Leadership and Dharma: The Indian Epics Ramayana and Mahabharata and Their Significance for Leadership Today

Harsh Verma

Chapter 12 in Fictional Leaders, 2013, pp 182-201 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract As Shakespeare’s Henry IV put it: ‘Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown’ (Henry IV, Part 2, Act 3, Scene I, Pages 26–31). This adage is so because a leader faces bewildering choices and an array of possibilities that make decision-making difficult. On the one hand, the leader is cir-cumscribed by tradition. Yet to go forward he must embrace modernity. There might be a course of action that has enjoyed historical legitimacy, but it is either inapplicable in the present era or a newer and clearer vision reveals it to be prejudiced, discriminatory and unjust to various sections of people who were excluded from it. He faces the challenge of inspiring communities different from his own, communities whose aims and precepts differ divergently. He must function in a world that changes dramatically every year, with new technological innovations that transform lives and, in doing so, generate social changes of their own.

Keywords: Primal Image; Wise Person; Fair Ruler; Entire Land; Blind Obedience (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-1-137-27275-1_13

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.palgrave.com/9781137272751

DOI: 10.1057/9781137272751_13

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Palgrave Macmillan Books from Palgrave Macmillan
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().