In the Indian context, a leader
is always presupposed by the lead, as Pratibhasali—'a-man-of-Genius', all
because of their belief that leadership is ‘divine-affirmed’. According to the Yagasutra aphorism, Pratibha is
“the power of knowing things independently of the stimulation of senses by the
corresponding external objects and even without learning of them from the talk
about them by one who knows.” Etymologically Pratibha means ‘shines to’— its
shining depends upon the mind. That is the reason why some ancestors even prefer
to refer Pratibha as the mind’s eye
that enables the possessor to create things ever new.
Pratibhasali leaders are known to bring in the whole
soul of man into activity and work on the cognitive, conative, and the
affective. They mostly work on intuitions. Pratibha leads to
manifestation of ‘imagination’—the primary living power of all human perception
and finite ability to create eternally.
It is the very ‘rubric’ of creation—of vision and wealth for the organization.
It is the living power that enables leader to produce ‘vision’ that ultimately
shapes the spirit of organization. In other words, it is the ‘imagination’ that “brings forth things
unknown earlier”, gives it a shape, charts a means to achieve and make it
earthly. Imagination is held by many as
the “prime agent of all human perception” and that which keeps “eternal acts of
creation” alive.
To make Pratibha explicitly clear in the context of ‘Leadership’, it makes great
sense to borrow what Wordsworth once said to describe a Poet’s essential trait
of “imagination”: “Absolute power / And
clearest insight, amplitude of mind / And reason in her most exalted mood”. Indeed,
like a poet, a leader is known for “seeing the invisible” and by choosing right
words he explains it to team members, so that they could perceive it as a
‘cause’ worth pursuing. This faculty of ‘imagination’, as I.A. Richards[1] observed,
can be used by a leader in various senses: “producing visual images, figurative
language, sympathetic reproduction of another’s emotional states, inventiveness,
scientific imagination and to reconcile opposites and unite disparate things.”
Pratibha, thus, simply underlines its creative expertise. Steve Jobs,
cofounder and the CEO of Apple Computer, is a classic example for displaying
such “scientific imagination.” He visualized the potential of the technology
invented by the Xerox Company’s scientists for assembling the world’s first
graphical user interface, to make the personal computer, and did produce Macintosh
Computer for sale in the market. Now the
question is, how is it that the original inventors of the technology – the
great scientists of Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Centre—failed to recognize its
potential while Jobs was excited about it and finally converted into a salable
product? The answer is simple: ‘mindset’. Mindset of Xerox researchers has
barred them from seeing beyond themselves while it is the “perceptive, and
intuitive mindset” of Jobs that made him to sense its future prospects. Simply
put, it is the ability of Jobs to “see the invisible” that made him to see the
hidden profits in the technology invented by Xerox scientists – and that is
what is called ‘Pratibha’.
People endowed with pratibha are
thus capable of visualizing things much before others can visualize and with
the kind of confidence they have had on themselves, they pursue it till they reached
the goal. Simultaneously, they also make their followers commit their energies
for its pursuit. The basic tenets of their behaviour are what Gita
prescribed as the penance of mind: “Security of mind, beneficence, silence,
self-control and purity of heart”. They, as leaders, strongly believe in the
nobility of character and conscious of the fact: “one whose name is besmirched
is ‘defaced and deflowered’.” The earthly crowns do not taint them, for
leadership to them is “trust faithfully to be accounted for”— a responsibility
to be discharged with devotion. They respect the ‘leadership’ trusted to them:
Leadership, for them, “is a harder test of virtue”. So only, they keep saying: “Yet I will try
the last”, and they keep doing that because they are pratibhasali leaders.
It is of course, true that the
term Pratibha is often used in
mystical, metaphysical, religious, aesthetical and psychological context in
different meanings. But what is most common amongst this tribe is that they
radiate a high spirit of dama or self-restraint, dana or self-sacrifice and daya
or compassion as the basic drivers that enables them to free themselves
from the sway of craving, greed and anger. And that is indeed what even Buddha commended: we should put out our
heart’s monstrous fires of infatuation, greed and resentment. It is because of
these traits that they display in their behavior, the followers often not only
visualize their leaders to be pratibha shali but also respect them as
they love to be in the company of such great personalities.
It is generally believed that Pratibha is inherent in every sentient
being, though in different proportions. But in whatever proportions it may
present, as Shelly said, Pratibha, as
a fading coal needs to be awakened to transitory brightness by an inconstant
wind— preferably in the form of teaching and initiation by a senior. For
instance, whenever one is driven by “selfishness”, which is ever hungry and
deficit-driven—vyavaharika vyaktitwa (the lower self or ‘un-ripe ego’), even a person endowed with Pratibha like Vivekananda is certain to
lapse into errors. Therefore the beginning of leadership is with oneself and
that’s why a leader has to consciously and constantly make an attempt to keep
his inherited Pratibha always awake,
so that he can become a ‘wisdom leader’.
It is such ardent practice alone
can enhance a leader’s Pratibha and
thereby his influence on his followers. Its possession simply makes a leader
not only great but also good in his craft of leadership. Exhibition of a
leader’s pratibha is so
infectious that it makes everybody in the organization a shade better than what
they were earlier. In the contemporary world of corporate management, Jack Welch’s
theory of leadership comes close to what PratibhaSali
leaders are known to exhibit in their behavior.
Jack is known to practice “4E”
theory of leadership that stands for a leader’s levels of energy, energizing
ability, edge to take courageous decisions, and finally execute the decisions
taken—all with a “P”—passion. Jack Welch, by displaying a ‘leadership’ that
exhibited these traits, became a charismatic leader. According to many of the
Wall Street Analysts, he became a magnetic personality all because he was a
self-made executive—managed to overcome several handicaps such as his stuttering,
his lower middle-class background, etc. It is this Pratibha that he nurtured with zeal that enabled him to make GE one
of the most respected corporates in the world and in the process he himself became
a role model for many corporate executives.
The success of Welch amply
testifies how important Pratibha— subjective
basis of the objective consciousness that differentiates the meaning of the
‘whole’ from that of the ‘individual constituent’s’ meaning - is for leaders to
achieve organizational growth with all inclusiveness..
Excellent story on Prathibha.
ReplyDeleteDr.A.Jagadeesh Nellore(AP),India
Thanks a lot Dr. Jagadeesh garu...
ReplyDelete