Dialogues on Personal Leadership

Steve Correa: 

The true leader has no rank. He is beyond compare. He is just one's own potential in full flow. He is alive to his child like spirit, celebrating this moment. He is spontaneous to the moment. He is a leader to every event.

He is responsive to every moment. He resonates to the situation: then he makes no choice. He simply responds from his awareness. Then as a plant that responds to sunlight he responds naturally. There is no judgement, no analysis, no decision.

He is as ordinary as three pounds of flax. Just do it!

      

XXX in reply to Steve

·This sounds more like an enlightened soul than a leader who is one amongst us.

Steve Correa 

Well, not exactly. The true leader must live in the market place, not away from it. The market place is the circumference on which he operates, his social area of karmic action. Yet, at the core is his centre: his true mindfulness. In top class leaders in their field of work, be it musicians, actors, poets and leaders, he remains but the channel for his work. Compete focus and full awareness is an invitation to all of us to awaken our own leadership within.

It is attainable. There is no path, no gate. It is a gate less gate!

YYY in reply to Steve Correa

 I agree that everyone has leadership qualities and it is for the individual to realize the same and respond to situation and circumstances appropriately, It is like a leader without a title.

ZZZ in reply to Steve Correa

Very True, We should simply remember that no matter what our position within any organization and no matter old we are or where we live throughout the world, we have the power to show leadership. And no one and nothing can ever deny that.

QQQ in reply to Steve Correa

I agree ! As said " He responds from his awareness" - I would add on that a Leader responds from his awareness of his strengths" . If one can play to his / her strengths - leadership will come naturally - leadership styles may differ!

Steve Correa 

Awareness is an insight to one's completeness. All that is, is perfect. His so called weakness is as perfect as his so called strengths. Like wings they help him soar - together they help fly to one's potential. They is no need to add, no need to drop. Just acceptance of who one is. Then there is no journey, no path. One passes through the gate less gate. The destination reached all at once, there itself. When one drops the disease for the wish to be perfect, when one accepts that one is just perfect and unique. Then true existence begins, the maya drops. Life is lived. Celebrated.

Steve Correa in reply to Steve Correa

A few more builds: There is no right or wrong, no good or bad qualities, no bad or worse: the qualities you have is just you. Accept your human instincts as they are, don't fight it. Deploying these instincts with true insights is total awareness. Over time leadership is the capacity to move from pure instinct to true insights like a slide, the latter development which become the beacon to guide us. Through experiencing traumas and abandonment and abuse in earlier primary systems tends to split this progress to usual maturity. Looking within not outside for truth is the way. Leadership is then acquired as an art, through personal development. Being aware of one's patterns, and side stepping it to make new choices, new actions, new meanings is your potential. We all have this inate freedom. As Buddha said, be your own light. We are our own laboratory, there is no truth outside. Through one's experimentation with oneself (Vedanta) discover your own truth. Then Act and respond with personal insight. Trust your own experience, your own insight: discover your own personal leadership.

I repeat there is no good or bad, no right or wrong, no bad or worse. No strengths or weaknesses. 

·SSS in reply to Steve Correa

Strengths and weakness makes you what you are! Your weakness which are perceived as weakness makes you unique and different.

Steve Correa in reply to Steve Correa

Well said SSS. I believe you have experienced that yourself. :)

The other who perceives 'weakness' knows not herself, how would she assess you, except for her own befuddled lenses. While the blind steer to appropriateness, the one who is guided by one's own insight steers to responsiveness.

SSS in reply to Steve Correa

SSS: Yes I did . Thanks

TTT in reply to Steve Correa

Before any great achievement comes the acceptance of your particular reality and then you learn to adapt to it, to use it to excel and fly

·       

Steve Correa 

Go straight on. Keep Walking. Not to achieve something out there, or to despair what is here. There is no better or worse, nor good or evil.

Go straight on, is the commitment to the journey itself. Not to reach a destination. Not to remain and stop and stand still to one's own potential. Not to compromise oneself by agreeing to what is. That's it. Not say, "I will accept no more growth". 

Go straight on, is to move despite faltering, failing, stumbling. The journey itself is the destination. And the self unfolds even more to infinite possibilities. The acceptance you refer to, must be the 'remembering' to keep walking!

In listening, I received a giift

just today I listened to you

share your hope, your dreams,

your screams of hurt and inattention

your celebrations, triumphs and success

your world as you see it

expectations and disappointments

You made me realize:

You matter, not I, in this moment

To listen to all, said,

but you said more, and I heard that too

and you shortened out some words,

but I could catch that too

To view your world just not in black and white

but in full colour, resplendent of who you are

not just a visual, but to catch the sound

the feel and the most of all,

that ‘lump in the throat’ that is yours

in your sharing you left me a gift

That I could be worth ‘sharing with’

To realize that I can only offer understanding

If I myself understood myself and you

While I heard myself ask many things of you

I realize I must ask many of myself

All I have to work on is I, and you, You

This has been my realisation. Thank you. 

Atticus Finch
If you just learn a single trick, Scout, you`ll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view . . . until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it. - Atticus Finch  -To Kill A Mockingbird

Chuang Tzu
"The hearing that is only in the ears is one thing. The hearing of the understanding is another.  But the hearing of the spirit is not limited to any one faculty, to the ear, or to the mind. Hence  it demands the emptiness of all the faculties. And when the faculties are empty, then the whole being listens. There is then a direct grasp of what is right there before you that can never be heard with the ear or understood with the mind." 
Chinese philosopher Chuang Tzu 

Mark Brady

"When I ask you to listen and you start giving advice, you  have not done what I have asked. 

When I ask you to listen and you start telling me why I shouldn't feel the way I do, you are invalidating my feelings.
When I ask you to listen and you start trying to solve my problems, I feel underestimated and disempowered.
When I ask you to listen and you start telling me what I need to do, I feel offended, pressured and controlled.
When I ask you to listen, it does not mean I am helpless. I may be faltering, depressed or discouraged, but I am not helpless.
When I ask you to listen and you do things that I can and need to do for myself, you hurt my self-esteem.

Voice within and external

Voices outside and within

Self talk when alone,

and responses to voices external

but always a noise

differentiated by its intensity

That’s how it has always been

Yesterday, today and one sees no possibility

of it being different tomorrow.

Yet a hope, that the hell be taken out

of that which was yesterday.

Voices that can be stopped, for a while

distracted by film, TV or a book

Sometimes more is needed

A strong drink, and another

Come darkness my old friend

Voices that are you, about you. From you.

Heard, imagined, or re-imagined

Voice tinged with fear, hope, or warmth

Expectant, alive, sometimes despondent

Sometimes boring.

Voices that scream for attention, or muted

In whisper or in affection

That calm or energises

That comforts or relaxes

Always a voice within – that’s you.

All is fair in love and war

Mahabharata: The Rules of War

•   Fighting must begin no earlier than sunrise and end exactly at sunset.

•   Multiple warriors may not attack a single warrior.

•   Two warriors may duel, or engage in prolonged personal combat, only if they carry the same weapons and they are on the same mount (no mount, a horse, an elephant, or a chariot).

•   No warrior may kill or injure a warrior who has surrendered.

•   One who surrenders becomes a prisoner of war and will then be subject to the protections of a prisoner of war.

•   No warrior may kill or injure an unarmed warrior.

•   No warrior may kill or injure an unconscious warrior.

•   No warrior may kill or injure a person or animal not taking part in the war.

•   No warrior may kill or injure a warrior whose back is turned away.

•   No warrior may strike an animal not considered a direct threat.

•   The rules specific to each weapon must be followed. For example, it is prohibited to strike below the waist in mace warfare.

•   Warriors may not engage in any ‘unfair’ warfare whatsoever.

•   The lives of women, prisoners of war, and farmers are sacred.

•   Pillaging the land is forbidden.

All is fair in love and war, it is said, and are “rules made to be broken?’. What is dharma and adharma really. The Mahabharata is no exception, yet it was termed as “dharma-yuddha”.

Consider the following:

·       Bhishma was the first person to break the rules of war by killing 10,000 soldiers. (only a car warrior can battle a car warrior )

·       The merciless slaying of Abhimanyu was the first major violation of rules of war in the Mahabharata. The common rules of war state that no warrior should be attacked by more than one person at any point, not at all be attacked if he is not in the chariot and does not have a proper weapon. Abhimanyu enters the Chakravyuha, a martial formation devised by Dronacharya, the Kaurava military chief and is unable to break out of the ring like formation trap. Though he fights valiantly and single handedly, the Kauravan top warriors (seven of them) surround him from all the sides and attack him to death. Abhimanyu‟s charioteer and horse were attacked and killed by Karna, departing away from the rule of fighting against the equal ranks. Also Abhimanyu‟s horse was killed, disregarding the code of not attacking the non-combatant. When Abhimanyu was assaulted and killed, he was without any arms or armour. As per the norm, a warrior without arms or armour should not be attacked. After the killing of a warrior, his dead body is treated with respect. But this wasn‟t the case with Abhimanyu‟s body over which people were dancing and celebrating, like savage hunters exuberating over their prey.

Here Dronacharya becomes the reason for one of the biggest war rule violation, since he also devised the plot of skillfully engage Arjuna and Krishna away from the main battle scene, where he later builds the Chakravyuha Spiritually,this incident is also dubbed as the arrival of Kaliyuga on Earth.

·       Under the supervision of the now returned Balarama, a mace battle took place between Bhima and Duryodhana. Bhima flouted the rules (under instructions from Krishna) to strike Duryodhana beneath the waist in which he was mortally wounded.

·       Not only Abhimanyu, the killing of Dronacharya, Karna, Bhisma, etc. were also against the agreed codes of conduct.

·       Now, we all know that Yudhishthira was the most honest man who ever walked the earth, a reincarnate of ‘Dharma’ himself. In fact Yudhishthira was so honest that the wheels of his chariot never touched the earth. So when he uttered the first lie of his life in the battle of Kurukshetra, his chariot fell down to earth with a resounding thud.

Let me now explain the circumstances when he reluctantly lied. Dronacharya, the Guru of both the Pandavas and Kauravas was a fearless warrior. He had a son named Ashwathama. Drona was proving to be invincible in Kurukshetra and was slaying enemy soldiers left, right and centre. And in an opportune moment an elephant also named Ashwathama fell dead. Instigated by his compatriots, the Dharmaraj uttered “Ashwathama hata iti gaja”. (Loosely translated it would mean “ Ashwathama was killed, P.S.- it was the elephant). Now Drona was grief stricken and lost all drive to battle, He was promptly killed off. And here we thought that a little white lie would never hurt.