Worldly Leadership -uncovering ancient and indigenous ......Swaraj (self-government)....

Worldly Leadership - uncovering ancient

and indigenous leadership wisdoms for a

more sustainable world

Professor Sharon Turnbull

The Leadership Trust Foundation

Official Leadership Development Provider to the Olympic Council of

Ireland

• Global heating

• Global economic crisis

• The „flattening‟ of the business world

• Unpredictability

• The communications revolution

• Materialism and greed

• Crisis of ethics - Compliance not conscience

A Crisis of Leadership?

© The Leadership Trust Foundation

• Dominant ideology of the firm has contributed to a crisis of ethics in a globalised world

• Reveres wealth creation, free trade, profit, and financial orthodoxy over global sustainability and social justice

• Recent scandals focus on identifying breaches of integrity and trust BUT retain rules that preserve the status quo

Philippe de Woot‟s (2009)

Should Prometheus be Bound


• An ethic of conviction focusing on the type of society we wish to build

• An ethic of responsibility that challenges the instrumental logic of today‟s society.

• „Permanent collective questioning‟

• „Good leadership is required at every level‟

De Woot‟s solution…


• The Leadership Trust

• The International Masters in Practicing

Management programme (IMPM)

• Global leadership theory

My research journey…


Vast majority of empirical leadership research has been undertaken by US and British scholars

(Mendenhall, 2008)

Leadership theory has for a long time

been trapped in a western mindset..


62,709 Leadership

books on Amazon.com

(27 September, 2010)

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„Most leadership theories are domestic theories masquerading as universal theories‟

(Adler, 1997)

Global leadership


Global leadership


Obsession with

leadership attributes,

traits and competencies

Joyce Osland (2008)

found 56 so-called

„global‟ leadership

competencies distilled to

six core categories

• Harvard case studies in Korean and Indian business schools

• But western leadership is currently failing to address the critical social environmental and economic problems facing the world

Western management education is driving out eastern

and indigenous wisdoms from many societies


Contrasting „worldly‟ with global

leadership wisdom


To uncover from close-up important leadership wisdoms in oral or ancient cultures hitherto overlooked and hidden by more dominant western voices

To rediscover how these ancient, indigenous and eastern leadership wisdoms can help the world to come through the crises it faces – both locally and globally

Aim of Research Programme


To engage at close

proximity in the many

different worlds within

worlds that make up

our globe and enrich

our experience – and

act. (Mintzberg, 2004;

Gosling and Mintzberg,

2003).

Towards worldly leadership wisdom


Seeks to understand:

•„Particular responses to specific conditions‟

•„A plurality of worldviews‟

•„The patchwork that makes up the world‟

(Gosling and Mintzberg, 2003)

Worldly leadership research


•Values and seeks

heterogeneity

•Predominantly

„emic‟ research

approaches

Worldly leadership research


Worldly leadership research…

• Interviews with NGO and community

leaders – Africa and Asia

• Interviews with 17 Indian business leaders

– India and UK

• Interviews with 26 Russian leaders

• Leadership workshops with Chinese,

Middle Eastern and African leaders

(forthcoming)© The Leadership Trust Foundation

Researching ancient, eastern and

indigenous wisdoms…

Combining ancient literatures with

contemporary anthropological study in

Eastern and indigenous cultures


Eastern Leadership Wisdoms

Ancient and modern


"There is enough in the world for everybody's

need, but not enough for anybody's greed"

Gandhian principles


1. Satyagraha (soul force) Sacrifice of self, leading by example

2. Sarvodaya (upliftment of all). To serve the interests of each and everyone including the care of the earth; of animals, forests, rivers and land.

3. Swaraj (self-government). Self-transformation, self-discipline and self-restraint. And social transformation through small-scale, decentralised and participatory structures.

4. Swadesi (local economy). Local production by all.

Gandhi‟s principles


Modern Indian leader on social responsibility:

„I have to make enough money to put bread on my family‟s table; I don‟t have to have a Rolls Royce to go around in as long as I'm mobile I'm okay. And then I will do all this, you know, as though I'm the Prime Minister of my country, I'm not going to wait for the politicians to what do what they have to do, I will go within the sphere of my influence I will do it‟.

„I just feel that every little drop that we do, you know, don‟t wait for the Government to do this, or so and so to do this…whatever we can do on our own‟

Modern Gandhian leadership


„Some of us are lucky to earn a lot of money, but treat it as pure luck. And what you do with the money is… as Ghandi says, business people are trustees for society, you know. Society has allowed you to make money so never give that away to your children, that‟s most damaging. If I was a Prime Minister I would have an inheritance tax of 90%. (Indian leader)

Modern Gandhian leadership


The Bhagavad Gita

(5000 year old text –

Lord Krishna

and Prince Arjuna)

Humanistic and inclusive leadership:

Duty, acting with purity; and acting in the common good; acting as teacher.

Indian leadership wisdoms


„Perfection is achieved when

each attends diligently to his duty‟

„A good leader is one who is incapable of hatred towards any human being, who is kind and compassionate, free from selfishness, without pride, calm in pleasure and in pain, and is forgiving‟

Indian leadership wisdoms


„Lord Krishna says in our Gita „Your job is to work

without any expectations, with all humility, with

sincerity and full concentration on your work. If

you do this you will get your just desserts‟

Indian leader -


„Give better opportunity to the other person to grow, and take that team along with them as a family.‟( Indian leader)

„So we've got to make everyone understand and sit with them, you know, talk to them, explain things in detail so that, you know, they understand‟. (Indian leader)

Raj-rishi (Leader as guru/teacher)


„O almighty God, you protect both of us (the teacher and the student) together; you bear both of us together, may both earn the shakti (power of learning) together, may our learning be luminous (impressive); may we never bear ill-will towards each other‟ (The Upanishads)

Leader follower relationship


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Confucian values:

• Benevolence (ren)

• Righteousness (yi)

• Rites (li)

• Intellect (zhi)

• Heart/feelings (xin)

• Courage (rong)

• Faithfulness (chung)

• Altruism (shu)

Junzi (Refined man) should never cease learning on the road to perfection (Sage)

Junzi character = ‘action’

Learning - character training more than vocational

Confucian leadership wisdom

(551-479 BC)


http://www.nipissingu.ca/department/history/MUHLBERGER/uploaded_images/confucius-757900.jpg


(551-479 BC)


• „Man of ethical humanity must also

practice what he has learnt. When

he wishes to establish himself, he

must at the same time establish the

others. When he wishes to be

prominent, he must also help others

to be prominent‟

(Confucius, The Analects)


„Confucius says, learning should go hand in hand with thinking and self-reflections. So a wise entrepreneur must learn and reflect at the same time, which is also the way towards enterprise success.‟

(From Practically Confucian wisdom for Chinese entrepreneurship, Yunxia Zhu, 2009)


(551-479 BC)


Daoism

Laozi (6th century BC) the father of Daoism, used water many times to explain the ideal form of leadership (Lee et al in Chen and Lee, 2008)

• Water is altruistic because it supports life.

• Water is modest and humble because it always takes the lowest ground

• Water is adaptable and flexible because it can stay in a container of any shape

• Water is transparent and clear


http://recycle.lbl.gov/apac2007/Laozi.jpg

“A good leader is defined as acting like the nature of water. The reasons are as follows:

Water gets joined together and becomes one.

Water flows from up to down, interconnected together.

Water purifies everything, even if any muddiness.”

(Korean leader from LG, 2008)

Contemporary Korean leader


• A shared space for

emerging relationships

• A platform for

advancing individual and

collective knowledge

• Knowledge creation

that transcends the self

The Japanese idea of „Ba‟


African wisdoms

Examples


“Africans have this thing called UBUNTU.

It is about the essence of being human, it is part of the gift that Africa will give the world.

It embraces hospitality, caring about others, being able to go the extra mile for the sake of others. We believe that a person is a person through another person, that my humanity is caught up, bound up, inextricably, with yours”.

— Desmond TutuArchbishop Emeritus of Cape Town

•

Ubuntu


http://www.jmu.edu/gandhicenter/wm_library/TutuPhoto.jpg

„Leadership for sustainability can only be achieved when there is shared leadership. So we identify the champions, and so each champion will have sub-champions. So at every turn it‟s almost like you have a cascade. You have a cascade there in the system‟.

(Martin Dery, ProNet, NGO leader, Ghana)

Shared Leadership


• Pride

• Responsibility

• Respect

• Community

• Contribution

• Courage

• Honesty

• Wisdom

Masai leadership


„How long will you be

chief warrior?‟

„For as long a time

as it takes me to find a

better one than me‟

Masai Leadership


Responsibility

„In your arms is the future food for our community. Tend it well and we live, let it die and we die with it‟

Wisdom

„A young pair of eyes

will spot a lion before an

old pair of eyes‟


Responsibility, humanity, honesty, benevolence, custody of community and society, trusteeship, teaching of knowledge and wisdom, contribution, honesty, and action

Worldly Leadership



„Wisdom =

knowledge + ethics

+ action‟(Rowley, 2006)

Towards worldly leadership wisdom


• deep immersion and encounters at close

proximity in new and „alien‟ settings,

• encounters with leaders who themselves

exemplify and embody these qualities.

• a shared reflective sense-making process,

ideally within a culturally rich and diverse group,

• collaborative translation of the ideas into action

Developing „worldly leadership‟


A field visit to

one of

ITC‟s „e-choupals‟

Deep immersion in worlds within worlds


“Leadership is a continuous process that involves living by example, displaying the highest levels of honesty, humble presentation without imposing oneself or intimidating others and being constantly present‟.

(Japanese leader)

Worldly leadership


Ethical leadership

• Usually framed with western capitalist

norms e.g. trust, transparency.

• Often framed around knowledge and

skills (Hind et al, 2009)

•Individualistic orientation (Knights and

O‟Leary, 2006)

From ethical to responsible leadership


Responsible leadership (Maak and Pless):

„a socio-relational and ethical phenomenon which occurs in social processes of interaction‟

– Relational intelligence

– Leaders as agents of world benefit‟

– Leader as weaver

– Leaders a world citizens

From ethical to responsible leadership


• An ethic of conviction focusing on the type of society we wish to build together

• An ethic of responsibility that challenges the instrumental logic of today‟s society.

•Not „profit for what?‟ - but „progress for what?‟ e.g. alleviation of poverty, inequities, health and climate change problems

Toward de Woot‟s solution…


• Worldly leadership goes beyond knowledge, to include ethics and action

• Emphasises shared leadership at community and societal levels

• Gives voice to the disenfranchised or marginalised

• Focuses on global prosperity and sustainability

Conclusions


Questions


Worldly Leadership -uncovering ancient and indigenous ......Swaraj (self-government)....

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