My thoughts on Inspired Leadership

The Leadership Crisis

Anil Sachdev, Founder, SOILWhen organizations and societies become excessively focused on short term and narrow thinking, we have a leadership crisis. Why do people become self-centered? Why do we lose touch with the goodness within each one of us? What makes us turn a blind eye to the plight of millions of poor around us? Why do we use methods and processes that damage the eco-system? What makes us continue to lead our lives without reflecting upon these issues? Why do we attract more people of the same kind who reinforce this thinking rather than “diversity” that challenges our assumptions? These are extremely important questions. The erosion of human value begins with the thought that selfish pursuit of my own ambitions without paying attention to the means that I adopt is f air and just. I get confused in understanding market economics and capitalism. I say to myself, that the end justifies the means. I work obsessively, exploit loopholes in regulations, “use” people, encourage “corrupt” practices, damage the environment, dislike negative f feedback and justify my methods as I get rewarded by greater profits. Capitalism is understood by me to mean “ I am free to exploit the system till I am caught” and even after that, I can use my power and connections to escape the rule of law. I lose the sense of community, ignore “sane” voices around me, turn a blind eye to all the damage I am causing to others and myself and get so much lost in the doing and becoming, that I am not mindful of my state of being. When many others see me become “wealthy” by adopting these means, they too emulate my dangerous ways. Media celebrates such people and their success with making money is applauded, especially if in the process, I have made many others acquire more money in the same way. Organizations who have become large corporations by following these methods and have made millions of shareholders wealthy in the short run, become so called role models and their founders and leaders “cult” figures and the “gurus” of this model of dangerous leadership. The system becomes so corrupt that the evil network of politicians, self serving bureaucrats and businessmen work seamlessly to benefit their own selves while giving “lip service” to serving society. What can we do to serve the highest common good? The only way to overcome this problem is to pay attention to a new system of education. We need to develop “Inspired Leadership” by overhauling our existing ways of teaching and learning. Inspired Leadership has five dimensions. Ethics is at its center. When we know the difference between our fundamental “rights” of thinking and action and the ‘right’ things to do, we become more ethical. “Self awareness” and “mindfulness” are necessary for us to become more conscious of the choices we make. If only we were to pay attention by invoking our own consciousness, we would become aware of the consequences of our ways of living. This would make us more “compassionate” towards those who are suffering and are less fortunate- the people whom we have been ignoring and even exploiting. It would make us think deeply about the way we use the earth’s resources and learn about why global warming and the green economy are critical issues of today for everyone of us. This would make us attract people in our organization who are genuinely diverse and bring multiple intelligences of creativity, emotional and spiritual kinds. Such people would challenge our assumptions and help us to become even more evolved and aware. These are therefore the five pillars of “Inspired Leadership” : Ethics, Mindfulness, Compassion, Ecological well being and Diversity. The leaders of tomorrow have to build and reinforce these values in themselves and others. They have to inspire themselves by redefining their goals and ambitions by asking themselves “How can I create the highest common good for all the stakeholders by using all my gifts and abilities?” They have to reflect deeply and create powerful visions for themselves that make them connect everyday action to a sense of higher purpose”. When they are inspired by the goodness within that makes them serve this purpose, they become authentic leaders who touch one and all. People who come in contact with such people, themselves begin to behave in similar ways and become members of ‘learning communities’ that do inspired work. The Five Critical Skills The top five skills are all linked to the five pillars of inspired leadership. These are: Ability to reflect and introspect and become more “mindful”, the competence to make the “right” choices while making “decisions”, compassionate behavior based on emotional intelligence, innovative thinking and action to adopt eco- friendly methods and technologies and the capability of embracing diversity by celebrating and leveraging multiple intelligences. Each one of us has come to this world with a definite “purpose”. We have also been given the gifts to work for this mission. The purpose of education is to know ourselves and realize how to leverage our gifts towards our purpose. When we derive the full power of education, we become inspired leaders. All of us are born with multiple intelligences and gifts. Some of these can be developed further with the help of the right education, upbringing and mentoring. What we do with our “gifts” and opportunities is leadership.

Mindfulness- The essence of Inspired Leadership

Inspired leaders have the awareness that leadership is not about leading others. It is about
leading your own body, mind and intellect and being led by the life giving force- the Self, with
the capital “S”.

Leadership of the body involves healthy habits. It is eating the right food, breathing the right
way and keeping the body in the right shape by exercising in the right way.

Food has a big impact on our behavior and our lives. Some foods make us lethargic, irritable
and dull. Some make us energetic and action oriented. Others make us reflective and creative.
When babies are in their mother’s wombs, they breathe in the right natural way. As they come
into the world and grow older, they forget the right way of breathing- inhaling causing the
stomach to go out and exhaling resulting in the abdomen going in. Regular exercise of the right
kind keeps the physical equipments of the body in the right shape and ready to support our
aims and vision.

Leadership of the body combined with the ways we use our minds, intellects and are led by our
“Souls” also involves leadership of the five senses and the process of perception. Leadership of
the “eyes” is about the power of observation. Do we see what is seen by most or do we also
observe the “unseen” that most people ignore or miss? Leadership of “ears” is about listening
with attention. Many of us hear but do not listen to what is being said or implied. Great leaders
are skillful listeners. Leadership of the skin is to learn how to use our power of touch to build
trust, to heal and to demonstrate affection. It is not just the touch of “pleasure” but the touch
of “joy” that is used by leaders who are leaders.

Leadership of the nose is about learning how to smell in the right way to prepare the mind and
intellect to suit our intentions. For example, when we are preparing ourselves for quiet
contemplation and reflection smelling the fragrance of flowers and incense calms us. This also
helps us to choose the right foods and beverages to eat and drink. Leadership of the tongue is
about making the right choices for food and drink and learning to “eat and drink” in a way that
makes us derive the full nutritional value from our culinary habits.

Leadership of the mind is about leading our emotional intelligence in the right way. When we
learn to listen deeply, appreciate people, demonstrate our love for others and empathize by
learning “how to get out our own shoes” before “stepping into others’ shoes”, we lead our
minds and emotions in appropriate ways.

Leadership of the mind is also about learning to deal with negative emotions. Anger, greed,
jealousy, hatred, vanity etc are all negative emotions that take us away from our right to live
joyful lives. “Disappointments” when others do not meet our expectations (especially if these
are people we deeply care about) cause hurt and sadness. We tend to carry all these negative
emotions deep in our hearts long after the events causing these have happened. Leadership of
the mind involves regular “cleaning” of our negative emotions by sharing these with genuine
friends or mentors and not keeping them suppressed and hidden.


Leadership of the intellect is about leading our thinking process in the right way. It is about
making the right choices and decisions. What are the most important questions that we should
be asking? Do we have the right quality and amount of information to make important
decisions? Have we created several alternatives before choosing one? Are we clear of the
criteria for evaluating different choices? Do we knowingly make “trade- offs” and understand
the impact of each? Have we built commitment in ourselves and others to implement our
decisions?

Leadership of the intellect is also about taking responsibility for the ways in which we learn and
use our multiple intelligences. Some of us learn by reading, others through dialogue, some
learn by documenting and writing, others by hearing themselves talk and many others learn
only by doing “something”.

When we use our thinking ability to realize the ways we learn, we use appropriate methods to
learn and develop. Linked closely to this subject is the aspect of multiple intelligences. IQ (as
measured through tests of reasoning), verbal intelligence, spatial intelligence, musical
intelligence and intra personal and spiritual intelligence are all different gifts that we are born
with and acquire. When we know our gifts and learn how to leverage them, we demonstrate
the leadership of the intellect and learn how to learn. We can also develop some of these
intelligences with conscious efforts. For example when we learn how to overcome fears and
past conditioning, we can train ourselves to become far more creative.

The essence of all these facets of inspired leadership is being led by the “self” or consciousness
or the life giving force – the ultimate truth. What is the purpose of my life? Why have I taken
human birth? What are my gifts? How can I lead my life in a way that leverages by gifts to
realize my purpose? How is my work and the way I am leading my life enabling me to movre
towards my purpose? What changes do I bring about in the way I am leading my life to move
towards my purpose? What competencies do I need to develop to enable these to happen?
How do I lead my body and the process of perception to make this happen? How do I lead my
mind and my emotions? How do I lead my intellect? What do I need to learn to make progress?
How can I use my preferred learning style to learn this?

These are all questions that come to me if I learn to introspect, reflect and contemplate and
make these habits a regular part of my living. These help me to become fully aware and present
and make changes in the ways I live to become a true leader. The ultimate gift of this form of
leadership that we can give ourselves is to learn to live in the present and make every moment
special. Instead of worrying about the future and having regrets about the past, it is about
acting with complete awareness. While eating, we are fully present, while playing, we are fully
present, when working on a task, we are fully present. This is what we call as “mindfulness” or
the ultimate form of self awareness. This causes complete “wellness” and makes every moment
of life worthwhile and joyful.

Introducing myself

It was at a young age that I began to dream of contributing to a new model of economic development. I had visualised that I would first work for Industry to gain ‘hands on’ experience and then set up a consulting organization that would help businesses to create wealth in the right way.

After I did my MBA, from the University of Pune in 1975, at the age of 20, I joined Tata Motors and then the Eicher Group in 1978 and worked in HR, Operations and TQM areas.
In April 1991, Eicher enabled me to realize my dream and we created Eicher Consultancy Services.ECS had a unique Mission: India’s economic development without spiritual impoverishment. We worked with most of the large global and local firms in areas of Strategic change, operations improvements and people development and stressed the importance of good values of ethics, doing more with less and empowerment of people. We brought AT Kearney to India and worked as their India partner till the time they became part of EDS. We then formed a 50:50 Joint Venture with Strategic Decisions Group, a Menlo Park, California based Strategy Consulting firm, founded and led, mostly by Stanford University faculty and alumni. We did projects with SDG in Europe, North America and the far east with leading global firms.

It is my belief that good leadership is about building an organization and walking away so that the shadow of the founder does not prevent new leaders to grow and so as per the plans I had announced many years in advance, I stepped down as the CEO of ECS in April 2001, exactly 10 years after creating this organization.

I decided to start a new organization with focus on human development, my first love. As a result, Grow Talent was born in April 2001.All its shareholders were clients of ECS who believed in our work and acted as our angel investors.
Grow Talent grew to become the leader in the HR consulting business in India by 2006.It was a unique organization that had a mission of helping people and organizations to realize their full potential and had strong focus on promoting the model of holistic economic development.

We decided to sell our consulting business to Right Management, a company which is part of MANPOWER Inc and whom we brought to India in 2002 as our strategic partner. This was done to raise funds for our dream of entering the field of Education. After transferring our ownership to Right, we created the School Of Inspired Leadership or SOIL in October 2008.

SOIL is a business school with a difference. I have always enjoyed teaching and have been adjunct faculty to the Kelley School of Business in Indiana University, Bloomington, GMI- Flint, Michigan, Anitoch-Seattle, ISB-Hyderabad etc. What we are attempting in SOIL is unique. We are focusing on developing leaders that are ethical, compassionate, care for the planet and are spiritually aware.

I have served the Confederation of Indian Industry as its Regional Chairman for its HR Committee and its National Chairman for its Employee Relations Committee and the National HRD network as its President in Delhi. I have delivered talks at conferences all over the world and written contributory articles in several publications. I serve as the Trustee of the Chinmaya Mission, an inspiring ‘Not for Profit’ Institution and the Charities Aid Foundation, a global NGO

I met Neera at the University in 1974 and we got married in 1977. She has been a partner in more ways than one and has been a pillar of support in all that is described above. Our son Sahil did his MBA from the Kelley school of Business and works for Limited Brands in the US and married Devyani Debi in 2007.Our daughter Mehek did her MSc from the London School of Economics and now works for Mckinsey.