Mahatma, which means a “great soul,” was an honorific given to him by Sir Rabindranath Tagore, India’s Nobel laureate poet. MYTH ONE: Gandhi’s actual name was Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (Karamchand being his father’s name). Based on that work, this article looks to dispel two major myths about Gandhi in order to reclaim him as a human being and draw key leadership lessons from his successes and failures as a fallible individual who achieved great things. In my recent book Gandhi and Leadership, I explore the spiritual and moral anchorage of Gandhi’s leadership, outlining seven Gandhian values that are most relevant in the contemporary workplace: authenticity/personal integrity, harmlessness ( ahimsa), truthfulness ( satyagraha or truth-force), transparency, humility, self-discipline and selfless service. And as a result, I believe Gandhi’s greatest achievements as a leader are still waiting to be fully discovered. As things stand, too many myths surround him. As for his devoted fans, well, they complicate matters by spreading misinformation. After all, despite his flaws, or perhaps because of them, the man still has much to teach us 146 years after his birthday (October 2, 1869). But much of what they write often reveals more about themselves than the man.
Gandhi’s critics call him idealistic, impractical and politically naïve. Looking at what she saw as a strange little dhoti-clad man - with cheap wire-framed spectacles and a roughly mended shawl - she looked up at her mother and asked, “Mummy, is he really great?” While in London pleading for India’s independence, Gandhi was approached by a small girl looking for an autograph. But before he signed his name, she drew back, suddenly uncertain about his historic worthiness. In Gandhi: A Life, biographer Yogesh Chadha provides a glimpse of how Gandhi was seen by the British public when he describes a scene from 1931. When describing Gandhi, for example, American historian Will Durant wrote, “We have the astonishing phenomenon of a revolution led by a saint.” And that was simply not the case. In fact, if truth be told, what we think we know about the man may not be all true. “No one so well-known is so little known,” notes Gandhi’s grandson and biographer Rajmohan Gandhi. While receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989, the Dalai Lama accepted it as a tribute to “the man who founded the modern tradition of non-violent action for change, Mahatma Gandhi, whose life taught and inspired me.”īut despite the more than 400 biographies that describe his life, not to mention 100 volumes of Gandhi’s own collected works, the man remains an enigma. King, he inspired exemplary leadership in other historic figures, ranging from Nelson Mandela and Aung San Suu Kyi to U.S. Simply put, Gandhi’s legacy became the harbinger of freedom for many countries in Southeast Asia and the rest of the world. As Martin Luther King, Jr., wrote in 1958, “Gandhi was probably the first person in history to lift the love ethic of Jesus above mere interaction between individuals to a powerful and effective social force on a large scale.” Originally a timid and taciturn soul, he grew into a paragon of visionary leadership, helping to secure the liberation of a fifth of the world’s population from the rule of the largest empire on earth.
Why? Gandhi was essentially the archetypical moral force whose appeal to humanity is both universal and lasting. On the occasion of Gandhi’s 75th birthday, of course, Einstein paid tribute to Gandhi by noting, “Generations to come will scarce believe that such a one as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth.” Seven decades later, he was second only to Albert Einstein for Person of the Century. In 1930, Gandhi was named Time magazine’s Man of the Year. As John Quincy Adams put it, “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.” By this standard, Mahatma Gandhi clearly emerges as one of the most remarkable leaders of all time.
0 kommentar(er)
