Attributes of Rajarshi leadership: learning from Ramayana

Abstract

In terms of the Global Hunger Index, the ranking of India slipped to 101 in 2021 from its 94th position in 2020. The number of billionaires increased to 1007 and the number of millionaires increased by 63% but household incomes of 97% population declined during the Covid-19 pandemic. Even after the pandemic effect, the gap between rich and poor continues to widen fast. The question arises, do leadership theories in focus today have shown the right path? Necessity has arisen to revisit the leadership style followed by Corporates and Political masters and assimilate the Indian culture of ‘Vasudhaiv Kutumbkam’ to develop a comprehensive approach of spiritual transformation where leaders strive to search for a ‘Higher-order purpose of existence’ (HOPE) and embrace for a society centric approach. An understanding is being germinated to give prominence to the Indian culture emanating from scriptures like Bhagwad Gita, Ramayana, etc. It embarks on creating a value-based leadership framework that deals with a higher vision and mission and Rajarshi leadership is among such leadership. This paper is a modest attempt to trace the attributes of Rajarshi leadership in the light of the story of Ramayana wherein Rama (a prince of Ayodhaya in exile) instead of adopting short-cuts or taking the help of Ayodhya to get his wife free, made tie-up with Sugriva (a depressed and coward king hiding in the forest) and prepared an army of monkeys, nomads and downtrodden people of the forest and defeated the powerful well-equipped army of Ravana and established Rama-Rajaya.

Keywords:

• Inclusive leadership
• leadership styles
• OCTPACE culture
• servant leadership
• society centric approach
• SWOT analysis
• spirituality
• transformational leadership

Reviewing Editor:

• Huifen (Helen) Cai
• Middlesex University Business School, UK

SUBJECTs:

• Cultural Studies; Organizational Communication; Sustainable Development; Culture & Development; Business
• Management and Accounting; Philosophy; Religion; Cultural Studies

Introduction

Several leadership theories have evolved with the evolvement of the economic development of society and these leadership theories have helped mankind in their economic development to a great extent but this is also unfortunate that while organizations and societies are growing economically, the gap in ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’ is becoming wider specially after the industrialization and more specifically during last three to four decades wherein corporate and political leadership have cleverly been able to exploit the advantages of marriage of information technologies with manufacturing and service sector to balloon up bottom line of balance sheets. The present framework of various style of leadership specially evolved during the last two centuries are hardly able to provide any solution to this problem as the present phenomenon is the reason for the greed of leadership because of which leadership has started exploiting natural resources, human resources with the help of technological and informational resources. This paper is a humble attempt strengthen the revival of thought of the traditional leadership framework named Rajarshi leadership titled by Chankaya in Arthshastra (1.7.1) probably which is the answer to this evolving problem.

Krishna in Bhagwad Gita has narrated two types of persons, i.e. Daivi Sampat and Asuri Sampat (5:16). On similar lines, Aristotle says each individual has a unique daimon (spirit) that would guide him to pursue the activities/goals that are right for them. The daimon would decide the destiny of the person. Acting as per the daimon of a person leads to eudaimonia (well-being) however acting against the daimon leads to ill-being (Kekes, 2004). Persons having dominating attributes of Daivi Sampat are fearless, pure, have self-control, are straightforward, calm and modes and do not believe in fault findings, and remain away from greed and lust and work in the larger interest of the society. On the contrary, persons having dominating Asuri Sampat are egoistic and have aggressive behavior, and involved in just fulfilling their personal desires and are self-centered, and exploit others to fulfill their personal interest. People following Rajarshi leadership have dominating attributes of Daivi Sampat. Extending this analogy, leaders are also of two types, namely Rajarshi leaders who have high attributes of Daivi Sampat, and Rakshashi leaders having high attributes of Asuri Sampat. This paper deals with the attributes of a Rajarshi leader. Rajarshi is a syntheses of two words, i.e. Raja + Rishi. Raja symbolizes a strong leader and Rishi symbolizes a person with intellectual profundity and spiritual achievement. Rishi implies three characteristics:

• Eternal traveler (one who travels from self to SELF)

• Pierces into the veil of darkness and tries to uplift others from such a veil of darkness.

• Seer of totality

By incorporating the rishi wisdom, the leader scales to a higher level of consciousness that helps him to reach the highest ethical level and attain the status of Rajarshi (Chakraborty, 2011). The word Rajarshi leadership was first used by Chanakya in Arthshastra. Rajarshi leaders are humble like Vashista, detached like Janaka, and committed like Narada. The personality of a Rajarshi leader is characterized by self-knowledge, self-control, and humility as advocated by the Bhagwad Gita and therefore, adopts the path of negotiation, conciliation, meditation, persuasion, and consensus which is the need for a sustainable future. A leader in the Rajarshi model is democratic, committed, and away from personal gratification and by following the principle of nishkam karma (self-less/desire-less action where the doer acts without expectation of fruits), dharma, and yoga along with modern human psychology, technology, and management reaches the stage of renunciation as he does act happily rather than working for happiness.

Research gap

In terms of the Global Hunger Index, India has slipped to 111 in 2023 from its 94^th position in 2020 (Index, 2023) whereas the size of the economy has grown to 5^th largest economy of the world The top ten percent of the rich holds 77 percent of the total national wealth. 73 percent of the wealth generated in the last five years has reached to one percent while only one percent has reached 670 million poor in the country Billionaires’ fortunes have grown by 10 times over a decade which is almost equal to the entire Union Budget of India. Inequality is growing faster than the growth of the economy which can be understood from the fact that a minimum wage worker in rural India will take 941 years to earn what the top executive at leading Indian Garment Company is being paid (Oxfam International, 2022). The question arises, is leadership theories like transformational leadership, servant style of leadership, democratic style of leadership etc., developed during the last 5–6 decades have been able to show the right path to our corporate and political leadership. The Application of such modern leadership theories has prompted leaders to focus more on the bottom line of the balance sheet than on the sustainable growth of humanity. Necessity has arisen to revisit the leadership style followed by Corporates and political masters and assimilate the Indian culture of Vasudhaiv Kutumbkam to develop a comprehensive approach of spiritual transformation where leaders strive to search for a ‘Higher-order purpose of existence’ (HOPE) and embrace a society centric approach to combat deadly problems. Paradigms of spirituality have taken the driver’s seat in the leadership arena. An understanding is being germinated among academicians to give prominence to the Indian culture emanating from scriptures like Vedas, Bhagwad Gita, Ramayana, etc. It embarks on creating a value-based leadership formula framework that deals with a higher vision and mission and the Rajarshi leadership is one such leadership. Rajarshi (Raja + Rishi) means a transformational leader who is a seer. Though the concept of Rajarshi leadership was coined by Chanakaya during 300 B.C but lost with the passage of time. There has been very limited research available on the topic which can be observed from the fact that researchers have searched Google Scholar with keywords like ‘Rajarshi leadership’ and ‘Rajarshi style of leadership’ and the results received were only 2670 and 983 respectively which is much lesser than keywords used for any style of leadership. A comparative chart showing results with other key words is exhibited in the Table 1 below:

Table 1. Showing Google Scholar search result of key words related with leadership.

Keywords	Number of results on Google Scholar (approximate)	Keywords	Number of results on Google Scholar (approximate)
Authoritarian leadership	8,26,000	Authoritarian style of leadership	4,95,000
Bureaucratic leadership	12,20,000	Bureaucratic style of leadership	6,06,000
Democratic leadership	45,10,000	Democratic style of leadership	30,20,000
Transformational leadership	9,91,000	Transformational style of leadership	7,38,000
Servant leadership	11,60,000	Servant style of leadership	6,96,000
Ethical leadership	48,30,000	Ethical style of leadership	24,90,000
Rajarshi leadership	2670	Rajarshi style of leadership	983

Source: Google Scholar.

Without undermining the magnanimity of great research available, deep dive of various papers available over google scholar, researchers could find that very limited papers are available where ‘Rajarshi Leadership’ was used in the topic itself. In most of the papers, the concepts is dealt with at a philosophical level or as an illustration. This paper is an attempt to describe attributes of Rajarshi leadership in the context of principles of modern management and understanding with the help of the life of Rama described in Ramayana who is considered an ideal leader (Pillai, 2017) as he could make a perfect harmony between the inner and outer self that transformed him from self to SELF and such transformed SELF transformed the whole world. ‘Self’ is a person-centric approach whereas ‘SELF’ is the universal-centric approach and during this journey from self to SELF, the leader not only transforms the followers but achieves a transcendental stage of the life.

Research methodology

According to Mark Twain, the Indian continent is ‘the cradle of the human race, the birthplace of human speech, the mother of history, grandmother of legends, and great-grandmother of traditions’ (Dey, 2013). Sacred books written several centuries ago dealing with Indian Philosophy are the richest source of principles of management that helped the people to understand the necessity of mutual relationships and live amicably and grow together. Indian scriptures have described the prominent persona of the top leader and the expectation of the followers towards him that has paved the way to inculcate an emotional connection like family and a sense of oneness (Gupta & Mitra, 2017). Ramayana and Bhagavad Gita are the two most sacred scriptures of Hinduism in this series. If the Bhagavad Gita guides about the systematic method for a person to manage the ‘self’ and escalate the ‘self’ to the ‘SELF’ (a higher orbital of consciousness), Ramayana is a story of Rama that provides practical guidance to a person to move from self-centeredness to community-centeredness and get the success in life by following the path of Dharma. This paper is an attempt by researchers to analyze the various doctrines of the revered Bhagwad Gita and Ramayana and explore the basic attributes of a Rajarshi leader with the help of the story of Lord Rama.

The word Rajarshi was first used by Chanakya in 300 B.C. and much has been talked about from philosophical angle-but limited research is available in codifying these philosophical thoughts for understanding by a common person. Probably that may be the reason this great leadership thought could not reach to masses It is a qualitative research called hermeneutics in which scripture like Ramayana and Bhagwad Gita has been analyzed, interpreted, and correlated while codifying the qualities/traits required by a Rajarshi leader. The findings of the analysis shall be relevant and inspire corporate leaders to understand the theoretical principles of Rajarshi leadership and adopt in their professional life to develop a sustainable organization of excellence.

Attributes of Rajarshi leadership

Due to the limited number of research, the researcher has tried to analyze the attributes of Rajarshi leadership in the light of Rama’s life and observe that following are attributes of a Rajarshi leader where

• R- stands for Rishi Vision

• A- stands for Assimilation with the team through the process of oneness

• J- stands for Journey of excellence among all odds

• A- stands for Analyzing continuously

• R- stands for Rule of Dharma

• I- stands for Influencing character

• S- stands for Servanthood-ship

• H- human development index focused

• I- stands for Inclusiveness

Rishi vision

Rishi’s vision is one of the important qualities of a Rajarshi leader that distinguishes himself from Rakshashi leaders like those who troubled society by creating the Enron crises, Satyam Computer crises etc. Rishi vision means the power of visualizing the whole instead of seeing in fragments and creating a broader picture on the horizon and selling the same to the team members. Chakraborty (2011) calls it a ‘seer of totality’. Like Lord Rama, it is important for a leader to set and share the vision with followers where followers find that their interest is likely to be fulfilled by supporting the leader which inspires them to put their heart and soul. Rama did not ask for support for the rescue of his wife Sita as it was easy for him to request Hanumana to fly to Lanka and bring her on his back as he was capable of that but Rama sets the higher goal of eradication of devils (symbol of evil forces) from the earth to establish Ram-Rajaya on the earth. Such clarity about the vision and connecting with the team inspired Sugreeva and his force to focus on the goals and put their heart and souls to their best level to rescue Sita. Rama shared this vision, delegated responsibilities, and empowered subordinates like a Rishi visionary and developed a sense of connectedness with the team which helped him to nurture better coordination with his team where subordinates and peers felt well empowered and developed better solutions. Such an approach adopted by Rama creates cohesiveness among the team that works like glue and the organization becomes a big family.

Community-centric vision adopted by leaders like Rama creates a ray of positivity among subordinates and peers and they stretch their contract of performance like Hanumana who was merely given the task to search for Sita but instead, Hanumana took the survey of Lanka (which helped Rama in preparing strategy) and burnt it too. Such an incident could be compared with a surgical strike to destroy the armory of the enemy even before the beginning of the war itself. To develop the wisdom of a community-centric approach, the leader attains wisdom of aligning inner self with outer self by following the principles of ‘oneness’ as emphasized in the Bhagwad Gita that ‘the self is residing in all beings and all things; the Self is in oneself’(6’29).

Assimilation with the team through the process of oneness

Developing an emotional connection with peers and subordinates is one of the most important attributes of a Rajarshi leader. To develop an emotional connection, the leader listens the fellow colleagues and translates it as a compassionate feeling like what Rama maintained with Sugreeva and Vibheeshana. High-quality connectedness nourishes upward positive spirals within the team and creates an environment of trust and respect that signals to members of the team that they are valued in the organization (Dutton & Glynn, 2013). High-quality connectedness could be developed by following the principles of oneness through the ‘Rishi process’ advocated by Krishna in Bhagwad Gita means ‘unity in diversity and diversity in unity’ (Chakraborty, 1995). Such spiritual quest (leader may or may not be aesthetic) of oneness creates dynamic energy in the team which encourages followers to discover their true potential to connect with the higher power as in Ramayana, the army of Ravana was sophisticated and powerful, laced with high-quality weapons and was branded with vanquishing many kings and defeating the formidable deities including Indra whereas the army of Rama was comprising aboriginal tribes, monkeys and nomads (can’t be called more than a rag-tag army) which was so far led by coward Sugreeva who had the history of several defeats even by Vali but Rama instilled confidence in Sugreeva and his army through the process of oneness and created dynamic energy among members of such team which ultimately defeated the well-equipped powerful army of Ravana. Even in other incidents, Hanumana who was just a soldier of Sugreeva’s army could show a series of heroic activities which looks like magic, and Angada, who would have turned as one of his arch-enemies due to the killing of his father by Rama, but he not only led the team to search Sita but also took the challenge to face Ravana in his levee.

From the above discussion, researchers conclude that the assimilation of the leader with the team and assimilation of the team with the leader is a unique quality of a Rajarshi leader.

Journey of excellence against all odds

‘Excellence is a journey, not a destination’. Most of the leaders perform very well during the normal times but lose their wisdom during odds. The life of Rama is full of incidents of keeping his calm despite all the odds and moving forward continuously. Subsequent to the kidnapping of Sita, Rama was wandering in the forest in search of Sita. Aranya Kand is full of poignant details of his sadness in the memory of Sita and wandering penniless in the forest but that did not stop him from meeting Sabari and liberating her, helping Jatayun by keeping him on his lap till he died, and performing his last rites instead of leaving him alone and running ahead in search of Sita. His sadness did not discourage him from forging ties up with Sugreeva even though he was in a dilemma as the enemy was unknown.

The leader can’t perform continuously unless believes in the philosophy of ‘karmanye vadhika raste, maa phaleshu kadachanah’ (doing the act without attachment with fruit) of Bhagwad Gita. The pain and sorrow of Rama and the dilemma of Vibheeshana (who was the brother of Ravana) did not prevent him from forging a tie with Vibheeshana that paved the ending for war in favour of Rama. Even during the battle, Rama continued to maintain the courage at the darkest hours and inspired his army to continue to fight and win the battle.

The construction of the bridge which took five days is a unique example of a journey of excellence as on the first day, 14 yojanas (1 yojana is equal to 12 km) were built, followed by 20, 21, 22, and 23 yojanas on the 2^nd,3^rd,4^th and 5^th day (Muniapan, 2007). The modern Japanese principle of Kaizen (journey of continuous improvement) introduced in the 1980s was applied about 5000 years back by monkeys under the leadership of Rama.

Analyzing continuously

If other attributes of a Rajarshi leader, as described in this paper, helps in developing sustainable progress, analysis help in developing strategy and executing in the right manner. Analysis includes:

• Self-analysis

• SWOT analysis

• Self-analysis: Self-analysis is a process of transformation from ‘self to SELF’ and creating a balance between the inner self with the outer self. The foundation of the war of Ramayana was the lack of harmony of the inner self with the outer self (both of Sita and Rama) as Sita madly got attracted towards a beautiful golden deer (a symbol of greed). She ignored the advice of her husband that how could a deer be of golden (not natural) and might be a disguised demon and Rama too could not balance his emotions and ultimately fell into the greed of capturing the golden deer and ran to chase it which is an exception of the persona of Rama. Sita even did not obey the advice of Laxmana and crossed the ‘Laxmana Rekha’ (a line of ‘self’) and got abducted by Ravana. Rishi process helps a Rajarshi leader in the purification of self and rise to the level of SELF. Rama in his journey as a Rajarshi leader followed the path of truth, justice, goodness, and dutifulness wherein he kept his ‘role’ above the ‘self’ and killing of Vali by hiding behind a tree is one such example who otherwise couldn’t have been killed but he did it in the interest of truth and justice.

• SWOT analysis: SWOT analysis (strength, weakness, opportunity, and threat) means ascertaining the goal, getting mentally ready, and preparing the right plan while keeping the strengths, weaknesses, threats and opportunities in mind. In Lanka, Hanumana did a complete analysis of the situation, studied about Lankans living style and assessed their strength and weaknesses, understood threats and opportunities, and briefed Rama after the return. SWOT analysis includes analysis of competence, commitment, and culture of the team as without competence, no job can be performed, without commitment job can’t be performed upto optimum level and culture works like oxygen for the team.

SWOT analysis helps the leader to assess the competence of team members and place the right person for the right job at the right time like Rama who in search of Sita sent teams in all four directions but only Hanumana who was a member of the team sent in South direction was given Mudrika (ring) as he had better confidence on the team sent to South direction.

As a leader, Rama not only ensured to building competence and commitment level of the team but also ensured the development of OCTAPACE culture. Rao (2014) elaborates that when openness and confrontation, trust and authenticity, pro-action and experimentation, and Autonomy and collaboration go together in any team/organization, members put their best.

• Openness and Confrontation: Openness provides an environment where members of the team feel free to express their views/ideas and experiment with new ideas. Members of the team share their concerns with each other instead of avoiding them. Confrontation means members of the team jointly work together to find the solution and are ready to face the issue without hiding or avoiding it. A culture of openness and confrontation reduces the power differential between the leader and subordinates that works as wonder like when Vibheeshana ratted out Ravana, he wanted shelter of Rama but before providing shelter, Rama consulted his army chiefs and most of the Chiefs except Hanumana were against providing shelter due to apprehension that he was demon and brother of Ravana and not to be trusted. Instead of out rightly rejecting their ideas, Rama convinced them in his favor that gave a sense of respect for their feelings. This decision became the key decision to decide the fate of the war.

• Trust and authenticity: Trust denotes the extent to which members individually and in a group trust each other and authenticity means commitment of the person to perform actions while acknowledging the words i.e. do what is said and say what is done. Rama’s side of Ramayana is the best example of trust and authenticity. Rama is known for ‘pran jaye par vachan na jaye’ (words are more important than life). Underpinning the utopic way of life, Rama always preferred ethical decisions and even after killing Vali, Rama had the option to capture Kishkindha and use its army but preferred to hand it to Sugreeva and because of this action, Sugreeva intended to sacrifice his whole life in the service of Rama.

• Pro-action and autonomy: Means willingness to take initiative. Members of the team anticipate issues and respond according to the needs of the time. Autonomy means the willingness of members to exercise power without fear and help others with optimism. It helps members to develop a belief that the leader will come forward if the subordinate faces major challenges and their mistake will be forgiven like Hanumana who pro-actively burnt Lanka, beyond the routine call of duty.

• Collaboration and experimentation: Collaboration means working together and using one another’s strengths for a common cause. Experimentation means innovation and creativity at the workplace and trying new ways of dealing with the problem. These values develop connectedness within the team and members make conscious efforts at overcoming the organizational trauma like the building of the floating bridge is one of the finest examples of collaboration and experimentation which is not possible even in the modern technological era.

Rule of dharma

Ahar, Nidra and Maithun (food, sleep and sex) are common phenomena for all animals including human beings but Dharma distinguishes them from animals. Rajarshi leader as a follower of ‘rishi consciousness’ not only follows the path of Dharma but creates a structure and system where rule prevails upon the individual including the leader himself and his near and dear. Such leaders remain dutiful where ‘role’ is above the ‘self’ and in case of conflict, ‘role’ precedes over ‘self’ like Buddha who expelled Rahula, his son from the Sangha after the cross-examination held publicly. Here, the ‘leader-self’ preceded over ‘father-self’ as duty was more important than the personal relationship. The Hallmark of Rajarshi leadership is leading self by SELF by sticking to the core value of Satya (truth) + Rita (order). The spiritualistic element of leading self by SELF is managed by two frameworks:

• Intrapersonal domain: The attribute of managing on thoughts and feelings and following the principle of Nishkam Karma (selfless action). The attribute of Nishkam Karma was influenced by two sets of factors, intrapersonal set to some extent and secondly by Jnana (knowledge) and self-control that develops the inclination to work selflessly.

• Interpersonal domain: Interaction with others including justice and goodness in action that helps in assimilating himself with the team and the organization.

Intrapersonal and interpersonal framework of the leader helps him to transform the ‘self’ into ‘SELF’ by understanding the eternal law and translating it in the interest of society and connecting with the supreme soul (God). In this unison with the universe (supreme soul) when translated into the material world, the person will have ‘compassion for fellow human beings’ and will have ‘man-to-man relatedness’.

Sticking to the path of Dharma led to success and designated Rama as an ideal leader, ideal king, ideal brother, ideal son, an ideal friend, and a pragmatic person. Rama endeavored to stand forth for his values in the normal situation like he had one wife while polygamy was permitted including his father had three queens. Even in the tough situation too, Rama did not accept the offer of Bharata to return to Ayodhya knowing well that the situation in exile was going to be against him.

Influencing character

Rajashi leaders believe in the philosophy of transforming others by transforming self through:

• Individualized considerations

• Individualized performance

• Individualized development

• Inspirational motivation

• Intellectual stimulation

• Individualized consideration: Means taking care of the development and growth of each individual member of the team and providing training, coaching and mentoring and supportive climate as done by Rama in Ramayana when Rama met Sugreeva, he was quite depressed and fearful due to the threat of Vali but Rama shown his charisma and motivated Sugreeva to get up and fight with Vali.

• Individualized performance: No organization can survive without the performance of their team members and therefore, monitor their performance. Rajarshi is a combination of Raja (Kshatriya) and Rishi (Brahmin) where Brahmin depicts intellectual profundity required to carry through the organization and Rishi depicts love and magnanimity towards the society that creates passion and compassion in his personality and therefore, makes the team member responsible and accountable. Such leaders put the ‘role’ above the ‘self ‘like Rama who abandoned his most loving brother, Laxmana when he did not obey his instruction given as king of Ayodhya and allowed Rishi Durvasa to meet him while he was already in a secret meeting with Yama (God of death).

• Idealized influence/charisma: means behavior of the leader that motivates his follower to identify himself with the leader. Respect is commanded not demanded and Rjarshi leadership commands respect and admiration due to their high level of integrity, ethical and moral conduct, trustworthy and charismatic character that focuses on developing collective mission, belief, and values. One of the key components of charismatic character is communicating a shared vision and motivating the followers to accept the challenging task and creating a belief of optimism about the attainment of the goal that inspires the followers to align their personal values with such goal (Jung & Avolio, 2000) like Rama who was known for moral code but never depicted himself as blind puritan. Rama is known for following the moral code and choosing to suspend judgment. Acceptance of Vibheeshana (who was the brother of the enemy) as a friend and permitting disarmed Ravana to go back on the first day of the war itself are the best examples of his charismatic personality. Rama converted the whole war with Ravana as the war for ‘Satymev Jayte’.

Rama shared the vision and delegated responsibilities like searching Sita to search parties and constructing a bridge by the team led by Nal-Neel. This clarity about the vision and delegation of responsibilities inspired Sugreeva and his force to focus on the goals and put their heart and soul to the best level to rescue Sita.

• Intellectual stimulation: It means encouraging followers to understand the problem and motivating them to look at the problem and situation from new perspective/from different angles. Intellectual stimulation develops the critical thinking of followers and stimulate innovation and creativity at the workplace and take risks and solve the problem in a new way (Bass & Avolio, 1990) like Hanumana when met with Surasa while flying over the sea, Surasa objected to his way and asked Hanumana to enter her mouth. Hanumana increased the size of his body double to the mouth of Surasa. Surasa too increased the size of her mouth further to double the body size of Hanumana. This competition continued till Surasa increased the size of her mouth to 32 yojanas (64 miles). Hanumana looked at the problem from a different angle and reduced the size of his body to a minuscule and entered her mouth and came out. Surasa was impressed with his creative approach and blessed him to complete the task of Ram-Kaj.

Servanthood-ship by nature

Leadership is basically a position by nature and therefore, leaders enjoy powers attached to the position. Therefore, expecting a leader to behave like a servant as propounded by the servant style of leadership may not be an appropriate approach but it is expected from the leader to develop the nature of servanthood-ship. The attribute of servanthood flourishes the quality of a non-egoistic team leader and feels inner satisfaction but remains alert when it comes to fixing up the responsibility and accountability of members.

Servanthood-ship by nature doesn’t mean servant in the ordinary sense. Rajarshi is made of two words namely Raja- a leader who excels in the domain of knowledge and action, and Rishi means saint who dedicates himself to serving the society. The quality of servanthood-ship refrains the leader from going arbitrarily towards monetary progress. Such a leader would undertake an outward (external) and inward (internal) journey with equal emphasis and create a subtle balance between the self, him, others, and a higher being. This spiritual belief influences the leader to filter the information optimistically and connect with others like Rama who when met with Hanumana (who was guised as a Brahmin to disguise him) could realize that he is a great scholar and a great warrior and could be a useful in the journey of searching Sita.

Because of his nature of servanthood-ship, Rama always stayed cool but got success whereas his brother, Laxmana due to short temperedness used to lose his cool on several occasions which put him into trouble like refusal by a sailor to cross the river, becoming unconscious due to Brahma-Shastra used by Meghnatha etc.

Human development index focused

Measuring progress by GDP to measure economic progress is an outdated formula. The progress of a country needs to be measured by its Human Development Index. For sustainable development, in addition to mere economic development, environmental and social life also needs to improve. Rajarshi leadership adopts the balance theory of wisdom through ‘…tacit knowledge as mediated by values toward the achievement of a common good through a balance among multiple (a) intrapersonal, (b) interpersonal, and (c) extra personal interests in order to achieve a balance among (a) adaptation to existing environments, (b) shaping of existing environments, and (c) selection of new environments’ (R. Sternberg, 1998). This integration through the process of oneness has serious individual as well as collective implications as Rajarshi leadership focuses on the development of individual, group, team and collective strength through the individual and collective excellence to create value for humanity.

The ‘humanity’ implies that the leader is dealing not only with objectivized commercial, economical, technological and political systems, but dealing with the subjective values of human beings while embracing spirituality. The attributes of spiritualism develop selfless and intrinsic levels and motivate the leaders in the organization to accept challenges and pressures who try to work without ego and cultivate positive vibes among the team. Positivism creates a humanistic and ethical environment and has a further cascading effect of oneness among members of the team as advocated by Krishna ‘seeing everything in me; seeing me everywhere and serving me in all existence’ (6’31) and therefore, such team work in overall progression of all stakeholders.

Inclusiveness

If inclusiveness is the unique strength of major developed countries of the world, it is the core strength of a modern organization. The premise of ‘Vasudhaiv Kutumbkam’ popularly known as ‘Ram-Rajaya’ is still considered as the best model of governance for the State as well as a modern organization for sustainable development. Follower of the ‘Rajarshi’ model of leadership follows the principle of altruism to strengthen inclusiveness in their organization and connect with the last person in the organization like Rama who dedicated his life to ensure the peaceful co-existence of forest dwellers, saints, nomads, etc.

Inclusive leadership is the unique capability of the leader to draw out diverse talent like Rama, from the heterogeneous group of people while respecting their individual dignity so that they are motivated to participate in the achievement of the shared Rishi Vision. Unlike several princes, Rama mingled with everyone overruling the prevalent norms of untouchability and differentiation between lower and upper strata and could include several persons of different categories in his team like if Hanumana was the most powerful soldier of his army, Jamvanta, though old and feeble, but was a strategy maker. Similarly, if Angada was included in the army even being the son of Vali whom Rama killed, Vibhishana was too included even being the brother of Ravana whom he was going to kill. Nal-Neel too were included in the team though were suffering from a curse but helped in building a bridge by stones floating on the water which is impossible even in the advanced technological age of today.

As the organization needs to compete in a diverse world, a diverse group of employees needs to be attracted/retained to attract diverse customers to expand the market base and therefore, Rajarshi leader with an open and non-judgmental mind adapt the diverse scenarios and alternate perspectives to ensure that members of the team develop a feeling of:

• Belongingness and value in the organization,

• Being treated equitably and fairly,

• Loyalty towards the organization, and

• Uses the resources optimally and support each other to achieve their full potential.

The concept of Inclusiveness adopted by Rama in the Treta Yuga is relevant today too as inclusive leadership helps to balance the above three elements and achieve the Rishi vision by:

• Focusing on innovation, creativity, and opportunity.

• Emphasizing self-alertness and self-discipline which are the keys to innovations and opportunity.

• Following the path of Dharma and truthfulness and not merely the opportunity.

• Mobilizing the people and connecting with them.

• Focusing more on man and less on machines.

• Ruling out the discrimination based upon caste, colour, creed, and religion, etc. as said in Aranaya-kand ‘jati pati kul dharm badai, dhan bala parijan guna chaturai, bhagsti hina nara sohai kaisa, binu jala barida dekha jaisa’. (3:34:3)

• Showing willingness and ability to perceive and creating new social and economic opportunities.

• Not giving up on the idea even if faces uncertainty and obstacles. Rather disseminates and embeds his idea deeper to connect with the vision.

Discussion, implication and future research direction

Corporate life is full of unpredictable events in the VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous) world due to cut-throat competition, market instability Therefore, a number of leadership theories have been explored especially during the last 5 to 6 decades to answer the question of unpredictable changing scenarios but hardly any of them is able to answer the issue created during the present epoch of social degradation leading to the Enron crisis, Kingfisher crisis, economic crisis, etc. as corporate manipulations, scandals, scams and frauds are on increasing trend worldwide and common man is losing hope with the leadership. Society doesn’t need leaders who have the ability only to balloon up the bottom line of the balance sheet of the organization by hook or crook and cause damage to stakeholders but need leaders who understand the essence of life and focus on the inclusive growth of all stakeholders where profit is derived as an essential by-product. Rajarhsi leaders focus on the spiritual transformation of leadership as spiritual transformation is instrumental in influencing organizational transformation (Acker, 2000). The Rajarshi model of leadership followed by Rama in Ramayana is a unique example and has been guiding humankind in all facets of life including the leadership style expected by any organization and if these styles followed by the leader, he will be not only transformed self but will be able to transform the organization where no competitor will be able to beat such organization, no matter how giant it may be.

With the limited resources coupled with limited wisdom available to researchers, this paper has been a humble attempt to explain attributes of Rajarshi leadership in the context of modern principles of management by using the methodology of hermeneutics while using the various incidents of Ramayana. Further qualitative research may be carried out by using other religious scriptures as well as quantitative research may also be carried out by using questionnaires, survey methods etc. to assess the applicability of these principles in the modern organization.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Dinesh Kumar

Dr. Dinesh Kumar is Zonal HR Head, Bank of Baroda, Baroda, and doctorate in HRM from Shiksha ‘O’ Anusandhan University, Bhubaneswar. He has received the ‘Emerging HRD Thinkers Award-2007 from ISTD, New Delhi. Twice he received ‘Rajbhasha Gaurav Purskar in the years 2020 and 2016 from the President of Bharat. About three dozen research papers and 5 books have been published. His area of interest includes Spirituality in leadership. The present paper will help readers to understand the qualities of Rajarshi Leadership with the help of Ramayana.

Divyanshu Singh

Divyanshu Singh is a Research Scholar and teacher of Physical Education. 05 research papers published in the area of leadership.

Kritika Kritika

Kritika is a postgraduate of National Law University, Delhi. She is a Research Associate and having 06 research papers published in the field of Law and leadership in her credit.

Narinder Kumar Bhasin

Dr. Narinder Kumar Bhasin is the Head of, the Professional Development Centre, IIBF Mumbai. He has experience of more than 29 years of Banking and 8 years of academic experience as a Professor.