Leadership II

‘So VR! After Hanumanji burnt Lanka, you said Ravan showed some humility and asked for the collective opinion. How did his ministers respond to that?’ asked Manav.‘Well, Manav, most ministers started by praising Ravan and reminding him of his past achievements. Then they started demeaning the strength of Ram and the Vanaras. Most of them followed it up by boasting about their personal strengths and how each of them could single-handedly kill the enemy!’‘Yikes! That sounds like a bunch of flattering fools! Did Ravan actually fall for such arguments?’‘He fell hook, line, and sinker! The ministers told him exactly what they wanted to hear! The only one who objected to this was Vibheeshan. The first time around, Ravan quietly heard Vibheeshan’s warnings without responding to them in any way. The second time around, when Vibheeshan and his son Indrajit argued, he blindly sided with his son and called Vibheeshan a traitor. He even threatened to kill him. Vibheeshan was upset by this and left Lanka with his close associates!’‘So all his talk of people being frank with him was only for show! In reality, he was just a bad leader who could not tolerate dissent!’‘Absolutely! We see many more examples of this later as well. He sent spies to infiltrate the Vanara army, but they were caught and manhandled by the Vanaras. Ram asked them to be set free and sent them back to Lanka after giving them a tour of the Vanara army!’.‘Whoa! That's some swag shown by Ramji there!’‘Ravan’s first reaction to seeing his spies return in bad shape was laughter! He derisively laughed at their conditions and asked them to give a full report. When the spies reported the actual strength of Ram and his army, he got furious at them for ‘praising the enemy’. He even threatened to kill them. Not satisfied with this, he sent two more rounds of spies, all of whom came back with similar reports, but Ravan refused to believe them all!’‘Insensitive to the suffering of those working for him, not believing in them and keeping his opinion above facts… all these reek of a narcissistic style of leadership!’‘True that! Further, even after the war started, when he kept losing his men, some of them urged him to return Sita and stop the war, but he refused to do that till the bitter end. The women of Lanka squarely blamed Ravan for all their families being torn apart and Lanka facing this destruction. So all in all, a pretty bad leader!’‘Hmm… this gives me a clear idea of the don’ts of a leader. Can you tell me some of the do’s as in examples of a good leader from the Ramayan?’ asked Manav.

Leadership II

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