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A king can easily cross the oceans of the world with kingly duties as
his boat, urged on by the breeze of gifts, with the scriptures as the
tackle, intelligence as its helmsman and kept afloat by the power of
righteousness. – The Mahabharata.
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GRK Murty
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“It is probably true that business corrupts everything it touches”,
said Eric Hoffer, an American social writer. Does it mean that no one
should touch business? The answer is: an unequivocal “No”, for that
is not what it means. All that it says is: Don’t get corrupted by
business. Now, the natural fallout of this is another question: Who
should not get corrupted? Obviously: the leader, for it is the leader
who heads a business – the organization created to carry out
whatever business it undertakes – and steers it through for success.
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That’s indeed what has happened …
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concerned about the image of business and its place in American life
and the world in general.”
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hopeful that the missing leadership bond with employees and public,
as is revealed by the recent multiplication of business scandals, can
be reestablished and suggests: “What we have to do as a school is
usher in what I think of as a new century of innovation, to really
remake business education,” so that businesses can have leaders
“with the competence and character to fulfill their positions of
power and privilege.”
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B-schools must shun their crazy competition for rankings, fee-
structures, and quantitative research and focus more on qualitative
enquiries. In addition, as Nitin Nohria suggested in an article co-
written with Khurana in 2008, management professionals may be
asked to commit themselves to a “code of ethics” like the
Hippocratic oath, for it might “create and sustain a feeling of
community and mutual obligation that members have toward each
other and toward the profession.” Simultaneously, they may even
explore withdrawing degrees for violating codes of conduct. Such
pressure, it is hoped, would “turn managers into agents of society’s
interest in thriving economic enterprises.”
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“with an honor code that instills and reinforces a healthy sense of
right and wrong”, it is hoped that this can be averted.
Nevertheless…
“Capacity for the nobler feelings”, as John Stuart Mill said, “is in
most natures a very tender plant, easily killed, not only by hostile
influences, but by mere want of sustenance; and in the majority of
young persons it speedily dies away if the occupations to which their
position in life has devoted them, and the society into which it has
thrown them, are not favorable to keeping that higher capacity in
exercise.” He also says that no one who has remained equally
susceptible to both the classes of pleasures – higher and lower level
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pleasures – has ever “knowingly and calmly preferred the lower;
though many, in all ages, have broken down in an ineffectual attempt
to combine both.” In this regard, he blames the “present wretched
education and wretched social arrangements” as “the only real
hindrance to its [nobler pleasures] being attainable by almost all.”
That being the reality, it pays for leaders to bear in mind three things:
one, ‘personality’, that magnetic and mysterious something which
one’s followers easily notice and be excited if its is relatable, can only
be acquired from within – education or no education, training or no
training – it is to be released from within, nothing more or, nothing
less to it; two, ‘peace’ – peace of mind, peace of soul… throughout
the ages …great minds and simple ones, all have acquired it by
eschewing “fear, guilt, envy, malice, and anger”; and three, the evil
associated with these words often attracts, of course, the weak
leaders by its promise of a sense of power – power to accomplish, of
course, short-term gains. And changing attitudes mean changed
leadership – ethics would then become its own motive.
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custom, and there is no reason why it will not continue into future. In
which case, all is not lost: societies can hope to overcome the
present greed-driven crisis in the markets, and businesses can
become honest vocations. But act the leaders must, of course,
collectively and constantly, towards nurturing higher pleasures,
values, for it is nevertheless a “tender” plant that can wither at the
slightest threat.
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inside or outside. This automatically leads to mastering of all desires,
and therefore all attachments and infatuations, which means Ananda
and in Ananda, where is the room for being unethical?
*****
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