Leadership and Gita

Bhagawat Gita talks about different types of leaderships. For an organization to succeed (this is applicable to nations also), you need a combination of people who have these leadership skills. An overdose of any one of the following will result in an imbalance leading to a drop in performance.

It is rare to find all the leadership roles in one person. You need to identify which is the role that fits you well and take up responsibilities and organization roles based on that.

Let us look at the different leadership roles as defined in Bhagawat Gita;

There are four primary leadership roles:
Strategic Leadership
Directive Leadership
Team-building Leadership
Operational Leadership

You have a unique character, with particular strengths and weaknesses.When you understand and play to your strengths you can develop your natural leadership ability,
and you'll find that you are suited to a particular leadership role.

As I mentioned before it is not ordinarily possible for one person to embody all types, and especially not to be good at all of them, because they have contradictory psychological characteristics. Such a personality is exceedingly rare. A person is generally strong in a primary leadership role, accompanied by a weaker predominant secondary role. Very rarely will a person be strong in three.Wherever there are strengths, there are corresponding weaknesses. These weaknesses can become strengths when they are acknowledged and understood, and a team is built around them. "Know Yourself", and your area of contribution, is the beginning of individual effectiveness, leading to team effectiveness.

Persons who are suited to Strategic Leadership are thinkers. They are normally right brained and are good at creating the vision and building a wholistic strategy. Their primary concern is why to do things. They love the challenge of understanding and planning. They value knowing over doing. This gives them a detachment which enables them to more accurately and objectively analyze the situation. They value knowledge and wisdom, and admire perceptive and wise people.

Persons who are suited to Directive Leadership, also known as Executive Leadership, are initiators. In the think of the battle, while others are stumbling around in shock and confusion, looking for guidance, the Directive Leader is the one who takes charge and inspires others to follow them. They love to direct, and are able to initiate action, and to sustain action. They value doing over knowing. A person with a reduced strength in this area may be able to intiate, but unable to sustain action.

The Directive Leader is about engagement – engaging himself or herself, and engaging others in the task at hand. The Visionary Leader is about detachment – stepping back and looking at the bigger picture. The two are generally complementary roles, and a person is generally better at one or the other. The Strategic Leader enables the Directive Leader by providing him or her with strategic vision and direction. This is very valuable to the Directive leader as it ultimately makes him or her more effective.


The Team Building Leader is all about people. They are natural people persons, and generate cohesion in any group that they are part of.

The Operational Leader is the final leadership role. This is a very practical, on-the ground leadership role.

In an Organizational context, ideally the Board of Directors should take the role of Strategic leadership, the CEO and his first team the Executive Leadership, the Business Unit Heads the Team Building Leadership and the Sales/Production Managers the Operational Leadership.

The trick to success is to identify these skills at various levels of management and groom the individual to make use of his natural leadership skills in the long run