Leadership and Divinity
“Each individual creature on this beautiful planet is created by God to fulfill a particular role. Whatever I have achieved in life is through His help and an expression of His will. He showered His grace on me through some outstanding teachers and colleagues and when I pay my tributes to these fine persons, I am merely praising His glory. We are all born with a divine fire in us. Our efforts should be to give wings to this fire and fill the world with the glow of its goodness.”
Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, Wings of Fire
Dr Abdul Kalam has been one of my role models for his passion and compassion besides being a pioneer in the missile bastion (I wanted to be atomic research scientist at one point of time). If only we could ignite the divine within us and others, the world would be a different place altogether. I have always believed that life is like a stress interview being taken by Supreme Consciousness. If we refuse to get stressed and instead consider problems as learning opportunities, one day the divine smiles at us (or may be at the divine inside us).
The question which keeps striking our mind for years is, “If divine wants me to fulfill a particular role, then what is it? How do I discover it?” I would say, “Simply focus on discovering your deepest passions.” The process can only happen with a silent mind (or if destiny wishes you will have that single flash of inspiration.) But do not be in a hurry to discover it, rather than focus on synchronizing yourself with the universal energies by clearing yourself of all negative thought and energy. Once you discover your deepest passion, it helps you in moving from good to great leadership. The passion helps you set an example, the passion gives you inexhaustible energy and so on.
So how does one touch the divine in others? You can find plenty of stories in books like Chicken Soup for the Soul of seemingly hard-hearted people breaking down due to the compassionate treatment meted out. In a discussion on the web, someone had asked, “How can you win the trust of your employees?” I answered, “By simply having genuine concern for your team members.”
I also strongly believe in the concept of “Let’s uncomplicate.” The more insecure we feel, the more we try to complicate things to preserve our positions and the more secure we become, we can gather the courage to uncomplicate things. The very fact that there is divine in us should give us the courage to uncomplicate things and focus on bringing out the best, the divine in our team members as leaders.
Easier said than done, you are bound to tell me. I fully agree, but the very thought that you at least tried and continue to make small efforts will satisfy your conscience and make the world a better place. According to spiritual principles, the humanity can never be fully happy until we have even one sad soul left.
Yesterday I was with a gentleman from Bangalore (Ramesh Babu) who runs a Blog called, ‘Urban Monk Diaries’. He rightly says whatever we want in life, we should pray for the whole world to get it. If my life is lacking in love, I should be praying 'May all beings be showered with love.' And so it is. Prof Andre L Delbecq, Director, Institute for Spirituality and Organisational Leadership, Santa Clara University, USA says, “Turn everything into prayer. The intent is to be fully present to the next task, to be fully present to the next person one meets and to be present with purity of intention, that by doing so the task or relationship is turned into prayer.”
Ramesh also shared a story of how Lord Hanuman never faced Saturn’s (a Hindu God associated with misfortunes) misfortunes. Lord Hanuman just completely surrendered to Lord Rama and fully dissolved his ego. Well dissolving our ego is probably the most difficult task in the world, but its results are the most beautiful too. Prof Andre shares a wonderful experience. He says, “Fortunately I had begun to understand that this spiritual path required me to give up the need to be expert. Once having accepted this truth, preparation for teaching the seminar unfolded with constant surprises. Everything I needed was given to me. People whom I had never met found out about my efforts and provided constant new resources.”
Let us keep trying, keep striving, keep failing, keep rising and keep bringing out the divinity in each other.
“I learnt in my life that if you don’t do anything, you won’t have any problems. But if you do something, suddenly something will pull off. Problems should not become your master. You have to become the master of the problems. God gives us the opportunity to grow through problems.”
Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, Former President of India
'Leading with Spirituality' is a monthly column/series in Spiritual Lounge e-magazine. To see the archives or other articles in the magazine click here:-
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Dr Amit Nagpal is a Personal Branding Consultant with a holistic touch. To know more about him click here:-
http://www.dramitnagpal.co.in/p/about-us.html
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http://www.dramitnagpal.co.in/p/about-us.html
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