The Culture of Empowerment. ILS
Bhakti Vijnana Goswami · Mayapur · 2014
Chapters
Purpose of the succession presentation
Presentation on how to create the culture of the problem. I gave a couple of days back and today when I came to the plenary session I found that Goranda Prabhupada is giving more or less the same kind of presentation.
So please forgive me if I repeat something which you have already heard on on his memory. But his presentation was little more technical.
Mine is more for meditation for kind of introspection and uh and of course uh for understanding what we're supposed to do, what is our duty as a leader and uh what we're doing wrong and what is still lacking in us.
First of all, I would like also to make a disclaimer. Not everything which I will say is fully hundred percent realized by myself in my practice.
And I feel sometimes giving this presentation a little uh insecure in a sense because uh some of the parts of it I definitely I'm well aware that I'm not very good uh in this regard.
But still, as a knowledge, it's I think it's important. So let's start. This is the presentation which is given on uh behalf of the GBC succession committee.
As you know there is the strategic planning initiative and succession committee is one of the committees which uh uh is there and the role of this committee is to ensure that there is a smooth succession.
Sociologists say that this transition from the from third generation or from second generation to third generation, from third generation to fourth generation is critical for any religious organization.
Usually oftentimes religious organizations they only last two maybe three generations and after that they die just because of this reason.
And Max Weber, the famous sociologist who studied religious movements as such, he said that uh it is actually the job of the second and uh particularly third generation to translate charisma uh into the system when the Acharya comes comes, he with his charisma, with his qualities and he inspires everyone.
But it's very important to translate it into the language of systems, of the language of management and everything else. And that's exactly what we are doing here on this leadership Sangha.
So this succession committee is concerned with the smooth succession of smooth transition and this presentation is a part of our work. So our chairman is Rasa Krida Parana Prabhu he is sitting here.
I'm I'm very pleased that this whole thing was done under his able guidance.
Prabhupada's example of empowering others
Devamritumaraj, Anuttama Prabhu, Ramapal Maharaj was actually previously member, Vina Sharana, Devi Dasita Mohar Prabhu, he is also here, Vamsivalam Prabhu and myself.
So So before I start I tell you a little anecdote, a little story about Prabhupada.
Here is the culture of empowerment or how to create the culture of empowerment, and on this famous slide during San Francisco Ratha Yatra, you can see how Prabhupada is empowering everyone, how everyone is basically above the ground being empowered by his powerful presence.
And there is a little anecdote, once Prabhupada was speaking in front of a group of businessmen in India, and one businessman asked him Swami Can you show us some miracle?
And Prabhupada said, yes, I went to America with 40 rupees in my pocket. And after a few years, I have temples all over the world. And they said, yes, this is a miracle.
And Prabhupada said, and then on top of this, I have hundreds and hundreds of white people who work for me twenty four hours a day and I don't even pay them anything. Is it a miracle?
So and they agree, this is definitely a miracle, you know. This is uh so uh, but uh I tell this story just to uh explain this notion of empowerment.
Empowerment means you empower people to such an extent that they are totally selfless, they are self-sacrificing and they are ready to work 24 hours a day. And this is what Prabhupada did.
And basically this presentation is how to uh create. Definitely we will not be able to reproduce Śrīla Prabhupāda, but uh to a certain extent uh we should definitely try and see and uh do from his example.
So the uh sources uh uh of this presentation is definitely Śrīla Prabhupāda, his inspiration, his life, everything. And the structure, the general structure of this presentation is taken from
Stephen Covey's book, which I personally find as one of the best books uh in regard to leadership because he's uh giving a very deep approach and I think that his approach is totally coherent with the spiritual
principles of Krishna consciousness and uh by the way Gauraṅga Prabhu was talking about the same thing. So first let's think for a moment why do we need the culture of success and our the culture of empowerment.
And uh the slogan of the previous uh ISKCON Sangha was more devotees, happier devotees. And on this slide you see the succession principle in action. You know, when people are inspired to take responsibilities,
the succession is a natural process. So I list here four reasons why the culture of empowerment is important. Definitely there are some other important reasons, but this is the main reasons.
First of all, this is the main core essential mission of ISKCON to try people to develop themselves. To develop spiritually, this personal development is not something which is outside of our mission.
Our whole organization is created for this purpose, for the personal development and, therefore, this empowerment which is connected with the personal development is definitely a very essential part of our culture.
Then, of course, as I said all succession problems are automatically solved in the organizations where there is a culture of empowerment.
Because when people feel empowered, when people feel that uh they are uh really uh uh they develop and they they are ready to take more and more responsibility.
Some time ago I I was speaking with one devotee, quite prominent devotee. And there was a crisis at that time, one of many, which ISKCON went through and hearing.
What as a sign of this crisis is that there is practically no one uh who is ready to take sannyās at this moment in this particular zone, no one who is ready to take some responsible positions. And then it's definitely a sign of crisis.
Now luckily we see that uh this situation is not there anymore, and that's a healthy sign that people are ready and willing to take uh more responsibility positions.
And definitely Śrīla Prabhupāda wanted it and personally taught by his own example what does it mean to empower people.
That's one of the main points of Śrīla Prabhupāda, one of the key factors of his success he basically was unique in this regard he was empowering people like anything and you know there are so many stories
he would meet somebody and I know that uh I think it was Guru Gaurāṅga. He met with Śrīla Prabhupāda as a student. He was on a vacation in Paris, and somehow rather he met
with Śrīla Prabhupāda, but after two weeks, he was out in Austria opening a temple, Hare Krishna temple.
You know, can I ask you, you know, after two weeks in Krishna consciousness, where you would you be ready to do something like this?
That's Prabhupada's unique quality, and he taught it how to do this. You know, this is amazing.
And of course, the overall success of our movement is very much dependent on how good we are establishing this culture of empowerment.
Training devotees to be independently thoughtful
One of the many, many thoughts of Śrīla Prabhupāda inspirational quotes where he speaks about this. This quote was just given by Anutom from a famous letter to Karanda.
Christian consciousness movement is for training men to be independently thoughtful and competent in all types of departments of knowledge and action.
And basically the definition of culture of empowerment that creates the atmosphere and organization where people are ready to take more responsibilities and availing them the spirit of self-service.
So, two quotes from Stephen Covey from his book, which I find very deep. This is the notion of empowering people. Empowering people means acknowledging how powerful they already are.
Empowerment means to acknowledge the power of others and to recognize and awaken their real powers.
Sometimes empowerment is taken as uh as a synonym for delegation, but empowering uh and empowerment which is a fashionable term nowadays in uh management circles is much deeper and much broader term.
So it's basically empowering people needs to acknowledge how already people are. And this is definitely the duty of a leader to create leaders.
And in this regard, Agrura Prabhu, one of our devotees who is uh publishing his leadership uh newsletter. He put it in a very beautiful way. The ideal leader of the past was the genius with a thousand helpers.
The ideal leader of the future is the helper of a thousand geniuses. So again, the same sort of idea.
The leader, the main duty of a leader is not to do himself something. The main duty of a leader is to help those who are under him grow more and more and more and give this is the culture this is the real culture
and another very beautiful quote which I really like. Leadership is communicating to people their worth and potential so clearly that they are inspired to see it in themselves. And we all know this.
This is actually a very spiritual statement because we all know that we are spiritual, we are full of sat, cit, and ānanda, but somehow or other we forgot about this.
And Prabhupāda was the one who came to us and who said, you actually have no problem, you are full of eternity, knowledge, and bliss, and somehow or other you know this because this statement was given with such a force and with such inspiration that we realized yes, that's true. That's what we are.
And so beautiful also quote from Albert Schweitzer, he is a Nobel Prize winner from Switzerland.
In everyone's life at some time our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flames by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.
So again, this is just to remind us how important it is. And in fact, what I'm doing, uh I I try to analyze every day at the end of the day, uh
what happened during the day or sometimes in the morning of the next day, and I try to analyze what were the encounters with other people?
Was I able to inspire some other people or did I empower them in a genuine way or did I disempower them? Uh unfortunately I have a long history of postings.
Oftentimes I feel that you know, by coming in contact with me, I disempower people by one way or another. And but I'm trying to be aware that this is the duty which I have.
Anyway, so uh coming back to the essence to the core of our presentation,
Inside-out approach to leadership development
uh this is two approaches and uh I think Govinda Prabhu was speaking about this. Uh that the approach which we should take is the approach inside out.
It basically means that we are not trying to empower people or inspire people by some artificial means. Sometimes you know there is a temptation to do it.
We can just, you know, by some artificial means and we all know some pep talks, you know, just but uh you know all by some techniques or reward.
So this is uh what uh Stephen Covey calls outside in quick fix some external uh approach to empowerment. Externally you are trying to empower people without giving them the essence.
His approach, which is very beautiful and appropriate to spiritual people, is first you find empowered yourself.
You understand what does it mean to be in power, and then when you are in power, you will be able to empower others. And that's basically the parampara system. This is the system of parampara. We get empowerment from whom?
Krishna. From the all-powerful one. All the energy is coming from Krishna.
And through Parampara system, you know you empower yourself or find your own voice and then inspire others to do the and this is the picture which shows uh how Śrīla Prabhupāda was empowered himself and how he was empowering everyone else.
He is exuding this empowerment. That's what it is. You can see that he's full of spiritual energy and this spiritual energy is you know spread all around him. And uh this notion of uh being empowered
That you have both qualities, ācāra and ācārya. You are first of all you are empowered yourself in the sense that you are behaving in ideal way and then you're empowering others to behave in the same way.
And that's in essence what this our spiritual life or our understanding of Śrīla Prabhupāda's understanding of spiritual life is all about. Not just be empowered yourself but also uh give it to others and
and uh interestingly enough uh Sanātana Gosvāmī says that teṣāṁ jagatām āryāḥ you are the best person in the world, you are the most noble person of the world. Why? Because you are doing this both duties, two duties.
Because you are behaving yourself properly, and because you are capable, and because of this, you are capable and you are doing this of prāraḥ inspiring others.
Four dimensions of human development
Anyway, so what does it mean? What shall we do? Finally. We understood that it's necessary, we understood this is the beauty, what should we do?
So the approach or the paradigm to understand what we should do, to make it simple, it's basically the structure. So many things we can do.
We can do, you know, if you start telling what could be done to inspire people, you can be lost. But if we take this approach, we will very clearly understand what is required.
And the approach is about the complete paradigm of the whole uh the paradigm of the whole person applied to ourselves and uh to uh organization as well.
There are four dimensions of a human being: spiritual dimension, intellectual dimension, emotional dimension, and physical.
You know, soul, intelligence or buddhi, mind or manas, emotional mind, and physical body of the senses. And that translates, because we have these four aspects, that translates into four needs, four basic needs.
The main need, the foundational need of a human being is the need of meaning in life, or meaning in life. Which is basically need for selfless service, self-sacrifice, need to serve.
Then definitely we have a need to grow to, develop, to be creative. This is the need within our intelligence. Need to learn. And then need to feel emotional closeness, need to have friends, good relationship, which is
related to our mind, emotional mind, need to love, and ultimately need to live is there related to our body. And we will be able to fulfill all the needs. What does it mean to develop ourselves?
And it basically means to develop certain abilities in ourselves. So, the first, as I said, the notion of the path which we are trying to traverse with you is from self-empowerment to empowering others.
And self-empowerment means to be empowered in these four areas. And first we take spiritual empowerment and try to understand what does it mean to be spiritually empowered? How does it manifest externally, so to speak?
How we can understand ourselves? Is it okay? Why I'm giving these slides because very important thing, we have to develop these things and we can develop these four areas or four abilities in us can be developed.
We can be spiritually developed. We all know this. That's why we are practicing what we are practicing, we can develop our intelligence, we can develop our emotions to a greater extent, we can develop our body.
Cultivating spiritual connection and conscience
And this is the slides which will show what does it mean. So first spiritual and here I will need some of your help or at least some participation.
So if somebody uh well spiritually here we uh we use the term conscience which is not common in our movement, but we all know what it is. Conscience means. Basically it means you have connection with the Supersoul.
And in Bhagavad-gītā Krishna says the same, Krishna says that ultimately yoga is about connection.
And this connection uh you know basically to be spiritually developed means to be connected with the Supersoul and uh it means that you have a acute sense of consciousness.
It basically means that the guiding force in your life, you have the very strong inside guiding force in your life. The moral compass. And you know what is right, what is wrong.
And here I list certain qualities quite randomly. You know, you may definitely add to this list and perhaps uh we will add something to this list. Um what how does it manifest?
If you have this contact, if you are spiritually developed. It will definitely manifest in you being you know having integrity, having humility, having a zero, it will manifest in your very ethical behavior.
You know, and so many other things are there. Some people will say you're fair or just in your behavior, some people will feel that you are inspired. This inspiration is coming from within.
Compassionate is also one of the qualities or traits which are coming from this contact with the Supersoul. Intuitive, caring, selfless, value-oriented, principle-driven, and ultimately connected with God.
Maybe somebody can add to this, something to this, but what does it mean? How can we recognize somebody of this caliber so to speak. Anyway, don't delay. I think this picture of Prabhupada, which I find very beautiful.
So this is kind of inspiration which is coming from above.
Developing visionary and intellectual strength
This is you know the soul's sudden move that he's acting as a servant on behalf of God and this acute sense of connection with God is there.
If we take the second area of our life or second quality, visionary or intellectual, whatever you say, intellectual sphere.
Then you will see, seeing with your intelligence what is possible in yourself, people, both endeavors, and enterprises. What does it mean? You know how we can judge ourselves or others if they are intellectually developed.
Again, why I'm saying this, I am saying this because only leaders who have these qualities they will be able to empower others. So when the intelligence is developed. And people have very strong convictions.
They are convinced. They know the goal. They have very clear vision of highest goal.
Not just mediocre goal, not just intermediate goal, but they know the highest goal, they are foresighted, they have great ability to see future, they're pioneering, they're very determined, revolutionary, resolute, anticipate future, open-minded, strategic thinker, out-of-the-box, so many other things you can say about them, but that's basically the characteristics of somebody who has developed intelligence for visually visionary abilities.
And of course, yesterday we had uh we heard this beautiful little presentation of Divamrit Maharaj about the most revolutionary leader which was there in the history of Gaudiya Vaishnavism and Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura part.
Definitely, this this is what intelligence means.
I was really shocked when Devamirit Maharaj told this anecdote when meeting with this gentleman, Bhaktisiddhānta gave him, me and some of his disciples developed some doubts and they said people will criticize us. He said I already figured it out thousands of lifetimes ago.
What he wants to say that it was thousands of lifetimes ago I already had this vision what we're supposed to do.
You know, this is a clear vision what we are supposed to do, and this is definitely an area which is necessary for a leader and which uh which we have to develop uh to a certain extent.
Fostering physical discipline and execution
Oh, so it is fancy. Then next is physical discipline. This is definitely the area which I feel lacking in myself. It basically means commitment to bring vision into reality.
Sometimes people may be very good visionaries, but ultimately they are not visionaries, they are dreamers. They just have good daydreams. But they're not really committed.
And if you want to empower people, again why I'm saying this because this is the way to empower people. I know myself that I disempower people because of a lack of this particular quality.
When they meet with me, I may create a very beautiful picture, they may be inspired, but then when they see some inconsistency in actions or something like this, they really feel disempowered.
So this is a very important quality of a leader. And again, some of the you know how you can describe such a person. Realistic, focused, focused and execution, result-oriented.
Not only principle oriented, definitely we should be principle oriented, but we should also be result-oriented.
Gopāla Bhaṭṭa Prabhu. When I'm, you know, thinking about this, I definitely had Gopāla Bhaṭṭa Prabhu in front of me. This image, he is just an embodiment of this quality of the leader.
Committed, hardworking, self-disciplined, regulated, competent, decisive. He's a sādhaka, he has good sādhana, control of senses, of mind, basically, whatever it is, it's there.
And of course definitely we have very glorious example of this
quality, very bright example is Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura. We know how amazing his self-discipline was. How he was, you know, he was just doing what is supposed to be done.
Besides all other qualities, I'm just giving kind of children definitely they are also just giving some different examples. And then the rest, the last one, is emotional.
And I will explain later why it is this the last one. Because ultimately this is the truth of all other qualities. And at the very end, there is some little surprise for all of you. From our acharyas.
Anyway, what does it mean to be emotionally in power? It is the fire of the right that sustains the discipline to achieve the vision. You know, the vision is there.
The foundational principle is your integrity, conscious connection with God. It translates intellectually into vision. Discipline is there to realize the vision. And but you need also fire. You need enthusiasm.
And some traits, optimistic, fearless and and we know Śrīla Prabhupāda's name was Abhay Charan. Who has become fearless because of the connection, because of his service to the Lord's feet of the Lord. He's Abhay.
He he developed this fearlessness. And that's definitely courageous, courageous, sensitive. Yeah, definitely sensitive. Able to overcome obstacles.
about Prabhupāda when he he was describing how he was living. It's not anecdote, it's uh Śrīla Prabhupāda's own uh speech. Uh oh uh anyway.
But Prabhupāda, he had this tremendous ability, he'll have this unswerving enthusiasm, enthusiasm which will not be watered down no matter what.
You know, the there is a beautiful book by Citānanda Prabhu recently published and he said that at one point Prabhupāda was living in one room with a couple of hippies, with a hippie boyfriend
and girlfriend living together and Prabhupāda was sleeping right there and Prabhupāda he once he said sometimes they didn't sleep at night. You know. I I guess every one of you besides brahmacārīs understand what it means.
When the hippie couple doesn't sleep at night, you know, almost, yeah. You know, this is the sacrifice which he undertook to to do this.
And that basically this is enthusiasm this is what uh uh what uh what you're supposed to do you know what you will do if you have this body. Motivating, inspirational, hopeful, influential, whatever it is.
And that's Śrīla Prabhupāda. And he inspires everyone just by mere presence.
And you know, once I was in one American temple, I I mean I I don't want to please forgive me if somebody will make it personally, I don't mean anything personal, but you know, it was one of those temples where there is more deities on the altar than the devotees in the temple room. And it was a little depressive, the whole atmosphere was a little depressive. I was there for some time.
But right at the entrance of the temple, there is a picture of the same temple during Śrīla Prabhupāda's time. The Prabhupāda was sitting and there was at least you know 50, 60 devotees, everyone is totally enthusiastic, everyone is there.
So uh this is what it means, you know, to have the culture of empowerment and why because the leader is has this ability and he creates this atmosphere of empowerment around you.
Signs of disempowerment in organizations
Anyway, so basically we're coming to the next point of our presentation. If these qualities are not there, what's going to happen? If the leader doesn't have these qualities, what's going to happen?
Then he will disempower people around him. And this disempowerment will manifest in four areas.
If his conscious is not there, if his integrity is not there, if he doesn't have this very very strong connections with God and He compromises in His behavior, then result will be low trust.
There is a very important seminar which Siddham and Kisoya are giving now, I think, or maybe later, how to create trust. And that's about it basically.
If somebody has very strong connections with God, He will create trust, vice versa, the low trust will be result. Then we can see, you know, people don't trust.
And you know, sometimes leaders tend to even blame others, then why you don't trust me? Because you're not trustworthy. Simple answer.
So So then if intellectually or visionally the leader is not capable of leading others, then the result will be no shared vision of common value system.
You know, if you cannot, the leader has to have ability to have the vision and to communicate his vision.
Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī, Śrīla Prabhupāda, he was definitely communicating his vision very strongly and Śrīla Prabhupāda also his vision you know communicated no alignment I will tell a little later.
Well that's about the systems. How to anyway, I will unpack these things a little later. And as a result of it, disempowerment.
So when these qualities are lacking, these four qualities which I said in the leader, then people around him will feel that they are not club in. They don't have energy to do something, they don't have ability to do something.
And that's very sad. And again, uh having said this, what I want to say is that uh we all can develop in this area. We have to develop being leaders and uh the ability to be developed is there innate in us.
Anyway, this is just we can uh more or less keep this uh what is there on this slide that there are chronic problems? The four problems which I listed before are chronic problems.
Low trust, no shared vision, disempowerment, and uh no alignment discipline and organization and structure.
But you know when this becomes very acute then you will see the other signs of unhealthy organization or incapable leader.
Backbiting, infighting, defensiveness, information hoarding, this is all the manifestation of the culture of low trust.
When there is mistrust, people are very very insecure inside this organization and they always speak ill about others and stuff like this.
You know, there is no shared vision, people will have uh hidden agendas, they will be politics rampant in the organization, so on so forth.
If there is lack of empowerment, there will be boredom, fear, anger, apathy, resistance. And unfortunately, we can see such examples in our organization.
And no discipline built into the structure and people are not aligned with the core mission. We will I will go quickly through this. Uh we will uh speak about this a little later also.
Anyway, to again to reiterate that Prabhupāda wanted this culture of empowerment to be established very strongly. I will quote the same letter to Karandhara.
Our leader shall be careful not to kill the spirit of enthusiastic service. The picture which we saw on the previous slides is when the spirit of enthusiastic service is killed by the leader.
That's what Prabhupada says here. You know, that the leader is capable of creating this spirit or is very much capable of killing this spirit. Which is individual spontaneous and voluntary.
They should try always to generate some atmosphere of fresh challenge to the devotees so that they will agree enthusiastically to rise and lead it.
Four essential roles of leaders
That is the art of management, to draw out spontaneous loving spirit of sacrificing some energy for Krishna. That's Prabhupāda. And that's what he expects from us. And the rest of the presentation is what we are supposed to do, what we should do, how to create this, how to fulfill this
mandate of Srila Prabhupada. So
the leader has, according to this paradigm which we are talking about, four roles which he has to play modeling, in other words setting a good example that relates to the soul or consciousness. That's the inherent role of the leader.
Visionary, he has to of course determine the force and set the goals. Very important role of a leader, to really set very clear goals. This is the goal. This is where we are going. Without this, people will feel disimpeded.
Aligning, it means set up and manage the system to stay in course. As I said, discipline means to bring vision into reality.
We have to always see whether we're going according to the course or we are somehow rather deviated from the course.
And ultimately, the ultimate fruit of everything, focus on results, get people out of people's way and advise them when requested basically empowering them. Here it's little impact as delegation, but as I said, empowering is not mere delegation.
It's much more, it's a much more deeper concept. Again, four roles of the leader: modeling, fast-finding, aligning, and empowering. And then pegging the whole thing.
And this is the most important slide in the whole presentation. Formula of empowerment. To inspire trust, to clarify the goal, to align systems.
And the force is the fruit of the other speech, unleashed talent, spontaneous enthusiasm. And little little to unpack each of these four roles, what does it mean in reality? What do we have to do?
First, of course, to inspire trust, which is built—as Goranga Prabhu mentioned—the trust is built or created by the character and competence, not just by character alone. You have to be competent and you have to have impeccable character.
And basically it means modeling to inspire trust without expecting it. You inspire trust, but you don't accept, you don't demand, you know, that people have to trust you.
No, this is—we have to be trustworthy. So it basically means be a servant, be surrendered, connected with Guru Krishna, be disciple, not Guru. You know, we may play a role of Guru for some people, but internally we
never should think I'm guru. You know it's it's it's it's not correct.
As Madhudvisa Prabhu said now, we should never think that we are a gift of God to the humanity. It's it's a little disempowering to think that I'm not a gift of God to humanity, but but it's true.
I am just I'm just a servant. You know, disciple, you know this is again I'm just repeating this, but basically it means ego of a servant.
You know, the real leader is somebody who always thinks I am the servant, I am the servant, I'm nobody else, that's soham, that's what's me.
Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura, whenever somebody would fall down to him, he would say, dās was me, I'm your servant. I'm the servant. And that's ego. That's I am. It's not a role. It's ego. We may play some other role.
Leader is a role. Guru is a role. Whatever is a role, but so many roles we may play. Ego, who I am, I'm a servant. So and that means leader. And amazingly now, there is this whole very important concept
now in the modern management world the leader servant that they say that the real leader should be servant and that's basically our philosophy. Jīvera svarūpa hoy, kṛṣṇera nitya-dāsa.
That's interesting, the same Albert Schweitzer says, I don't know what your destiny will be. But one thing I know for sure: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have thought and found how to serve.
And that's I'm specifically taking somebody as an outsider, uh outside expert to to to prove that this is a universal concept which we are uh talking about and we have to be, as leaders, we have to be servants first and foremost.
And this is the example of Śrīla Prabhupāda, how he manifested this. Please try to understand the mood.
In letter to Brahmananda in 68, he says, it's all Krishna's grace that He has sent such a nice assistance to me for executing the mission of my spiritual master.
Personally, I am nothing. And that's Prabhupāda. And that's already when the success is there.
I mean, of course, it's a beginning, but still, I have come here on the order of my spiritual master, and he has kindly kindly sent you all boys to assist me so whatever is being done there is no credit for me but all the credit goes to my spiritual master because he has arranged everything and I am simply to abide by his order.
That's the ego of real servant. Never think that I'm doing it. No, I'm just I'm just assuming that's it. And that's the real leader. If you don't manifest this example to your subordinates, you will disempower them.
Why Śrīla Prabhupāda was so capable of empowering people? Because he was showing the real example for them. And on the contrary, what will create mistrust? Ego of master and control.
If you have this ego, it will manifest in many different ways. Basically, you will be this cultic leader about whom Madhuviṣṇu Prabhu was speaking.
You will be egocentric, you will try to short circuit everyone around you, you will try to organize yourself, most and so many other things. In a subtle way, not necessarily in a cross way.
But if you have this ego, you will do it. And as we know, unfortunately, we have the history of this, but ultimately it creates mistrust. Ultimately, it destroys the organization. So this is the first role.
And again, example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing. If you want to empower people, the example is there. And again, transporting is character and competence. I already said about this.
These two things. You know, we have to be competent and we have to have very pure care. In other words, materially we also have to be competent.
You know, sometimes Godbrothers of Śrīla Prabhupāda said, oh, Abhay Prabhu, he's a good businessman. Therefore, he had success. Trying to push Prabhupada down.
But first of all, you know, being a good businessman is not enough to start the international worldwide movement, spiritual movement. So many materially competent people.
But yes, he was competent materially too, not only spiritually. So this is again a very important notion.
Communicating a clear strategic vision
Anyway, we should go very quickly because of uh time is over. Uh the second role of a leader towards others, I said about self-empowerment also, but uh towards others, he has to show the goal.
He has to clear, to have the clear vision and to communicate this goal. And that's basically strategic planning. And ability to connect others with the strategic plan. Again, I admire so much Gopāla Bhaṭṭa Prabhu.
He had this vision, he connected so many people with this vision. It's really amazing how he is doing this.
He is communicating this vision and this leadership sample is basically about this, how to communicate, how to share the vision and connect people with the vision.
That's important role of the leader if he wants to create this empowerment around you.
Basically, it means if you have clear spiritual intelligence, you know the goal yourself and you will uh communicate this goal to others.
You know you will know how to communicate this goal and how to connect others with this goal. That's Prabhupada, he's showing this is this is where you should go.
And again, quote from Prabhupada, this is ideal leader, he is responsible and he knows his beauty just like I did that. My Guru Maharaj gave me a task, and always I was discouraged by my God brothers.
Prabhupada says, you know, sometimes we say, oh, people discourage me. Prabhupada said, I was always discouraged by my God brothers. No problem.
If I have this clear vision, I will do this no matter what, no matter what other people around me do.
But I did not forget him even for a moment, and I was determined to follow my duty, even though sometimes I did not like to do it. But what can I do? This is the vision again. This is the manifestation of intelligence.
And again, this is the beauty of the leader. We have to really try to establish vision, communicate the vision, and be very determined, to follow the vision, be very convinced.
And if not, then of course, blind who lead the blind. And they all find ourselves in a ditch
to clarify purpose and basically that's visionary leaders involved there people in the communication process to create the goals to be achieved.
In other words, it's not only we set the goal, we engage others in discussing these goals so that these goals are established in them.
If people are involved in the process, they emotionally own it and you create situations where people are on the same page about what is really important.
Mission, vision, vision, values and goals. If it's not there, as I said, the result, if this is if the leader does not do this, then people will not have the common values.
Something which will be valuable and they will be they will have their own agendas. You know, and it happens unfortunately sometimes, you know. So it's it's very important.
This is where we're going and this is our vision, this is how we're going to achieve this, uh and you have to connect people with this. And this is the quote in another presentation about anarthas, cleansing the heart.
I'm mentioning it. One should know that the goal is Krishna, and when the goal is assigned, then the path is slowly but progressively progressed, and the ultimate goal is achieved.
Śrīla Prabhupāda is saying this: one should know the goal, and one should know the path to the goal. What are the stages, how to reach the goal. And uh this is the duty of a leader to know the goal, uh to be very
clear about the path and to help others to traverse this path. And very interesting quote also from Robert Gitter. Disturbance is due to want of an ultimate goal.
If you are not connected with the ultimate goal, your mind will be disturbed. And that's another very interesting quote from Caitanya-caritāmṛta. It's uh ultimately it's coming from Purāṇas uh Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī
quoted in Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu. śāntarasyāmapi siddhy-eṣā bhavaty api sukhā satī. Siddhy-eṣā satī means that acirād eva sarvārthān will very quickly achieve everything.
You will be able to achieve very quickly everything if you have vyavasāyātmikā buddhi, uh very unflinching undivided intelligence, all the desired goals will be achieved.
So vision is about having this intelligence which uh which will help you to achieve the uh this vision. Uh unflinching continuous intelligence, all the goals you can achieve.
Aligning systems with core values
And uh basically we are having uh presentation are very important things. Aligning value what you say is valuable.
Create a clear criteria of success based on the core values if you say that you value cooperation reward cooperation not competition if you say you value humility reward humility not, given-driven achievements.
Basically, it means that you have to have very clear measurement system. This is an important part because sometimes we proclaim that this is valuable, but at the same time we do something contrary to this.
You know, like sometimes we may say that humility is valuable, but we reward evil. You know. Sometimes we may say that you know so many examples that quality is important. But we reward quantity.
You know, we say yes, yes, these million books nicely. But then when it comes to rewarding, yeah, he distributed so many books, we have people. So that's an unaligned system.
Yeah, and as a result there will be unaligned talent and power people. This is the result of three previous qualities, and Gaurāṅga was speaking about this. That's what it is all about, basically. Yeah, this is what it is.
Many kinds of organizations claim that people are important, but in fact the structures and systems make them an expense rather than asset.
You know, like now here, it's very important, in our society, taking care of the bodies uh but before that it was not so important. The word is you know not so important. And this is how we trample over our values.
How we disempower our people, because by not aligning systems with the core values, we will create organizational hypocrisy.
We proclaim something, and in reality we've been something different uh than uh what we proclaim. And that's unfortunately anyway the main goal
of an exponent leader is to generate enthusiasm and support helping them to develop the spirit of spontaneous service, and that's what Prabhupada, the last quote of Prabhupāda:
The spontaneous life is devotional service, is not an easy method, but if one simply sticks strictly to the rules and regulations like rising early, chanting 16 rounds, chanting japa, keeping always clean, then his enthusiasm will grow more and more.
And if there is also patience and determination. One day he will come to the plane of spontaneous devotion, then his life will be perfect.
In other words, Śrīla Prabhupāda says that we know spontaneous emotion or rāga-mārga is our goal, aspiring goal, and we want to serve all the time. But in this, the role of a leader is crucial.
It is the leader who either creates this spirit of spontaneous service or kills the spirit of spontaneous service. And the last slide proposes. What is it? it this? No. Just just do it. Thank you very much.