Inclusiveness - A prerequisite for leadership

There is a lot of talk today about leadership and wanting to become leaders. I don't think anyone should try to become a leader. Leadership is not about you wanting to become a leader?

Usually, people understand leadership as a position of power. But those leaders who were truly successful and loved by people lived in a position of continuous sacrifice, because a leader means your life and activity are no longer about yourself. Every thought and emotion that you generate, every action that you perform, has an impact on millions of people. It is a certain privilege and a responsibility that you can touch the lives of people around you in many ways. When I say a "leader," I am not just talking about the leader of a nation or large group of people. Whatever sphere we are in, whether spiritual, political, economic or social, or even within the family, everybody is a leader in some capacity; it is only a question of scale. Whether you are managing and leading two people or one billion people, everybody is some kind of a leader.

Any leader, if they do not feel a deep sense of inclusion, if they do not feel that people around them are a part of them and grasp the fundamentals of who the people are, not just in understanding or as an intellectual process, but experientially if they do not feel a certain sense of oneness and inclusiveness with the people around them, they cannot be a genuine leader. They can only manipulate situations for a little betterment or worse.

Bringing Out the Best

I was conducting a program for the top executives of a major company. We had our volunteers there who were going about doing things. These executives saw the way our people were going around and asked, "Sadhguru, where do you get these people?"

I replied, "You don't get them. You have to make them." "How do you make them?" they asked. "You have to make them fall in love with you." Then they asked, "Okay, how do we make them fall in love with us?" I said, "First, you have to fall in love with them." They replied, "Oh! They don't pay us for that."

If you want to lead any group of people and want everyone to function at their best, first, you must make sure all of them fall in love with you. If you want everyone to fall in love with you, first you must fall in love with all of them. This is not a trick - "If I fall in love with you, you will fall in love with me, then you will work better for me." The moment you do that, no one will cooperate. If you genuinely fall in love with everyone around you, slowly, everyone falls in love with you. Different people may take different amounts of time but slowly, they will give in. Once they are in love with you, they will naturally do their best.

It is the ability to bring out the best in others that makes you a leader. Leadership essentially means that you are capable of creating the necessary atmosphere, where people can go beyond the limitations that they have set for themselves.

In the presence of the leader, people are able to do things that they would not have done by themselves, that they would not have imagined they could do.

People are willing to put their lives into your hands because they believe you can make them achieve something that they would not be able to achieve by themselves. You open up a dimension for them that they would have never opened up by themselves. Only then people gather behind a leader.

You should never aspire to become a leader. Whatever the nature of activity that we have chosen for our life, if we wish to be leaders in those situations, the first thing is we must be able to lead by example. Not by words, trickery or cunning, but by example.

If you commit yourself, dedicate yourself, devote yourself to a particular cause which is inclusive in nature, or in other words if you address human wellbeing, not just your wellbeing, depending upon the level of your dedication and devotion, people will recognize you as a leader. If you have not included the people that you wish to lead as a part of yourself, you will become a slave driver. With slave driving, you may get some work done, but you will be the most hated creature on the planet. Without being absolutely inclusive, without embracing the people that you lead absolutely, you cannot really lead them. You can only lead if you are truly inclusive.

Ranked amongst the fifty most influential people in India, Sadhguru is a Yogi, mystic, visionary and a New York Times bestselling author. Sadhguru has been conferred the Padma Vibhushan by the Government of India in 2017, the highest annual civilian award, accorded for exceptional and distinguished service. He is also the founder of the world’s largest people’s movement, Conscious Planet- Save Soil, which has touched over 4 billion people; Views presented are personal.