The Essence of Leadership : Explorations From Literature

Understanding leadership is really about understanding life, and this starts with gaining an understanding of the self. Traditional management approaches, based on 'scientific' analysis, cannot contribute much towards understanding leadership. This book shows how leadership can be better understood by reading and interpreting masterpieces of world literature, and relating them to leadership issues. The book starts with Cervantes' masterpiece Don Quixote, whose main character asserts, 'I know who I am', and believes in himself. This is followed by other works to highlight important issues: ambition and purpose in Chinua Achebe's __Things Fall Apart__, faith vs. reason in Bertolt Brecht's __The Life of Galileo__, awakening the human spirit in Bernard Shaw's __Saint Joan__, authenticity in Girish Karnad's __Tughlaq,__ and the old Sanskrit play __Mudra Rakshasa__ by Visakhadatta, leaders and society in Arthur Miller's __All My Sons__, the role of illusions in Ibsen's __The Wild Duck__, taking a stand in A Dolls' House, the epic Mahabharata for development of perspective, and Herman Hesse's __Siddhartha__ for understanding the process of self-development and realisation of one's potential. Based on the experience of the authors teaching a course on leadership for the last 20 years at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, this is an enlightening and illuminating read for both academicians and corporate leaders.