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2017 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

3. Self-Mastery: Mastering the “Me” in Leadership

Author : Satinder Dhiman

Published in: Holistic Leadership

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan US

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Abstract

Personal mastery has lately received great attention in the management literature. This chapter recognizes the importance of self-mastery in the development of holistic leadership. Before we can effectively lead others, we must first learn to manage ourselves effectively. It is our common experience that without self-discipline one cannot attain success in any field, whether it is science, sports, or music. Building upon the lessons of self-motivation, this chapter develops the theme of self-mastery as a necessary foundation for achievement in any endeavor including leadership. It discusses the role of self-discipline, self-effort, and self-perseverance in fostering self-development for preparing us for life and leadership.

The key focus of this chapter is the harmonious development of a leader’s personality in all its essential dimensions—psychological, intellectual, emotional, moral, and spiritual. It draws upon the key lessons of personal mastery as presented in the Bhagavad Gītā, the most important paradigmatic spiritual text of Hindus. Focusing especially on psychological and emotional aspects, the theme of self-mastery is developed as integration of personality. The chapter also references Aristotelian theory of the golden mean as the desirable middle between two extremes—one of excess and the other of deficiency. As an added feature, the chapter reviews research on expert performance (the making of champions) to inform the quest for self-mastery.

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previous chapter Self-Motivation: Motivating the Whole Person

next chapter Creativity and Flow: The Art of Mindful Creativity

P. Nagaraja Rao, Introduction to Vedanta (Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1966), 102.

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In his fine preface to The Essential Gandhi (New York: Vintage Books, 2002), Eknath Easwaran calls these three practices ‘the essence of the spiritual life’. These conform to the threefold disciplines enunciated in various Indian wisdom texts—the path of knowledge (jñāna yoga), the path of action (the Bhagavad Gītā and karma yoga), and the path of devotion (bhakti yoga).

All verses from the Gītā are quoted in the in ‘chapter, verse number’ order: For example 6.5 means chapter six, verse five. All translations are the author’s unless otherwise stated. All Sanskrit verses are presented according to the International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration (IAST) convention that uses diacritical marks. The most often used mark is a short horizontal bar over a letter which denotes a long sound.

The chariot metaphor occurs during mantras three and four in chapter one, section three of Kaṭhopaniṣad, an Upaniṣad which has a few verses in common with the Bhagavad Gītā. Plato also uses the chariot allegory in his dialog Phaedrus to explain the journey of the human soul toward enlightenment.

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Eknath Easwaran, cited in Louis Fischer, Ed., The Essential Gandhi (New York: Vintage Books, 2002), xvi.

Adapted from Eknath Easwaran, trans., The Bhagavad Gītā (New York: Vintage Spiritual Classics, 2000), 68–69; Franklin Edgerton, trans., The Bhagavad Gītā (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1964), 15–17; S. Radhākrishnan, The Bhagavad Gītā: With an Introductory Essay, Sanskrit Text, English Translation, and Notes (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1958), 296–299; and Satinder Dhiman, trans., Sahaja-Gītā: The Essential Gītā [Selection and Compilation, Rajendra Kumar Dhawan]. Based on Paramśraddheya Swāmījī Shrī Rāmsukhdāsjī Mahārāj’s commentary on Śrīmad Bhagavad Gītā, entitled Sādhaka-Sañjivanī (Gorakhpur, India: Gita Prakāshan, 2013), 125.

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Adapted from Eknath Easwaran, trans., The Bhagavad Gītā, 67; S. Radhākrishnan, The Bhagavad Gītā, 123; Satinder Dhiman, trans., Sahaja-Gītā, 36–38; and Swami Gambhīrānanda, trans., Bhagavad Gītā with the Commentary of Śaṅkarācārya (Calcutta: Advaita Ashrama, 1984), 101–104.

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Mortimer Adler, Arsitotle for Everybody: Difficult Thought Made Easy (New York: Bantam Books, 1980). Emphasis added.

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K. Anders Ericsson, Ralf Th. Krampe, and Clemens Tesch-Romer, The role of deliberate practice in the acquisition of expert performance, Psychological Review, 100, 363–406. See also K. Anders Ericsson, Neil Charness, Paul J. Feltovich, & Robert R. Hoffman (Eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance (Cambridge Handbooks in Psychology (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2006).

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Cited in Dan Vergano, Are Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 Hours of Practice Really All You Need? National Geographic, March 12, 2014. Emphasis added. Retrieved November 8, 2015: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/03/140310-gladwell-expertise-practice-debate-intelligence/.

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Jimmy Watson, Ironman Dave Scott knows what will be on his tombstone, The Times, August 2, 2015. Retrieved November 24, 2015: http://www.shreveporttimes.com/story/sports/2015/07/31/ironman-dave-scott-knows–tombstone/30933751/.

See: Jim Collins, Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap … And Others Don’t (San Francisco: Harper Business, 2001), 127–128.

See: Dave Scott (triathlete) entry on Wikipedia. Retrieved November 24, 2015: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Scott_(triathlete).

See Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy: The Lives and the Opinions of the Great Philosophers (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1962/1933), 189. Durant renders it as: ‘But all excellent things are as difficult as they are rare’.

Title: Self-Mastery: Mastering the “Me” in Leadership
Author: Satinder Dhiman
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan US
Book: Holistic Leadership
Print ISBN: 978-1-137-55570-0

Electronic ISBN: 978-1-137-55571-7

Copyright Year: 2017
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-55571-7_3

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