennis, a noted leader-
ship expert, provides the following four lessons/rules for facilitating self-
knowledge with reference to leadership:
One: You are your own best teacher.

Two: Accept responsibility. Blame no one.
Three: You can learn anything you want to learn.
Four: True understanding comes from reflecting on your
experiences.4
Self-knowledge is not a matter of knowing something new; it is a mat-

ter of removing false notions about the self. It is a matter of re-cognition
of who we truly are. Self-knowledge is not a journey; it is a home-coming.
Self-Leadership: Leading From Within

“It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.”5
—Sir Edmund Hillary
Sir Edmund Hillary’s humility is born of Self-knowledge, for at

the personal level he considered it more of a conquest over the Self
3
John C. Bowling, Grace-Full Leadership (Kansas City, MO: Beacon Hills Press, 2000),
91; See also: Kevin Cashman, Leadership from the Inside Out (Provo, UT: Executive
Excellence Publishing, 2001), 31.
4
Warren Bennis, On Becoming a Leader, 4th edition (New York: Basic Books, 2009), 52.
5
Edmund Hillary Quotes. Retrieved: April 2, 2016. http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/
Edmund_Hillary.
than Nature. In one stroke, he highlights the two main pillars of self-
leadership: Self-knowledge and humility. If leadership is about influ-
encing others, self-leadership is “the process of leading oneself.”6 Neck
and Manz believe that the concept of self-leadership is derived pri-
marily from the research in two areas of psychology: social cognitive
theory and intrinsic motivation. Social cognitive theory recognizes
that we influence and are influenced by the world we live in.7 This
theory puts the charge of controlling or managing oneself in one’s
own hands. Intrinsic motivation refers to a person’s internal desire
to do something. It is based on the premise that the real motivation
for performing great tasks can only lie within a person. As Manz clari-
fies, self-leadership is “a comprehensive self-influence perspective that
concerns leading oneself toward performance of naturally motivating
tasks as well as managing oneself to do work that must be done but
is not naturally motivating.”8 Intrinsic motivation is not about just
doing what one loves; it is also about learning to love what one has
to do.
Self-leadership is not about leading others. It’s about mastering one-
self for self-excellence. Self-leadership fosters the holistic development
of a leader’s personality in all its dimensions (physical–psychological,
emotional, intellectual and spiritual) by providing guidance on the three
essential spiritual practices: “training the mind”, “transforming the pas-
sions” and “guarding the heart”. When as leaders we are in touch with our
deeper, truer authentic self, we are also able to connect with the authentic
self of others. Since leadership is an expression of who we are, in discover-
ing, living and sharing our deepest values lies the fulfillment of our life and
leadership.
Self-leadership is built on the understanding that everybody has two
most basic needs. The first is the need to express oneself. Leadership is
the art of self-expression and our leadership style is an extension of who
we are. If it is not, it’s not authentic. The second need we all have is the
need to surpass ourselves. Every human being has these needs. They are
not always very well-articulated, but they are there behind all our striv-
ings and pursuits. Everyone wants to self-express and everyone wants to
6
Christopher P. Neck and Charles C. Manz, Mastering Self-Leadership: Empowering
Yourself for Personal Excellence (New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2010), 4 (Emphasis added).
7
Ibid., 4–5.
8
Cited in Manz, “Taking the Self-Leadership High Road”, 134–135.
280 S. DHIMAN
surpass themselves. Self-leadership accomplishes both in one stroke.

Self-leadership is the art of inspiring excellence in oneself and others by
enabling people to express and surpass themselves.
Guided by Self-knowledge, holistic leaders express their authentic self
in all that they do and surpass themselves by serving for the good of oth-
ers. Self-leadership emerges from self-awareness which leads to greater self
responsibility and self-adaptability. Self-leaders have the ability to posi-
tively inspire others to become self-leaders. They have clarity of vision for
themselves which enables them to translate it to organizational vision and
goals.
Self-Leadership Competencies
Self-leadership starts with knowing clearly one’s personal mission, values,
passions and purpose. It entails aligning one’s vision with one’s values and
one’s passions with one’s purpose. Self-leaders focus on long-term vision
and the big picture. They have heightened self-awareness and a realistic
understanding of their strengths and weaknesses, their expectations and
assumptions. Self-leaders develop self-awareness and emotional intelli-
gence in all spheres of their life. They take ownership and feel responsible
and accountable for their actions and reactions.
Manz classifies these competencies into three fundamental components
as follows:9
1. Authenticity: Attention to higher-level standards that guide lead-

ers’ behavior consistent with their own personal values as opposed
to forfeiting values to external influences.
2. Responsibility: Self-led intentions and behaviors that relate to
responsible ends. This component is consistent with CSR and
higher-level values such as courage, compassion, integrity and tran-
scendent purpose.
3. Expanded Capacity: Emphasis on areas beyond what we already
know and venturing into less developed areas of self-leadership such
as emotion and collaborative processes that contribute to the poten-
tial for the previous two components.
9
Manz, “Taking the Self-Leadership High Road”, 134.
Parking the Ego at the Door: Key

to Self-Leadership
One of the most important preconditions for the spiritual quest is humility.
Only humble leaders can serve a cause higher than themselves. Defining
the process of becoming a leader in terms of authenticity and self-mastery,
Bennis equates it with becoming yourself, which is not as simple as it
sounds. He gives out all the keys to exemplary leadership in an interview
with Fast Company:
The process of becoming a leader is, if not identical, certainly similar to the
process of becoming a fully integrated human being. It’s got to do with
authenticity, it’s got to do with candor, it’s got to do with the fact that one
cannot truly lead unless one is an expert in self-management.10
Leadership qualities, Bennis maintains, can only emerge from an “inte-

grated self.”11 Howard Schultz, the founder and chairman of the Starbucks
chain of coffee shops, says that Bennis once told him that to become a
great leader you have to develop “your ability to leave your own ego at the
door, and to recognize the skills and traits that you need in order to build
a world-class organization.”12 This goes on to show that humility is an
essential ingredient of effective leadership. Jim Collins, the author of Good
to Great, fully concurs and regards compelling humility to be one of the
two hallmarks of level 5 leaders, the other being fierce professional will.13
Bill George, the exemplary former head of Medtronic, who popularized
the concept of authentic leadership, includes humility along with purpose,
transparency, and integrity to define authentic leaders.14 Humility is also a
precondition for serving others for without it, even service could be but an
inflation of ego. Therefore in learning, as in leading, humility constitutes
10
Warren G. Bennis (interview, December 26, 2011), “Have the requirements for being a
good leader changed?”, Fast Company: Leadership Hall of Fame.
11
“Guru: Warren Bennis,” The Economist, July 25, 2008, Online extra. Retrieved: August
30, 2014, http://www.economist.com/node/11773801.
12
Ibid.
13
Jim Collins, Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap … and Others Don’t
(New York: HarperBusiness, 2001).
14
See: B. George and P. Sims, True North: Discover Your Authentic Leadership (San
Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2007); B. George, P. Sims, A. N. McLean, and D. Mayer,
“Discovering Your Authentic Leadership”, Harvard Business Review, 85(2), (2007):
129–138.
282 S. DHIMAN
the key ingredient of living a profoundly significant life. Many wiser souls,
somewhat jaded with cynicism, however, have pointed out that there is no
humility; only different shades of pride!
Of all the leadership qualities, humility is perhaps the most difficult to
develop. Ben Franklin tells us in his legendary Autobiography that the rea-
son why humility as a virtue is hard to cultivate is because by the time one
gets to be good at it, one becomes proud of it! A story is told about Frank
Lloyd Wright, the famous architect, who was once testifying in court for
his friend. While taking oath, he is reported to have said, “My name is
Frank Lloyd Wright, the greatest architect on the planet!” Later when
his friend questioned him about his exaggerated sense of self-importance,
Frank Lloyd Wright maintained, “I was under oath to tell the truth!”
The following Sufi story highlights the dangers of self-conceit and the
need to stay humble in all pursuits. The Sufi—one who is not—narrates
the story as follows:
… and my third Master was a small child. I entered into a town once and a
small child was bringing a candle, a lit candle, hiding it in his hands. He was
going to the mosque to put the candle there. In the lighter vein, I asked the
boy, “Have you lit the candle yourself?” He said, “Yes, sir.” And I asked,
jokingly, “Since you saw the light coming when you lit the candle, can you
tell me from where the light came?”
The boy became serious first and then laughed and blew out the candle, and
said, “Now you have seen the light going, where has it gone? You tell me!”
My ego was crushed, and my whole knowledge was shattered. And that
moment I felt my own foolhardiness. Since then I dropped all pretense to
knowledgeability.15
Does humility mean low self-regard? To be humble does not mean to

have a low opinion of oneself, it is to have an accurate opinion of oneself,
says the psychologist Robert Emmons. Emmons describes humility as the
“realistic appraisal of one’s strengths and weaknesses—neither overesti-
mating them nor underestimating them.”16 True humility is a matter of
right perspective.
Is humility the most important quality to cultivate in life and leadership?
Humility is unquestionably the most essential requirement when it comes
to learning: without being humble, one cannot learn at all. And both his-
15
A traditional Sufi tale. Author unknown.
16
Robert A. Emmons, The Psychology of Ultimate Concerns: Motivation and Spirituality in
Personality (New York: The Guilford Press, 2009), 171.
tory and current research testify that the best leaders are humble. In their
recent Harvard Business Review study, Prime and Slib clarify that hum-
ble leaders should not be mistaken for weak ones for it takes tremendous
courage to practice humility. These authors cite Google’s SVP of People
Operations, Lazlo Bock, who says humility is one of the traits he is look-
ing for in new hires. Based on their current research and ongoing study of
leadership development practices at Rockwell Automation, they share the
following practices to garner a humble, inclusive leadership style:17
Engage in dialogue, not debates. Engaging in dialog is good way to
practice humility. When people debate to sway others to win them to their
viewpoint, they miss out on the opportunity to learn about other points of
view. When leaders are humble enough to suspend their own agendas and
beliefs, they not only enhance their own learning but they validate follow-
ers’ unique perspectives.
Embrace uncertainty. When leaders humbly admit that they don’t
have all the answers, they create space for others to step forward and
offer solutions. They also engender a sense of interdependence. Followers
understand that the best bet is to rely on each other to work through
complex, ill-defined problems.
Role model being a “follower.” Inclusive leaders empower others to
lead. By reversing roles, leaders not only facilitate employees’ develop-
ment but they model the act of taking a different perspective, something
that is so critical to working effectively in diverse teams.
Inclusive leaders are humble enough to admit that they do not have
all the answers and that the present day problems are too complex for
any one person to tackle them single-handedly. Doing so, they garner the
wisdom of the followers and allow them to come up with shared solutions.
Discovering Our Divinity Within

The English word “enthusiasm” comes from the ancient Greek word
enthousiasmos –en + theos meaning “to be inspired by or possessed by a
God.”18 Holistic leaders first discover their own divinity within and inspire
others to discover theirs. This is a journey that everyone has to undertake
for himself or herself. The wisdom traditions of the world have always
17
Jeanine Prime and Elizabeth Salib, “The Best Leaders Are Humble Leaders”, Harvard
Business Review, May 2014. Retrieved April 2, 2016: https://hbr.org/2014/05/
the-best-leaders-are-humble-leaders.
18
Retrieved March 29, 2016: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/enthousiasmos.
284 S. DHIMAN
pointed out the fact that we are divine in our essence. But this fact remains
hidden from us until our crucibles or some conscious teaching directs us
to turn inward and search there. Such knowledge lays shrouded in many of
the world’s ancient myths and legends and requires real efforts to decipher
it. By way of a sample, consider the following story told by Nobel laureate
Rudyard Kipling in his February 1923 Address to the Royal College of
the Surgeons:
There is a legend which has been transmitted to us from the remotest ages.
It has entered into many brains and coloured not a few creeds. It is this:
Once upon a time, or rather, at the very birth of Time, when the Gods
were so new that they had no names, and Man was still damp from the clay
of the pit whence he had been digged, Man claimed that he, too, was in
some sort a deity. The Gods were as just in those days as they are now. They
weighed his evidence and decided that Man’s claim was good—that he was,
in effect, a divinity, and, as such, entitled to be freed from the trammels of
mere brute instinct, and to enjoy the consequence of his own acts. But the
Gods sell everything at a price. Having conceded Man’s claim, the legend
goes that they came by stealth and stole away this godhead, with intent to
hide it where Man should never find it again. But that was none so easy. If
they hid it anywhere on Earth, the Gods foresaw that Man, the inveterate
hunter—the father, you might say, of all hunters—would leave no stone
unturned nor wave unplumbed till he had recovered it. If they concealed
it among themselves, they feared that Man might in the end batter his way
up even to the skies. And, while they were all thus at a stand, the wisest of
the Gods, who afterwards became the God Brahm, said, “I know. Give it
to me!” And he closed his hand upon the tiny unstable light of Man’s sto-
len godhead, and when that great Hand opened again, the light was gone.
“All is well” said Brahm. “I have hidden it where Man will never dream of
looking for it. I have hidden it inside Man himself”. “Yes, but whereabouts
inside Man have you hidden it?”, all the other Gods asked. “Ah”, said
Brahm, “that is my secret, and always will be; unless and until Man discov-
ers it for himself.”19
And here in lies the real test of a leader’s work: discovering the divin-
ity within. Its true fulfillment lies in journeying from position-power to
self-power.
19
Retrieved March 27, 2016: http://www.telelib.com/words/authors/K/KiplingRudyard/
prose/BookOfWords/surgeonssoul.html.
One Hundred One Maxims of Holistic Leadership

A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.
—John Maxwell
Holistic leaders are authentic leaders. They invest in learning about the
way first and strive hard to model the way by living it. Holistic leaders
build their life-work on the solid moral ground—they do right things for
right reasons. They exalt means over ends. They approach their work in the
spirit of service and as an offering for the good of others. They stay away
from the traps of fame and power and humbly lead from behind. Their
humility is born of the strength of their character. In the following section,
we distil and present key holistic leadership lessons to illumine a leader’s
journey to self-leadership.
On Becoming Holistic Leaders

1. Holistic leadership marks the transition from position-power to self-
power. It is a voyage of inner discovery that begins with knowing
oneself and culminates in living one’s deepest values at the personal,
team, and organizational level. Effective leaders holistically engage
the body, mind, heart, soul and spirit of those whom they lead.
2. The quest for holistic leadership starts with self-awareness and self-
mastery, progresses with living authentically one’s core values, and
culminates in leaving a legacy by fulfilling life’s purpose through
selfless service for the greater good.
3. Holistic leadership is not about the goads of money, position, power or
fame; it is about contribution and empowering others. It is a responsi-
bility to share and not a position to wield. Holistic leaders are not con-
cerned with who gets the credit but simply that the work gets done.
4. Holistic leaders do not look for what they like to do. They do what
needs to be done. They know very well that leadership is not only
about doing what one loves; it is also about learning to love what
one has to do.
5. Holistic leaders are dealers in hope. They invite everyone to share in
the dream that together we can make our world a better place. They
have a deep understanding of human systems. They learn to master
the language of transformation and help ordinary people accomplish
extraordinary things.
286 S. DHIMAN
6. Holistic leaders are ever-mindful of their true calling: While building

their external career, they do not neglect their inner character and
spiritual needs. In fact, they holistically tend to their physical, psy-
chological, emotional and spiritual needs.
7. Holistic leadership fosters a leader’s harmonious development in all
its vital dimensions. It is primarily a self-cultivation process emanat-
ing from one’s deepest core values and beliefs. Accordingly, learning
to be an effective leader needs to be approached essentially as a vital
dimension of one’s personal growth and transformation.
Motivating the Whole Person

1. The basic human needs are organized into a hierarchy of relative
prepotency. Holistic leaders recognize that the deficiency needs are
also important for securing basic measure of happiness. However,
they focus on the awakening and fulfillment of higher order needs
of themselves and others. They are aware that the movement
towards psychological health is also the movement toward spiritual
peace and social harmony.
2. Holistic leaders understand that we all have unused potentialities
and that it is certainly possible for most of us to be greater than we
are in actuality. Maslow found out that one of the reasons that
blocks the growth of individuals is the “fear of one’s own greatness”
or “running away from one’s own best talents”.
3. Holistic leaders are well aware that cultivation of one’s capacities
requires hard work, dedication, discipline, training, practice and
often postponement of pleasure. They strive to be the very best in
whatever they undertake. Self-actualization means going through
an arduous and demanding period of preparation in order to real-
ize one’s possibilities.
4. Holistic leaders know that the best way to inspire people is to make
them realize that they are a part of something important, some-
thing larger, something greater, grander and that their contribu-
tion matters to make a difference in the world. True fulfillment
comes from working well at something one considers worthwhile. The
self only finds its true actualization in giving itself to some higher
purpose outside oneself, in altruism and spirituality.
5. Holistic leaders are aware that the real motivation for performing
great tasks can only lie within a person. You cannot expect a great
art performance just by offering lucrative pay or better working
conditions.
6. Holistic leaders are well aware that the best way to destroy motiva-
tion is to expect and accept mediocre performance from others.
They honor the relationship between the degree of goal difficulty
and performance. They know that just “trying to do one’s best” is
not good enough.
7. Holistic leaders acquire a sense of significance by doing significant
things, from being active participants in their own learning and
development. They understand that to be motivating, the work
itself needs to be meaningful, valuable, engaging or relevant.
8. One of the key findings of goal-setting theory is that specific, dif-
ficult goals lead to higher performance than no goals as well as
vague, abstract goals such as “do your best”. In fact, the research
shows that “do-your-best” goals lead to low performance.
9. Holistic leaders are well aware that it is better to concentrate more
on self-control and self-discipline than self-esteem. Self-esteem over-
promises but under-delivers. Self-discipline under-promises and over-
delivers. There are at least three things one can do to improve
performance where self-esteem has failed to deliver: effort, will
power and self-compassion. Trying harder and sustained will power
leads to better performance.
10. New motivation research shows that money is a motivator mainly
for basic, repetitive and rudimentary tasks. For tasks of increasing
complexity, the three key motivators are: autonomy, mastery and
purpose. Autonomy: the urge to direct our own lives. Mastery: the
desire to get better and better at something that matters. Purpose:
the yearning to do what we do in the service of something larger
than ourselves.
Mastering the “Me” in Leadership
1. Holistic leaders have the ability to envision the universal dimension

of personal struggles. They surname all grief as “grace” and trans-
mute personal challenges and champion universal causes. While
ordinary people tend to take the “slings and arrows of outrageous
fortune” too personally, holistic leaders approach them as opportu-
nities for individual and collective transformation.
2. As a part of their personal mastery regimen, holistic leaders employ
their intellect effectively to direct their mind. Whereas ordinary
leaders are constantly driven by a wayward mind and unruly desires
for sense objects, holistic leaders use the power of intellect to discern
between what is pleasant (preyas) and what is right (śreyas).
288 S. DHIMAN
3. The key to acting morally right lies in finding a moderate position

between those two extremes—one of excess and the other of defi-
ciency. For example, courage is a virtue, but if taken to excess it
would appear as recklessness, and, in deficiency, as cowardice.
Aristotle’s principle of the golden mean is not the exact arithmetical
mean; it depends on the situation. There is no universal middle that
would apply to every situation.
4. On the path of personal mastery, morality acts as a necessary prelude
to spirituality, for scriptures do not cleanse the ethically impure.
There is no holistic leadership without ethical and spiritual founda-
tion. Holistic leaders act as a “witness” of high moral leadership
without which the limits of higher human possibilities would neither
be known nor sustained.
5. Excellence, according to Aristotle, is not an innate gift; it is achieved
through repeated practice until it becomes a habit, a settled disposi-
tion, for we are what we repeatedly do. For Aristotle, happiness is the
“virtuous activity of the soul in accordance with reason”. A good life is
one that has been lived by making morally virtuous choices or decisions.
6. Nobody comes to work to put in a shoddy performance. Everyone
is looking for creative self-expression. And when we create opportu-
nities for meaningful self-expression, we help build a workplace
where people act with self-fulfillment and not merely work for it.
Creating such a liberating work environment is the real job of a
holistic leader.
7. Research on expert performance shows that many characteristics
once believed to reflect innate talent are actually the result of intense,
deliberate practice extended for a minimum of 10 years or 10,000
hours. The 10,000-hour rule of thumb is not about mechanical
practice though. Practice is important but it is perhaps not the only
thing. Quite a number of studies suggest that aside from practice
hours, individual differences—ranging from socioeconomics to
coaching to IQ—help explain expert success.
8. Excellence is a complex, multifaceted issue and the jury is still out on
the respective roles of natural endowment and deliberate practice in
human performance. The perennial debate over nature vs. nurture
continues. Perhaps it is both practice and genes that make champi-
ons. Genes perhaps make practice enjoyable and practice likewise
makes it easier to actualize genes’ promise. Perhaps the best thing is
to be born as a genius. The next best thing is to work at it!
Creatively Remaining in the Flow
1. Creativity has now come to be recognized as important in educa-

tion as literacy. IBM’s Institute for Business Value has named cre-
ativity the single most important attribute for success in leading a
large corporation in the future. Some of the world’s most iconic
companies are embracing creativity as a way of life.
2. Now more than ever, to stay competitive, leaders must inspire a vision
for creativity by fostering an environment of workplace engagement,
encouragement and commitment. It has been rightly observed that
one doesn’t manage creativity; one manages for creativity.
3. Given the fact that majority of US workers are not engaged, as
indicated by a series of recent Gallup polls, it becomes paramount
for present-day leaders to foster conditions of flow at work. Recent
research has underscored the vital link between happiness at work
and workplace success: Flow directly correlates to happiness at
work and happiness at work directly correlates to success.
4. In business, originality isn’t enough. To be creative, an idea must
also be useful and actionable. If creativity is about discovering what
is novel and useful, innovation is about implementing it and bring-
ing it to successful fruition.
5. Creativity is a function of three components: expertise, creative-
thinking skills and motivation. Leaders can proactively influence
these components through conducive workplace practices and
conditions.
6. There is mounting research—both at the qualitative and quantita-
tive level—that shows that creativity is very much a science. It is
like a muscle. If you train yourself properly, you can become more
creative. Under the right conditions, anyone can learn to be cre-
ative and it pays organizations to support the creative processes.
7. Flow has been described as an optimal state of consciousness in
which we feel and perform our best. It is the art and science of
being alive to profound possibilities. Flow follows focus. This
important fact underscores the close relationship between flow and
mindfulness. Both flow and mindfulness can only happen in the
now, in the present tense.
8. Mindfulness and creativity are natural partners. By its alert focus
on the present state of mind, the practice of mindfulness contrib-
utes to the successful attainment of both flow and creativity. Intense
290 S. DHIMAN
focus on the task at hand is a hallmark of creativity, thus linking

flow, creativity and mindfulness as one single movement.
9. Research shows that mindfulness boosts creativity through greater
insight, receptivity, balance and clarity; ensures greater engage-
ment at workplace through increased energy and sense of well-
being and expanding awareness and range of our responses, and
lesser burnout.
10. Mindfulness serves as the basis for personal transformation. This
has far-reaching implications for leaders as well as followers. When
we are more aware, more mindful, we are greatly open to the new
possibilities and fresh opportunities. This reduces stress. Most
stress arises by missing the present because we are busy living in the
past memories or future dreams.
11. When we dwell in the present, we are more sensitive to the present
context and thus less judgmental. This enhances engagement in
any human interaction. Mindfulness generates a more positive
result, a better performance for almost any activity.
10 Different Ways of Being Smart

1. The constructs of emotional intelligence and multiple intelligences
show that there are more ways to identify human capacities than
just through logical and linguistic intelligence, as traditionally
measured by IQ.
2. While traditional IQ scores are useful for predicting how we will do
in school, they tell little about our performance once we leave
school. IQ proves to be a weak predictor of how well we relate
with others, perform at work and cope with a variety of daily tasks
and challenges.
3. IQ and EI are not opposing competencies, but rather different
ones. EI is not about the primacy of heart over head—it is the
unique harmony of both: emotions enhancing thinking and think-
ing regulating emotions. We need both the sensibility of mind and the
sensitivity of the heart to succeed in the business of life.
4. Proponents of EI advocate that it is leaders’ primal job to create a
progressive emotional environment that frees the best in people.
By effectively harnessing both emotional and multiple intelli-
gences, holistic leaders can recognize and nurture the myriad gifts
that people bring to work in an integral manner.
5. Studies have shown that empathy is the number one practical com-
petency of a successful life. There is zero correlation between IQ
and emotional empathy. They are controlled by different parts of
the brain.
6. Emotional intelligence and various multiple intelligences are ame-
nable to conscious development and their mastery can contribute
to the development of a holistic leader. Research has shown that EI
changes over time and can be learned and expanded, at any time
during one’s life.
7. According to Howard Gardner, leaders demonstrate a generous
degree of at least three of the eight multiple intelligences: linguistic
intelligence, interpersonal intelligence and intrapersonal intelli-
gence. Leaders can empower themselves and others through their
understanding of multiple intelligences.
8. Postulated as intelligence beyond the traditional notions of ratio-
nal intelligence (IQ) and emotional intelligence (EQ), spiritual
intelligence (SI or SQ) has been hailed as the critical intelligence
for leadership success in the twenty-first century.
9. Spiritual intelligence pertains to the inner life of mind and spirit
and its relationship to being in the world. It is the intelligence that
inspires us to ask ultimate questions, seek meaning and purpose,
and strive for the greater good. It is the intelligence that makes us
whole—“most human”. Spiritual intelligence serves as a necessary
foundation for both IQ and EQ. The full and proper development
of human capacities is achieved through spiritual growth alone.
10. Spiritual intelligence is the outcome of spiritual growth: We move
from immature ego-driven behaviors to more mature higher Self-
driven behaviors …. We develop the ability to hear the voice of our
higher Self, to understand and transcend the voice of our ego and
to be guided by deep wisdom and compassion.
Harnessing the Best in People and Organizations
1. We are constantly shaping our reality through our assumptions,

expectations and core beliefs. Each organization has a two-part exis-
tence: the positive and the problematic—the abundant and the defi-
cit. Which part wins depends upon what we care to feed.
2. Traditional approaches to problem-solving focus on what is wrong
in a given situation and proceed to “fix” it with all the analytical
292 S. DHIMAN
tools available. For achieving quantum breakthroughs, we need to

go beyond the dark images of the past. We need clear, bright images
of the future; we need a quantum leap into the field of possibilities.
Appreciative inquiry is about tapping into the river of positive pos-
sibilities, a way of harnessing the untapped creative energies of peo-
ple and organizations.
3. Appreciative inquiry (AI) is about discovering and nurturing the
best in people and organizations by focusing on the possibilities and
potential. It is built on the premise that if you truly wish to change
your world, you must change your way of asking questions.
4. When you search for problems, you find problems. You and your
organization can get stuck in negativity. On the other hand, if you
seek what is positive in individuals and organizations, you tap into
the emergent field of possibilities and potentials.
5. Along the lines of Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences,
Appreciative Intelligence is “the ability to see the mighty oak in the
acorn”—the intelligence to perceive the positive inherent generative
potential in the present. Like emotional intelligence, we can nurture
it and sharpen it once we realize the presence of it within us.
6. Let’s stop feeding problems and start nurturing potentials and pos-
sibilities. Let’s all become “goodfinders”. Since everything depends
upon everything, we transform the world by transforming ourselves.
Every thought we think is changing our future. If we become what
we think, as the Buddha taught, the best way to transform ourselves
and our organizations is to change our thinking.
7. We need to imagine big and we need to think bold. Words create
worlds and images evoke actions. Positive images of the future lead
to positive actions. We need to have a vision that clearly sees a mighty
oak tree in a tiny acorn. For, limitations in our perceptions are not
limitations in the things perceived.
Leading With Soul
1. It is perhaps not an exaggeration to say that while material progress
has occurred, humanity’s spiritual life has declined. The conse-
quence of misplaced emphasis on the external has been the neglect
of the inner workings of human spirit. Man’s most pressing task
today is the elevation and reformation of his inner spiritual life.20
20
D. Ikeda & A. Peccei, Before It is Too Late (Tokyo: Kodansha International LTD), 104.
2. The traditional forms of leadership and organizational structure

are proving inadequate to deal with emerging reality that is com-
plex, multidimensional and virtual. We need new thinking, new
metaphors of resonance to dance with the emergent reality. We
need holistic systems that are able to integrate the spiritual and the
material perspectives in a dialectical manner.
3. Spiritual leadership is an emerging paradigm within the broader
context of workplace spirituality designed to create values-driven,
intrinsically-motivated organizations.
4. It encompasses the values, attitudes and behaviors necessary to
motivate oneself and others intrinsically by appealing to humani-
ty’s fundamental yearning for spiritual well-being realized by living
out one’s higher consciousness, calling and contribution.
5. Authentic leadership and servant leadership are primary expres-
sions of spiritual leadership. Authentic leaders are altruistic, honest
and trustworthy. Servant leadership represents a shift from
followers serving leaders to leaders serving followers. It denotes
increased service to others, a holistic approach to work, and a
greater sense of community.
6. Spiritual leadership is a vital expression of holistic leadership since
it covers all of its three important elements: self, spirit and service.
It begins with being authentic and ends with serving others. This
requires that we cultivate both of these dimensions and mandates
that before leading others, we lead ourselves first.
7. While religion often looks outward, depending on rites and rituals;
spirituality looks inward—the kingdom within. Spirituality is an
inner quest, highly individual and intensely personal (the flight of
the alone to Alone).
8. Spirituality takes it as axiomatic that there is a higher principle,
force, being or intelligence that sustains the universe. It believes
that ours is basically a just and fair universe and we are put here to
do good. There is a purpose for everyone and everything. It pos-
tulates that entire world is one family with a common identity and
heritage and everything is connected with everything else. People
have both an inner and outer life. The cultivation of the inner life
can lead to a more meaningful and productive outer life.
9. The goal of all spiritual life is to discover the truth of our existence
and to cultivate a sense of harmony with all that exists. Most reli-
gious and spiritual traditions postulate a state of inner freedom
from limitations and variously denote it by such words as mukti,
294 S. DHIMAN
mokṣa, nirvāna, liberation, salvation, enlightenment or

self-realization.
10. Spirituality helps us to discover the deeper, transcendental mean-
ing in our work; while workplace spirituality helps us find meaning
at work. Recent research shows the link between workplace spiri-
tuality and employee engagement.
11. Spiritual leadership is not about how high you climb on the orga-
nizational ladder; it is about what you are, what you contribute and
stand for. For what does it profit a leader if, having climbed high
up the proverbial ladder, such a leader discovers that the ladder was
leaning against the wrong wall all along!
Living Our Highest Purpose in Life
1. To succeed in the twenty-first century, leaders of organizations

must offer a greater sense of meaning and purpose for their work-
force. Holistic leaders first seek fulfillment through meaning, pur-
pose and contribution and help others to do the same.
2. Research shows that 90% of workers are either “not engaged” with
or “actively disengaged” from their jobs. This state of disengage-
ment is not limited to workers alone. Research also shows that
“fewer than 20% of leaders have a strong sense of their own indi-
vidual purpose.”
3. Articulating purpose and finding the courage to live it are the most
important tasks that a leader can undertake. For when the why of a
leader’s work is clear, the task of how becomes quite easy.
4. Since meaning can only be found in our social interaction, it is
important that leaders strive to create a rich organizational culture
that enables individuals to come together to carry out a meaning-
ful common purpose.
5. The meaning that we bring to our strivings sustains us through
trials and tribulations of life. Research on the survivors of concen-
tration camps and prisoners-of-war has shown that people who had
something important yet to do in their lives—or who had a task wait-
ing for them to fulfill—were most likely to survive.
6. Victor Frankl states that the first avenue to finding meaning in life
is through work. By devoting ourselves to a task, to a cause bigger
than ourselves, we create meaning in our lives. The second way to
discover meaning is “by experiencing something—such as good-

ness, truth, and beauty”. The third avenue to finding meaning in
life is by formulating a right attitude towards unavoidable
suffering.
7. According to Victor Frankl, life’s meaning is an unconditional one,
for it even includes the potential meaning of unavoidable suffering.
Suffering is not necessary to find meaning, only that meaning is
possible in spite of suffering. If suffering is avoidable, the most
meaningful thing to do would be to remove its cause. There is
nothing heroic about enduring it.
8. A fulfilled life is not that which is achieved through chasing
momentary pleasures, but the one attained through bearing
suffering nobly and courageously and transforming it into oppor-
tunities for meaning, wisdom and growth.
9. Effective leadership is about having impactful purpose and pur-
poseful impact. This then is the essence of holistic leadership: know
your purpose and live it fully. The meaning of life is to discover our
purpose; the purpose of life is to live it.
10. We are put on this planet with a mission to accomplish and a pur-
pose to fulfill. It is our soul’s mission and the reason we were born.
It is our silent pact with the universe. Unless we fulfill this purpose,
this mission, we are not given to experience the deepest joy of ful-
fillment that life has to offer, no matter how successful, rich or
famous we may become.
Sharing Our Gifts in Life and Leadership
1. A holistic leader’s voyage of fulfillment begins with knowing one-

self and culminates in living one’s deepest values in the service of
others. Holistic leaders find fulfillment in discovering, polishing
and sharing their gifts—and in helping others to do the same.
2. The quest for holistic leadership entails transforming a leader’s
search for success into a discovery of profound meaning and sig-
nificance. This journey to “significance”, which is cultivated from
within, is not about “acquiring” anything new; it is a matter of
“rediscovering” and “harnessing” what one already has.
3. A holistic leader cultivates certain virtues of head and heart, called
habits of highly-fulfilled people: pure motivation, gratitude, gener-
osity, selfless service, harmlessness, acceptance and presence. These
296 S. DHIMAN
abiding virtues are cultivated within first before they are manifested
in a leader’s outer life.
4. The path to a fulfilled life starts with pure motivation because it
serves as a necessary foundation for all other habits. If our motiva-
tion is impure, we will not really be able to practice gratitude, gen-
erosity, harmlessness and selfless service because our self-interest
will always be lurking in the background.
5. Pure motivation signifies that, whatever we do, our every action
should be motivated by the desire to help, to benefit others, with-
out expecting anything in return. The moment we ask the question
“what is in it for me”, our motivation ceases to be pure!
6. Gratitude is a master key to living a fulfilled life. Gratitude is the art
of wanting what we have. It is the first and last step on the journey
to contentment. Actually, gratitude and contentment are two sides
of the same coin. When we are thankful … thanksgiving leads to
having more to be thankful for!
7. Research has shown that keeping a daily gratitude journal leads to
an increased sense of well-being (positive affect and life satisfac-
tion), better sleep, more willingness to accept change, greater opti-
mism and a sense of connectedness to others, and even can help
lower symptoms of pain. Develop the habit of keeping a gratitude
journal “if you want to dramatically improve the quality of your
life”.
8. Researchers in the field of positive psychology note that if there is
a magic pill for happiness and longevity, it is called generosity.
Countless studies have found that the benefits of practicing gener-
osity are substantial: lower blood pressure, lower risk of dementia,
less anxiety and depression, reduced cardiovascular risk and overall
greater happiness.
9. The gift of harmlessness represents the perfect embodiment of the
Golden Rule and can serve as a sound foundation for any ethical
and spiritual practice. In essence, harmlessness signifies non-
harming by thought, word and deed. When we understand that a
harm done to others is essentially a harm done to ourselves—since
there are no others—we have understood the real import of
harmlessness.
10. Our planet is plagued by mindless exploitation, rampant destruc-
tion, dogged self-centeredness and unbridled greed that has
manifested in terrorism, war and violence. If there is one thing that
can save our species from the mad self-destruction of war and vio-
lence, it is the gift of harmlessness.
11. Selflessness is the best thing you can do for yourself! It is also the
best gift you can offer to the universe. In true service, the giver,
not the receiver, is humbled. When all is said and done, there is no
human ideal higher than the gift of selfless service. For in serving
others, we find our true joy and fulfillment.
12. True acceptance is born out of understanding life’s profound real-
ity and entails surrendering to its wisdom. It is about realizing our
proper place in the universe—accepting our relative existence with
all its vulnerability, precariousness, and transience. As long as we
are not happy with what is and pine for what is not, the supreme
joy of contentment will elude us.
13. The best gift we can to offer our fellow human beings is the gift of
our presence, our attentive listening, our empathy, our kindness
and compassion. This is possible only if we are truly present in all
our engagements and interactions. Mindfulness means being
alertly present in the present moment. This culminating gift facili-
tates the practice of all other gifts, as we mindfully remain alert
from moment to moment.
14. There is no calling higher than living humbly for the good of oth-
ers. Holistic leadership is the path of loving service and altruistic
love. A fulfilled life is a gratifying consequence of selfless service.
15. The seven habits of highly fulfilled leaders work in an integral man-
ner. When we cultivate one gift completely, the other six gifts fol-
low. Additionally, these gifts should be approached as seven
offerings that highly-fulfilled leaders share with others. The good
news is that, paradoxically, when we share these gifts with others,
we receive many more blessings in return.
Being Change: A Hero’s Journey and Legacy

1. Effective leaders establish their conduct on the high ground of eth-
ics. For them, means are ends in the making for nothing right can
ultimately come from wrong means. Ethical means are ends in
themselves because “virtue is its own reward”.
2. Holistic leaders understand the origins of social change: when

faced with challenges, they dive within, train their mind, and
298 S. DHIMAN
t ransform their emotions to be the change they wish to see in oth-

ers. This is the alchemy of Gandhi’s leadership development.
3. Gandhi considered morality as the basis of all things and truth as
the substance of all morality. For him, any path that did not finally
lead to common good and oneness was a mere detour. In this web
of mutual coexistence and interdependencies, the existence and
well-being of each entity ensures the existence and well-being of all
others.
4. Every time Gandhi confronted human frailties in the outer world,
he turned his searchlight within to find answers in the deeper
recesses of his soul. A person’s capacity for self-control enhances
his capacity to influence the environment around him: this was the
key to Gandhi’s political potency. He who controls himself gains
the strength to shape the environment.
5. Holistic leaders know that leading with authenticity first requires
delving into the core of one’s being and engaging in a process of
deep self-exploration characterized by self-reflection, self-
understanding and self-mastery. Gandhi’s abiding quest continu-
ously to “remake” himself bears ample testimony to his commitment
to self-mastery.
6. The greatest lesson that Gandhi learned from his lifelong study of
the Gītā was the path of selfless action (Karma Yoga)—a discipline
he lived his life by: use the right means for a just cause and leave the
results in the hands of God. In Karma yoga, motivation or intention
behind the action determines the moral quality of an action.
7. As a leader, Gandhi used culturally rich symbols to convey his mes-
sage and to demonstrate its moral and practical value. In this man-
ner, he was able to appeal to shared expectations and recognitions.
This is the alchemy of his true influence as a leader.
8. Only those who have renounced personal ambition can truly serve.
This is clearly evident from the influence and gentle power that
Gandhi commanded as a leader even though he did not hold any
official title, office or position. This is the epitome of servant
leadership.
9. Gandhi inspired emulation not so much by his professed set of
values and beliefs as by the exemplary nature of his life and con-
duct. He lived his values and made his life his message.
10. We have to be the change that we wish to see in the world. Gandhi
became the source and embodiment of his own teachings. This was
Gandhi’s most important discovery and his greatest gift to

humankind.
11. Holistic leadership is a voyage of inner discovery that begins with
knowing oneself and culminates in living one’s deepest values in
service of a cause higher than oneself. The image of the path or the
journey could be misleading for all paths are paths away from
home. Strictly speaking, it is not a journey; it is a home-coming.
This is called self-discovery—a journey of recognition, from here to
here.
12. The alchemy of transformation in life is not any different from that
of leadership. Discipline, humility and right attitude are as critical
in life as they are in leadership. Nobody has ever become a great
leader without first becoming a good human being.
Concluding Thoughts
Only when we find higher meaning and purpose and seek to live in accord
with moral and spiritual principles will we find true happiness, peace and
fulfillment. The unbridled worship of individualism, greed, pride, fame
and consumerism is contrary to the virtues of truth, love and justice.
Developing moral and spiritual virtues can help us transcend self-cen-
teredness and create a caring, compassionate society built on the values of
truth, love and justice. By seeking perennially who we truly are and serv-
ing selflessly, we may redeem our existence and be fulfilled. “The mark of
the immature man”, said J. D. Salinger, “is that he wants to die nobly for
a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly
for one.”21 There is no calling higher than living humbly for a noble cause.
It is the path of loving service and altruistic love. This is the hallmark of
holistic leadership. A fulfilled life is the gratifying consequence of selfless
service.
It has been said that the function of leadership is to produce more lead-
ers, not more followers. What is the alchemy of producing more leaders?
Most of the time, it is about leading from behind. In his autobiography
entitled Long Walk to Freedom, Nelson Mandela, equated a great leader
to a shepherd: “A leader … is like a shepherd. He stays behind the flock,
letting the most nimble go out ahead, whereupon the others follow, not
J. D. Salinger, Catcher in the Rye (New York, Little, Brown and Company, 1991), 224.
21
300 S. DHIMAN
realizing that all along they are being directed from behind.”22 Elsewhere
Mandela states that “It is better to lead from behind and to put others in
front, especially when you celebrate victory when nice things occur. You
take the front line when there is danger. Then people will appreciate your
leadership.”23 Within the short compass of these two quotes, Mandela
encapsulates the leadership lessons he learnt having spent 10,000 days in
jail over a period of 50 years of struggle (1944–1994) for ending bondage.
Leading from behind is a leadership style whose time has come. It is a style
which puts followers in the forefront of the leadership line. However, it
requires supreme humility.
Lao Tzu, the great Chinese sage, stated so well, “A leader is best when
people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they
will say: we did it ourselves.” He recognized the importance of humility
as the key ingredient of leadership for only the humble can truly serve a
cause higher than themselves. The following free-flowing, interpretative
translation of Lao Tzu’s wisdom splendidly captures the essence of holistic
leadership in terms of building on the best in people:
Learn from the people

Plan with the people
Begin with what they have
Build on what they know
Of the best leaders
When the task is accomplished
The people will remark
We have done it ourselves.24
I conclude this book with a wise saying of the Buddha: “Carpenters

fashion wood; fletchers fashion arrows; the wise fashion themselves.”25
Fashioning oneself is a life-long process. There are no short cuts here; as
22
Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela (New
York: Little, Brown and Company, 1995), 22.
23
As quoted in Ryan Lizza, “Leading from Behind”, New Yorker, April 26, 2011. Retrieved
March 31, 2016: http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/leading-from-behind.
24
As Quoted in Richard Pascale, Jerry Sternin, and Monique Sternin, The Power of Positive
Deviance: How Unlikely Innovators Solve the World’s Toughest Problems (Boston: Harvard
Business Review Press, 2010), 193 (emphasis added).
25
As quoted in Lou Marinoff, Plato, Not Prozac! Applying Philosophy to Everyday Problems
(New York: Harper, 1999), iii.
Voltaire reminds us in Candide: “We must cultivate our garden.”26 The

grass is not greener on the other side; it is greener where we water it. Let
us keep hoeing our gardens and watering our grasses, with faith.
Thomas Merton, the great Trappist monk and a preeminent 20th cen-
tury philosopher, concludes his masterly autobiography, The Seven Story
Mountain, with a famous Latin saying—sit finis libri non finis quaerendi:
“the book is finished, the seeking goes on.”—for him and for all of us!
From Position-Power to Self-Power: Reflection

Questions
1. What are the two most important qualities that enable holistic lead-
ers to transition from position-power to self-power?
2. Explain the approach of leading from behind, as practiced by the
great African leader, Nelson Mandela. How did this approach help
him in becoming an exemplary leader?
3. The wisdom traditions of the world have always pointed out the fact
that we are divine in our essence. Briefly explain why this fact remains
mostly hidden from us and how our crucibles direct us to turn
inward and search our divine essence within.
4. Narrate an incident where you were able both to express yourself
and to surpass yourself. How did this incident enrich your self-
leadership journey?
5. Briefly explain how developing moral and spiritual virtues can help
us to transcend self-centeredness and create a caring, compassionate
society built on the values of truth, love and justice.
6. What is the role and importance of authenticity and responsibility in
self-leadership? What can leaders do to nurture these qualities in
themselves and others?
7. Explain how the fulfillment of our life and leadership lies in the pur-
suit of Self-knowledge and selfless service.
26
As cited in Will Durant, Fallen Leaves: Last Words on Life, Love, War, and God (New
York: Simon & Schuster, 2014), 25.
Erratum to: Holistic Leadership
Satinder Dhiman
© The Author(s) 2017

DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-55571-7
DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-55571-7_12
The original version of the book was published without the source for
Fig.1.1, 1.2 and 9.1
The source name is given below for these figures:
Figure 1.1. Cycle of holistic leadership, Satinder Dhiman (2016)

Source: Conceptual cycle of leadership, Manoj Chandra Handa (2015);
personal communication, September 18, 2015.
Figure 1.2. Holistic leadership framework, Satinder Dhiman (2016)

Source: Conceptual framework of leadership, Manoj Chandra Handa
(2015); personal communication, September 7, 2015.
The updated original online version for this chapter can be found at
DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-55571-7_1
© The Author(s) 2017 E1

DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-55571-7_12
E2 S. DHIMAN
Figure 9.1. Adapted from Seven Habits of Highly Fulfilled People frame-
work, Satinder Dhiman (2012/2014)
Visual design adapted from Conceptual framework of leadership, Manoj
Chandra Handa (2015).
The updated original online version for this chapter can be found at
DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-55571-7_9
Index
A characteristics, 138
absolute truth, 270 collective attention, 144–5
acceptance, 69, 75, 206, 207, 228, culture of deficit, 153
295, 297 definitions, 136–8
healthy, 231–2 engaging questions, art of asking,
total (see total acceptance) 141–4
unhealthy, 230–1 forward movement, 145
Adams, Ansel, 87 holistic leadership, role in, 134
Adams, John Quincy, 242 management, implications for, 151
Adler, Alfred, 188 origin and development, 134–6
aggression, 189, 223 “positive organizational studies”,
AI. See appreciative inquiry (AI) 135
Alcoholics Anonymous, 160 principles of, 146–8
altruism, 26, 27, 42, 286 problem-based vs. strength based
distinguished from generosity, 218 approach, 135, 139, 148–9
altruistic love, 123, 160, 167, 178, Pygmalion effect, 140–1
297, 299 science of “seeing” and “sensing”
Amabile, Teresa, 29–30, 68–9, 71, 73 possibilities, 133–5
anger, 223–4, 269 appreciative intelligence, 139, 292
emotion of, 44–6, 48–9 Aristotle, 202, 288
anticipatory principle, 146 anger, 48–9
appreciative inquiry (AI), 12, 292 Excellence, 24, 55
4-D model, 135–6, 149–51 happiness, 56
abundant and deficit, 134, 153, 291 happy life, definition, 55
appreciative intelligence, 139, 292 law of diminishing marginal
Buddha, 133 utility, 56

DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-55571-7
304 INDEX
Aristotle (cont.) Benioff, Marc, 177

Nicomachean Ethics, 54–5 Bennis, Warren G., 2, 7, 45, 172, 173,
one-size-fits-all strategy, 55 175, 268–9, 271, 278, 281
sort of equilibrium, 55 best, harnessing, 291–2
virtue, 55 Bhagavad Gītā, 10, 24, 62, 83–4, 123,
aspiration, levels of, 21 196, 202, 211, 223–4, 236, 247,
Astin, Alexander W., 166 251, 258–9, 261, 273, 298
Astin, Helen S., 166 curbing desire, anger and greed, 48–9
attention, 234–5 and imposter ego, 50–1
attitude, 27, 33, 51, 104, 166, 167, mind, 46–7
181, 186, 189, 190, 206, 210, and passion for excellence, 54
213, 295, 299 personal mastery, 51–4
Aung San Suu Kyi, 243 sacrifice, charity and austerity, 49–50
austerity (tapas), 49 and self-mastery, 45
authentic happiness, 193 yoga, 54
authenticity, 12, 85, 157–8, 168, 173, Blumenfeld, Samuel, 267
268–9, 272, 275, 280, 281, 298, B-Needs, Growth Needs, 22, 26
301 Bock, Lazlo, 283
authentic leadership, 5, 8–9, 124, 157, Bohm, David, 3–4, 225
165, 168–70, 173, 179, 281, Bolman, Lee G., 161, 178
285, 293, 298 A Brief History of Time, 152
authentic self, 5, 14, 156, 241, 279–80 Brown, Donald, 175
authors and portraits, 6–7 Bryner, Jeanna, 219
Avolio, Bruce J., 169 Buber, Martin, 196
awareness principle, 148 Buddha, 41, 89–91, 133, 153, 181,
194, 197, 209, 219, 221, 223,
232, 234, 257, 261, 265, 292, 300
B Buddhism, 24, 67, 162, 177,
Bach, J. S., 266 222–3, 233
Bar-On model, 100 Four Noble Truths, 194
adaptability, 104 nonviolence, 222–4
EQ-i T, 103, 104 presence, 232, 233, 235
general mood, 104 right livelihood, 24, 181
interpersonal, 103 business scandals, 2–3
intrapersonal, 103 ‘by-product’ theory of happiness,
“self-report” test, 104–5 23, 187
stress management, 103
being, 238
change, 13, 241–2 C
smart, 290–1 Campbell, Joseph, 260, 261
Being-Values or B-Values, 22, 23, 26 Camus, Albert, 12, 182, 194–5
belonging, 26, 148, 158, 206, 238 caring, 108–9, 156, 176, 178,
needs, 19, 20 299, 301
INDEX 305
Cavanagh, Gerald F., 157 and happiness, implications for

Cedillo, Marie, 166 leaders, 78–9
Center for Creative Leadership and innovation, 68–9
(CLL), 108 inspiration, 71
cerebral cortex, 114 Langer, 83–9
Chanakya, 239 mindfulness and flow, 67–8, 92–3
character, leadership and, 175–6 myths of, 74–7
charity (dänam), 49 optimal experience, psychology of,
choiceless awareness, 235 77–8
Churchill, Winston, 218, 253 practice of mindfulness, 89–91
Cicero, 212 seven intelligences, 69–70
civil disobedience, 251, 253, 265 Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of
collaboration, 107, 165 Discovery and Invention, 82
Collins, Jim, 58, 177, 281 Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly, 45
common good, 4, 13, 165, 169, creative people, 75, 81
175–6, 227, 235, 298 creativity and mindfulness, 82–3
community living (āshram), flow, 66–8, 77–8, 80, 92–3
177, 248, 252 curiosity, 35, 143, 172
compassion, 13, 175–6, 178, 200, cycle and framework, 7–8
206, 217, 221–2, 224–5, 233,
235, 269, 272, 280, 291, 297,
299, 301. See also self-compassion D
composure, 177, 228, 230–1 Dalai Lama, 35, 125, 162, 221, 243,
conflict, 50, 119, 206, 223, 269 257
management, 107 Dandi march, 252–3
constructionist principle, 146 Daniel Goleman model, 100, 105–7
Cook, Tim, 176 leadership competencies and
courage, 25, 54, 79, 181, 186, skills, 107
187, 190, 191, 201, 231, 260–1, self-awareness, 106
283, 288 self-management, 106
Covey, Steven, 44, 123, 172, 190 social awareness, 106
Craig, Nick, 170, 201, 202 social skills, 106–7
creativity, 289–90 daring, 172
business practices for, 71–2 Das, Ram, 176
creativity and innovation, definition, Deal, Terrence E., 161, 178
68–9 de Chardin, Pierre Teilhard, 155
Csikszentmihalyi, creative people, Deficiency Needs (D-Needs), 26
81–3 Denton, Elizabeth, 158, 161, 163–4
definition, Gardner’s, 69 depression, gratitude and, 215
design thinking, 73–4 desire
elements of flow experience, self-centered, 48
80–1 unsatisfied and unfulfilled, 48
and flow, 11 dharma, 54, 196, 245
306 INDEX
Dhiman, Satinder, 158 Emotional Quotient Inventory, EQ-i

discernment, 230–1, 277 T, 103, 104
‘discipline of speech’, 49–50 empathy, 11, 98, 103, 106, 110, 119,
diversity, 77, 165, 226, 265 121, 129, 175, 224, 233, 235,
divinity within, discovering, 283–4 291, 297
divisiveness, 223 employee engagement crisis,
Durant, Will, 55–6, 263 181, 183–5
enactment principle, 147–8
engaging in dialog, 283
E excellence, 59, 62, 288
Easwaran, Eknath, 250 exemplary leaders, 1, 3, 5, 41, 175,
Eckhart, Meister, 202 236, 242, 266, 272, 275
Edgewalking leadership, 174 exemplary leadership, 173, 242–3,
ego, imposter, 50–1 247, 267–72
Einstein, Albert, 18, 70, 71, 142, experience, 189–90
185–6, 225, 242–3 expert performance
emergent reality, 1–2, 174, 293 elite performance, 58–9
Emmons, Robert A., 125–6, 182, Excellence, 59
191–2, 194–5, 213–15, 217, 282 high levels, 58
emotion, positive, 193, 215 mechanical practice, 59
emotional intelligence (EI), 9, 11, world-class, 57
290, 291
Bar-On model, 103–5
Daniel Goleman model, 105–7 F
definition, 97–8, 99–100 fairness, 156
and emotions, 98–9, 129–30 Fischer, Louis, 262
Goleman’s version, 114 flow, 11, 66, 94–5, 289
human brilliance, 113–14 benefits, 92
and leadership effectiveness, 107–11 creative people, 81–3
marshmallows, 112 elements of, 80–1
Mayer and Salovey’s Four Branch experiencing, 77–8
model, 100–2 happiness and, 78–9
“mixed models”, 115 mindfulness and, 67–8
models of, 99–100 forgiveness, 175, 224
psychological qualities, 115 4-D model
self-awareness, 97 collaborative design approach,
self-confident and happy 150–1
workers, 115 collective discovery process,
star leadership performance, 111–12 135–6
Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can deliver, 151
Matter More than IQ, 105 discover, 149
emotional leadership, 279 dream phase, 149–50
“emotional quotient” (EQ), 109–10 Four Noble Truths, 194
INDEX 307
Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Gardner, Howard, 11, 69–70, 98,
Intelligences, 69, 116, 119 116–121, 125–6, 130–1, 139,
Franklin, Ben, 77, 270, 282 291, 292
Frankl, Victor E., 13, 182–3, 186–91, Gardner, John, 167
195, 203, 257, 294–5 Gardner, William L., 169
free choice principle, 148 generosity, 94, 153, 206, 207, 211,
Freud, Sigmund, 69, 188 217–21, 226, 296
Fromm, Eric, 193 distinguished from altruism, 218
Fry, Louis W., 155–6, 166–7 and happiness, 219–20
fulfillment, 12–13 preciousness within and without,
internal nature of, 235–6 220–1
and leadership, 236–7 George, Bill, 97, 168–70, 201, 281
Giacalone, Robert A., 158
Gibran, Khalil, 236
G giving, forms of, 218, 219
Gallup-Healthways goal-setting theory
Well-Being Index, 183 ‘do-your-best’ goals, 31–2,
Gandhi, Kasturba, 245–6 42, 287
Gandhi, Mahatma, 156, 187, 206, 224, empirical research, 32
226, 227, 238, 241–74, 298–9. and human motivation, 30–1
See also nonviolence self-regulation, process of, 32–3
assassination of, 255–7 Godse, Nathuram, 255, 256
Dandi march, 252–3 Gokhale, G. K., 251
disagreements, division and tragedy, good life, 55, 56, 193–4, 196, 288
253–5 Good to Great, 281
early formative years, 244–5 Gotsis, George, 163
exemplary leadership, 267–72 GPS system, 238
father’s death, 246–7 gratitude, 211–14, 296
greatness, 257–8 and depression, 215
leadership journey, 258–61 and happiness, 215–17
learning from mistakes, 265–7 journal, keeping, 214–15
legacy, 262 and positive psychology, 213–14
London years, 247–8 greed, 48
marriage, 245–6 Greenleaf, Robert K., 171
momentous years in India, 251–2 growth, and meaning in life, 184–7
moments of life and leadership, 243–4 guiding vision, 172
myths about, dispelling, 262–4 Gurdjieff, G.I., 60, 62, 84, 209, 235
“Quit India” campaign, 253
as saint, 263
satyāgraha, 250–1 H
South Africa years, 248–9 happiness, 192–4, 288
talisman, 272–3 generosity and, 219–20
transformation as a leader, 249–51 gratitude and, 215–17
308 INDEX
happy life holistic leadership, 2–10, 12–15, 18,

compared with meaning in life, 43, 134, 155, 157, 179, 241–3,
191–2 275–301
Hardy, Thomas, 194 Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 93
harmlessness, 206, 207, 211, 221–6, creative fulfillment or flow, 93–4
269–70, 296–7 meditative practices, 94
hatred, 223–4. See also self-hatred silence, 94
Havel, Vaclav, 153, 268 Homer, 224
healthy acceptance, 216, 231–2 honesty, 106, 156, 172
hedonic adaptation, 231 human brilliance, 113–14
helping, 224–6 humanistic psychology, 18, 28, 136
helplessness, acceptance out of, 230–2 humility, 124, 156, 177, 178, 270–1,
The Hero with a Thousand Faces, 260 281–3, 285, 300
Herrigel, Eugen, 230
Herzberg’s two-factor theory, 17
HBR article, 29 I
intrinsic motivation, 29–30 “I-Amness”, 277
job dissatisfaction, 28–9 IBM
job satisfaction (and motivation), Institute for Business Value,
28–9 66, 289
motivation-hygiene theory, 28 IDEO, values, 73–4
Herzog, Patricia Snell, 218 ignorance, 223
Hesse, Hermann, 171 Iliad, 224
Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward impermanence, 221
an Undivided Life, 122 Indian National Congress, 254
highest goal, living with, 198 insensitivity, 223–4
highest purpose in life, 294–5 institutions, positive, 193
discovering, 196–7 integrity, 112, 124, 156, 168, 172–6,
highly-fulfilled leaders, habits of, 242, 268, 280, 281
205–39 intellectual leadership, 279
generosity, 217–21 intelligence, 290–2
gratitude, 212–17 interpersonal intelligence, 116,
harmlessness, 221–6 118–19, 121, 291
mindfulness, 234–5 intrapersonal intelligence, 116, 118,
presence, 232–4 119, 121, 291
pure motivation, cultivating, intrinsic motivation, 29–30, 37–40,
207–12 72, 166, 279
selfless service, 226–8 Isaacson, Walter, 176, 177
total acceptance, 228–32
Hillary, Sir Edmund, 278–9
holistic leader framework, J
development of, 6, 8–9 Jainism, 222–3
holistic leaders, 285–6, 297–8 James, William, 230
INDEX 309
jealousy, 223 authentic, 12, 85, 157–8, 168, 173,

Jobs, Steve, 176–8 268–9, 272, 275, 280, 281,
Jones, E. Stanley, 255–6, 257, 266 285, 298
Judeo-Christianity, 162 case study, 176–8
Jurkiewicz, Carole L., 158 challenges to, 2
character and, 175–6
crisis, 171
K Edgewalking, 174
Kant, Immanuel, 208 effectiveness of, 107–11
Kanter, Rosabeth Moss, 69 exemplary, 173, 242–3
karma, 210 fulfillment and, 236–7
karma yoga, 210 holistic, 2–10, 12–15, 18, 43, 134,
kindness, 35–6, 41, 156, 211, 217, 155, 157, 179, 241–3,
220, 223, 224, 233, 235, 297 275–301
The Kingdom of God is Within You, as influence, 165
251, 260 ingredients of, 172
kingly giving, 219 integrity and, 172–3
King, Martin Luther, Jr., 156, 187, meaning and purpose in, 12,
191, 206, 221, 243, 268 181–203
King, Richard, 158 “me” in, mastering, 287–8
King, Ursula, 158, 159 as mutual purpose, 165, 167
Kipling, Rudyard, 284 positive theories of, 165
“Know-Do-Be” continuum, 238 purpose-driven, 201–2
Korb, Alex, 216 research in twentieth century,
Kortezi, Zoi, 163 164–6
Kottke, Dan, 176 self-leadership (see self-leadership)
Kouzes, James M., 172 servant, 165, 171–3,
Kriger, Mark, 166 228, 293
Kripalani, Krishna, 255 spiritual, 155–79, 279, 293
Krishnamurti, J., 91, 229, 235 transformational, 4–5, 7,
Kurtz, Jaime, 193 169, 172
values-based, 173
Lewis, C.S., 271
L life satisfaction, 215, 296
Langer, Ellen, 92 limbic system, 114, 209
Bhagavad Gītā, 83–4 Lincoln, Abraham, 257, 268
creative self or mindful creativity, 89 linguistic intelligence, 117, 119, 130,
mindfulness, definition, 84–5 290, 291
mindful vs. mindless perspective, 85 love, 265
On Becoming an Artist, 83–9 altruistic, 123, 160, 166, 167, 178,
Lao Tzu, 256, 300 297, 299
Law of Elsewhere, 233 luminaries, remarkable, 6
leadership Lyubomirsky, Sonja, 193, 214
310 INDEX
M meditation, 235
Mahābhārata, 224 “me” in leadership, mastering, 287–8
Mahatma Gandhi and His Myths, 263 mesolimbic pathway, 218
Mahatma: Life of Mohandas metaneeds, 23, 26
Karamchand Gandhi, 267 mind
Malraux, André, 205 greed, hatred, and ignorance, 46
mama dharma, 196 self-knowledge and self-mastery, 46
Mandela, Nelson, 21–2, 156, 187–8, self-leadership, importance of, 47
191, 206, 243, 257, 268, and senses, 47
299–301 mindfulness, 206, 232, 234–5, 289–90
Mansfield, Katherine, 231 Bodhi, elements of right
Man’s Search for Meaning, 182, mindfulness, 89–90
186–7, 195 definition, Kabat-Zinn, 91
Manz, Charles C., 279–80 form of awareness or presence of
Marinoff, Lou, 185 mind, 89
Marques, Joan, 158 meditation traditions, 91
marshmallow test, 112 practice of, 89–91
Maslow, Abraham H., 134, 136, 182, samma-sati, or right mindfulness, 91
193, 202 sati, 90
hierarchy of needs, 18–28, 41 Mitroff, Ian, 157–8, 161, 163–4
Matherly, Laura L., 166 mokṣa (spiritual liberation),
Mayer and Salovey’s Four Branch 160, 258, 294
Model, 100–2, 114 Monnet, Jean, 268
ability model of EI, 101–2 “more-ism” syndrome, 212
definitions of emotional ‘The Most Meaningful Thing
intelligence, 101 Exercise’, 198–200
IQ scores, 100, 129 Mother Teresa, 156, 165, 187, 206,
managing emotions, 102 227, 268
perceiving emotion, 102 motivation, 18
understanding emotions, 102 intrinsic, 29–30, 37–40, 72, 166, 279
Mccullough, David, Jr., 187 pure, 206–8, 210–11, 221, 232,
McCullough, Michael E., 215 235, 295–6
McLean, Andrew, 170 pure, cultivating, 207–11
meaning in life, 181–203, 215 Motivation and Personality, 18, 193
compared with happy life, 191–2 multiple intelligences, 69–70, 97–8,
compared with purpose in life, 185 116–21, 125, 130, 139, 290–2
defined, 191 abilities or talents, 120
discovering, 189–92 definition, 98, 117
growth and, 185–7 distinct intelligences, 117–18
positive psychology and, 192–4 human cognitive competence,
search for, 187–9 116–17
self-mastery and, 185–7 intrapersonal and interpersonal
through suffering, 194–6 intelligences, 121
INDEX 311
IQ tests, 116 rule of absolutes, 86–7

“metacognition”, 121 tyranny of evaluation, 85, 86
profile of intelligences, 119 one-size-fits-all strategy, 55
self-assessment/reporting, 118–19 ordinary giving, 219
trend-setter and paradigm-shifter, organization development (OD),
119–20 134, 135
myths of creativity other-centeredness, 238
Ben Franklin, story of, 77 O’Toole, James, 268
eureka myth, 74, 75 Outliers, 57, 59
expert myth, 76
lone creative genius myth, 75
“ordinary thinking,” process of, P
75–6 Parks, Rosa, 156, 187
The Myth of Sisyphus, 195 passion, 172, 174
passive violence, 269
patience, 25, 57, 224
N personal mastery, or ‘private victory’,
Nanus, Burt, 172 51–4
narrative principle, 148 emotional maturity, 53
Neal, Judi, 174 personal qualities, 53
Neck, Christopher P., 279 self-awareness and inner-work, 44
New Testament, 251 self-realization, 53–4
Nicomachean Ethics, 54–5 wisdom of self (sthitaprajña),
non-comparison, 229 51–2, 258
nonpossession (aparigraha), 258 Pfeffer, Jeffrey, 184
nonviolence, 221–3. See also violence The Philokalia, 235
nonviolence (ahiḿsā), 223, 252, 258, physical–psychological leadership,
265, 268, 269 46, 279
Picasso, Pablo, 65, 68, 70, 71, 202
playfulness, 82, 174
O pleasant life, 193
Obama, Barack, 243 pluralism, 165, 254, 264
Odyssey, 224 poetic principle, 146–7
On Becoming an Artist, 83–9 positive affect, 215, 296
becoming authentic, 86 positive emotion, 192, 193, 215
blindness of knowing, 87–8 positive institutions, 193
life of mindful creativity, 85–6 “positive organizational studies”, 135
mindful choice, 88 positive principle, 147
mindfulness of mistakes, 86 positive psychology, 28, 38, 134,
mindlessness of social comparisons, 136, 165, 209, 215, 217,
85, 87 219, 296
myth of talent, 87 gratitude and, 213–14
from reference to preference, 88 and meaning in life, 192–4
312 INDEX
positive strengths, 193 relative truth, 270

positive theories of leadership, religion versus spirituality, 161–2
165, 167 responsibility, 22, 29, 73, 82, 103,
Posner, Barry Z., 172 106, 175, 189, 191, 227–8, 275,
Post, Stephen G., 220 278, 280, 285, 301
“The Power of the Powerless”, 153 Reticular Activating System
precariousness, 221, 228, 232, 297 (RAS), 114
preciousness within and without, reward, 226, 227
220–1 ReWiring the Corporate Brain, 124
presence, 232–4, 235 right livelihood, 24, 181
Price, Heather E., 218 The Rise of Superman, 79
Primal Leadership: Unleashing the Rogers, Carl, 193
Power of Emotional role model, 147, 173, 241,
Intelligence, 105 258, 283
principle of simultaneity, 146 The Role of Deliberate Practice in the
problem-based vs. strength based Acquisition of Expert
approach, 148–9, 152 Performance, 57
psychology, positive, 28, 38, 134, 136, Roosevelt, Eleanor, 18, 268
165, 209, 215, 217, 219, 296 Rost, Joseph C., 164, 165
gratitude and, 213–14 Ruskin, John, 259–60
and meaning in life, 192–4
Purānas, 258
pure motivation, 206–8, 210–11, 221, S
232, 235, 295–6 sacrifice (yajña), 49
cultivating, 207–11 Salinger, J. D., 299
practice of, 210–11 satyāgraha, 248, 250–1, 268
rationale for practicing, 210 Schlender, Brent, 176
purpose-driven leadership, 201–2 Schnabel, Artur, 267
Pygmalion effect Schoch, Manuel, 209
intelligence test, 140 scholarship, 4–6
metaanalysis techniques, 140–1 Schopenhauer, Arthur, 194
self-fulfilling prophecy, 140, 141 Schultz, Howard, 178, 271, 281
Schwartz, Barry, 183
Schweitzer, Albert, 18, 27, 173
Q self, 161
“Quit India” campaign, 253 authentic, 5, 14, 156, 241,
279, 280
transformation of, 156
R self-abnegation, 271
Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, 157 self-actualization, 19, 20, 22, 41–2,
Rāmāyana, 245 103, 188, 191, 202, 286
Raychand, 259 motivation research, 40
Ray, Michael, 182, 198–200 peak experience and B-values, 26
INDEX 313
self-awareness, 5, 9, 14, 44, 97, 103, self-exploration, 261, 298

106, 167, 169, 174, 233–5, 237, self-expression, 54, 203, 276,
272, 277, 280, 285 279, 288
self-brooding, 220 self-focus, 220
self-centeredness, 48, 50–1, 62, 208, self-fulfillment, 24, 54, 211, 227,
211, 224–7, 238, 296, 299, 301 241, 288
self-compassion, 34 self-gratification, 226
common humanity, 36 self-growth, 186, 227, 231
feelings of self-worth, 35 self-hatred, 35
healthy self-stance, 36 self-identify, 161
mindfulness, 36 self-insight, 41, 236, 277
self-hatred, 35 selfishness, 48, 51–3, 163, 176, 205,
self-kindness, 36 227, 238
self-conceit, 223, 282 self-knowledge, 25, 46, 51, 53, 159,
self-control, 34, 40, 42, 106, 110, 184, 206, 207, 217, 231, 236–8,
262, 287, 298 275–80
self-destruction, 226 self-leadership, 5, 14, 46–7, 237, 241,
self-determination theory (STD), 18 275–83
autonomous or self-determining, competencies, 280
38–9 key to, 281–3
autonomy, mastery and purpose, selflessness, 227, 256, 297
39–40 selfless service, 167, 206–7, 211,
extrinsic motivation, 38, 39 226–8, 235, 242, 258, 285,
intrinsic motivation, 37–9 295–9, 301
needs, definition, 37 and servant leadership,
and positive psychology, 38 171, 228
psychological needs, 37 selfless service (niṣkāmakarma), 258,
self-motivation, 38 261, 271, 281, 285, 298
self-development, 43, 169, 237 self-mastery, 7, 10, 173, 184–7,
self-discipline, 34, 40–3, 45, 53, 241, 281
61–2, 170, 241, 246–7, 271, Aristotle's theory, 54–6
272, 287 champions, expert performance,
self-discovery, 15, 94, 196–7, 299 57–9
self-esteem, 19, 20, 23, 215, 287 desire, anger and greed, 48–9
effort, will power, and self- emotional health, 44
compassion, 34 and Gïtä (see Bhagavad Gītā)
failure of self-control, 34 leader’s personality, development
“healthy self-esteem”, 33 of, 44
high sense of self-esteem, 33–4 sacrifice, charity and austerity,
human persistence and 49–50
excellence, 40 self-discipline, 45, 61–2
loving-kindness toward others, 41 self-motivation, 43–4
value of self-compassion, 41 super-discipline, 60–1
314 INDEX
self-motivation, 10, 43–4 from ego to Higher Self, 129

goal-setting theory, 17, 31, 287 “existential intelligence”, 125
Herzberg’s two-factor theory, highest goal, 123
17, 28–30 IQ and EQ, 124
Maslow's hierarchy of needs, 17–28 personal and professional
self-determination theory, 18, development, 121
37–40 sacrifice and service, 123
self-preservation, 3–4, 211, 225 spirituality, definition, 127–8
self-purification, 210, 271 of “ultimate concerns”, 124
self-realization, 51, 53, 160, 177, 210, spirituality, 293–4
227, 258, 259, 261 definition, 127–8
self-recognition, 226 distinguished from religion, 161–2
self-regard, 103, 282 meaning and definition of, 157–60
self-remembering, 235 workplace, 155, 157–8, 167, 182,
self-sacrifice, 202 293–4
self-satisfaction, 211 in workplace, 162–4
self, spirit, and service dimensions, spiritual leadership, 12, 155–79,
5, 8, 10 279, 293
self-transcendence, 26–8, 202, 272, 275 defined, 166, 167
self-transformation, 61 theory and practice, 166–8
Seligman, Martin, 193–4 SQ21: The Twenty-One Skills of
Senge, Peter, 44, 46, 271 Spiritual Intelligence, 127
separateness, 225 star leadership performance, 111–12
servant leadership, 157, 165, 167–8, steadfastness in truth
171–2, 173, 293, 298 (sthitaprajñatā), 258
selfless service and, 228 stingy giving, 219
Shakespeare, William, 168 The Story of My Experiments with
sharing, 295–7 Truth, 243
Shepard, Mark, 263 “strengths-based” movement, 135
silence, 232 suffering (dukkha)
Simonton, Dean Keith, 257–8 meaning in life through, 194–6
Sims, P., 169, 170 Sufism, 162
Snook, Scott A., 201, 202 super-discipline, 60–1
social cognitive theory, 279 Suzuki Roshi, 228
Socrates, 49, 56, 168, 223, 276 svadharma, 196, 202
soul, 161, 178–9, 186, 188, 202, 222, Swami Dayananda, 172
237, 238, 243, 261–3, 271–2, Swāmī Sharnānandjī, 236
275, 288, 292–4
spirit, 161
spiritual intelligence (SI), 119, 131, 291 T
axioms of consciousness, 127 Tacey, David, 159
behavioral indicators, 124 Tagore, Sir Rabindranath, 222, 251,
definition, 122, 125–9 255, 263, 265
INDEX 315
Talent Is Overrated, 57 Vedānta, 127, 162, 172, 206

Tales of Hasidism, 196 Veda Vyāsa, 224
Taoism, 27, 230 vegetarianism, 61, 247, 261
Tendulkar, D. G., 267 verbal discipline (tapas), 49, 223
Terry, R.W., 168 verbal nonviolence, 223
Tetzeli, Rick, 176 violence. See also nonviolence
“A Theory of Human Motivation”, passive, 269
18–19 psychology of, 223–4
Thich Nhat Hanh, 89, 232 vision, 174
Thoreau, Henry David, 251, 259 Vitucci, Steve, 166
Tolstoy, Leo, 251, 259–60 voyage of inner discovery, 6, 14, 276,
total acceptance, 228–32 285, 299
transformational leadership, 4–5, 7,
169, 172
transformation in life, 297–9 W
transformation of self, 156 Welch, Jack, 107, 237
transformation of the workplace, 156 Well-Being Index, 183
transparency, 106, 168–9, 268–9, 281 What We Know about Emotional
true acceptance, 228–30, 297 Intelligence, 114
true service, 227–8, 297 wholeness principle, 147
trust, 156, 172 whole person, motivating, 286–7
truth, 269–70 ‘w-holistic’ approach, 4
absolute, 270 Williamson, Marianne, 22
relative, 270 workplace spirituality, 155, 157–8,
Twain, Mark, 202 162–4, 167, 182, 293–4
wu-wei (non-doing), 230
U
uncertainty, 87, 88, 283 Y
understanding, 224 yoga, 24, 54, 62, 123, 134
acceptance out of, 230–2 karma, 210, 298
unhealthy acceptance, 230–1 Yogananda, Paramahansa,
Upadhyaya, J. M., 261 176, 177
The Upward Spiral, 216
Z
V Zen in the Art of Archery, 230
values-based leadership, 173, 268 Zikr, 235
Vasconcelos, 165 Zusya, Rabbi, 196

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h

ISBN 978-1-137-55570-0 ISBN 978-1-137-55571-7 (eBook)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016958193

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017

Printed on acid-free paper

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature

1 Introduction: On Becoming a Holistic Leader 1

2 Self-Motivation: Motivating the Whole Person 17

3 Self-Mastery: Mastering the “Me” in Leadership 43

4 Creativity and Flow: The Art of Mindful Creativity 65

5 Emotional & Multiple Intelligences: 10 Different

6 Appreciative Inquiry: Discovering the Best in People

7 Spiritual Leadership: A Superior Way to Be and Serve 155

8 Meaning & Purpose in Leadership: What Are You

9 Find Your Fulfillment: Winning Habits of Highly

10 Being the Change: A Hero’s Journey and Legacy 241

11 Epilogue: From Position-Power to Self-­Power—

Erratum to: Holistic Leadership E1

Fig. 1.1 Cycle of holistic leadership, Satinder Dhiman (2016) 8

To lead one must follow. —LAO TZU

© The Author(s) 2017 1

no longer afford to view leadership as a position to wield authority or

Leaders Have Lost Their Ethical Fitness

Holistic Leadership: Forest Gets Lost

It is instructive to consider the word ‘health’ in English is based on an

Throughout this book the word “holistic” is used in a special sense.

Why This Book?

leadership to servant leadership, including the emergent approaches

Holistic leadership is voyage of inner discovery which begins with self-

Preparation for This Book Project

I have synthesised the disparate fields of emotional intelligence, multiple

Fig. 1.1 Cycle of holistic leadership, Satinder Dhiman (2016)

Three Integral Circles of Holistic Leadership

Fig. 1.2 Holistic leadership framework, Satinder Dhiman (2016)

Chapter Schema of the Book

Chapter 4, titled Creativity and Flow, focuses on the role of creativ-

Pursuing meaningful work provides an abiding purpose to our life and

grand strategist and exemplary leader with a keen understanding of human

The spiritual quest is a journey without distance.

On Becoming A Holistic Leader: Reflection

Michael Kroth, “Maslow—Move Aside! A Heuristical Motivation Model for Leaders in

© The Author(s) 2017 17

Within the framework of Self-determination theory (SDT), it further

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

American psychologist Abraham Maslow (1908–1970) was one of the

Though many have ­suggested improvisations of his theory, it continues to

Commenting on the hierarchical nature of needs, Maslow observes:

It is quite true that man lives by bread alone—when there is no bread.

Fig. 2.1 Adapted from Abraham H. Maslow, “A Theory of Human Motivation,”

be defined in terms of eating. Anything else will be defined as unimportant.

What Holds Us Back from Achieving True Greatness?

Marianne Williamson in this soul-uplifting quote points out that our

If we were to accept as a major educational goal the awakening and fulfill-

Two things become evident by understanding Maslow’s vision as depicted

The Master Key: Become a Part of Something

This business of self-actualization via a commitment to an important job and

Just having an important task is not enough: the self-actualizing per-

Behaviors Leading to Self-Actualization

Self-actualizing people tend to focus on problems outside of themselves,

1. Going at things “whole hog”: Self-actualization means experiencing

Maslow, Maslow on Management, 16.

& Sons, 1999), 37.

2. Making Growth Choices: To make a growth choice instead of the fear

1 Introduction: On Becoming a Holistic Leader 1

2 Self-Motivation: Motivating the Whole Person 17

3 Self-Mastery: Mastering the “Me” in Leadership 43

4 Creativity and Flow: The Art of Mindful Creativity 65

5 Emotional & Multiple Intelligences: 10 Different

6 Appreciative Inquiry: Discovering the Best in People

7 Spiritual Leadership: A Superior Way to Be and Serve 155

8 Meaning & Purpose in Leadership: What Are You

9 Find Your Fulfillment: Winning Habits of Highly

10 Being the Change: A Hero’s Journey and Legacy 241

11 Epilogue: From Position-Power to Self-Power—

Erratum to: Holistic Leadership E1

Fig. 1.1 Cycle of holistic leadership, Satinder Dhiman (2016) 8

Though many have suggested improvisations of his theory, it continues to

over-promises but under-delivers. Self-discipline under-promises and over-

astery, morality acts as a necessary prelude to spirituality? Can one