“The level of membership in ISKCON relies upon having capable leaders, who can inspire others to take Krishna Consciousness, encourage them to stay in Krishna Consciousness, help them to deal with their weaknesses and help them advance in spiritual life, guide them, etc. Clearly, then, devotee leaders have the major responsibility to acquire the necessary traits to carry out their functions.”

Leadership Traits
ISKCON Leadership – Part III
By Yugala Kisor das

Dear Members of ISKCON,

Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada. This is my third essay on the subject. I sincerely hope that it will be of some use for some of you. Kindly accept this as my contribution to help restore our commitment and loyalty to His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada and the Society he left us with.

INTRODUCTION

In this essay, we will review the leadership traits model and how it is applicable to ISKCON leadership. There are other models to be reviewed in future essays, but I’d like to bring to your attention that understanding leadership traits is of vital importance to ISKCON leaders. The reason is that religious organizations (ISKCON included) rely firmly on the characters of their leaders. Although the Holy Shastras are there to guide mankind, people need the presence of leaders to provide guidance, encouragement, couching and exemplary behavior. In other words, in secular organizations leaders are only expected to adhere to a code of conduct; whereas leaders in religious organizations are required to do so. Our leaders, especially the top rank, cannot overlook this point, in any way, at any time.

The level of membership in ISKCON relies upon having capable leaders, who can inspire others to take Krishna Consciousness, encourage them to stay in Krishna Consciousness, help them to deal with their weaknesses and help them advance in spiritual life, guide them, etc. Clearly, then, devotee leaders have the major responsibility to acquire the necessary traits to carry out their functions.

When we refer to certain leaders as being charismatic, enthusiastic, courageous, etc., we are actually viewing leadership from the trait theory standpoint. Trait theory of leadership can be broadly defined as a model that seeks to define leaders on the basis of personality, physical characteristics and intellectual traits.

Although some scholars ascribe the first studies of leadership traits to the Greeks and Romans, with the “great man” theory; it was only until the late 1800s and 1900s that the theory gained some grounds. During these two centuries, the thinking was that leaders were “born”, and not made. This great man theory lost its acceptability due to the emergence of behaviorist school of psychology. In time, the trait theory evolved to refocus on the traits of successful leaders, without regard to whether the traits were inherited or acquired. The gist of the theory is to identify distinguishing features or characteristics in successful leaders. Thus, up until the 1950s, researchers closely studied personal characteristics of effective leaders.

This trait approach to leadership was aimed at developing a precise set of characteristics that could be used to identify individuals who would be good leaders. The purpose was to identify who could be leaders and who could not, on the basis of these traits. Another specific feature of this approach is that it ignored the situations in which leaders and followers interacted.

Subsequently, other leadership models emerged, such as situational or contingency leadership, behavioral leadership, and transformational versus transactional leadership. Despite the emergence of these various leadership models, a form of trait theory of leadership has gained increased acceptance among researchers. The main argument used to replace the trait theory was that research findings could not confidently assert that a given set of traits would produce a successful leader. Notwithstanding, a core of traits significantly contributes to the effectiveness of a leader.

CORE TRAITS

These core traits are grouped into physical traits, intelligence and ability traits, personality traits, task-related characteristics and social characteristics. Physical traits include energy, stamina and appearance. Personality traits include honesty and integrity, adaptability, aggressiveness, enthusiasm, and self-reliance. Achievement drive, persistence, sound knowledge of operations, cognitive ability and initiative are counted among the task-oriented characteristics. Cooperativeness, interpersonal skills and administrative ability, cognitive capacity, sound knowledge of operations, self-confidence and desire to lead are grouped as social traits.

 Impact on ISKCON Leadership

Honesty and Integrity. To fortify the relationship between themselves and their followers, ISKCON leaders – at all levels, but especially at the top – ought to develop a strong adherence to honesty and integrity. Honesty means that leaders are upright in principle and in actions. Their actions, speeches and dealings are cemented in truthfulness and sincerity. Integrity refers to adhere oneself to strict moral and ethical code. Due to being founded on the principles of Vaishnavism, ISKCON represents the highest moral and ethical standards known to the world. There are no doubts about this. Our leaders have the noble task of living, assimilating and portraying the Vaishnava ethics in their own lives. This will certainly inspire followers. In the Western world, morality and ethics refer to the Judeo-Christian value systems. However, the Vaishnava ethical system of values is of a higher order for twofold reasons. Firstly, it was given to us, directly by Supreme Personality of Godhead Himself via the parampara. Secondly, Vaishnava ethics – as well as all Vedic knowledge – is the source of all systems of ethics in different cultures and religious faiths; and as such it encompasses all systems of ethics. For these reasons, ISKCON leaders have a major and delicate responsibility to emulate and being living examples of Vaishnava ethics, which surpasses conventional or customary ethics. This is one of the most important leadership traits that our ISKCON leaders need to develop and sustain. Relationships in our Society have been broken in many ways due to – at one point in time – our leaders lack of adherence to honesty and integrity. This applies to all of us: GBC members, temple presidents, brahmanas, senior devotees, husbands, wives. As time goes by, we become leaders and we ought to understand the importance of honesty and integrity because – knowingly or unknowingly – others do look up to us. Successful ISKCON leaders should know that it is imperative to be reliable and truthful with the followers. Leaders do what they say they will do. They walk their talk.

Achievement Drive. Effective leaders do have the capacity to exert a considerable high level of effort on their work. The successful completion of challenging tasks is usually a source of satisfaction for this type of leaders, who have a strong desire to succeed, are energetic and have the tenacity to persevere in their work. A leader with strong achievement drive does not wait for things to happen, he takes initiative to get things rolling.

Cognitive Capacity. This refers to the ability to use wisdom in decision-making. This is evidently a good trait for a leader. Followers will develop a stronger affinity for a leader who is intelligent. Cognitive ability means that successful leaders are insightful, intelligent, wise, and have good judgment and common sense. Why is this so important? Because our ISKCON leaders continually make decision that affect the lives of others. They are to have ample experience about personal relationships, and good analytical skills.

Operational Knowledge. In any enterprise, sound knowledge of operations is an imperative factor for managers or leaders. Effective leaders are very well acquainted with the operation of the business they are in. ISKCON business is to carry on the mission of Srila Prabhupada. This business is “to build a house in which the whole world can live in” and to turn every member of this house into ladies and gentlemen. This is indeed a major enterprise. The more ISKCON leaders become good at this business, the better the quality of leadership. We might ask, what does operational knowledge mean? Among other things, operations include: how to effectively preach, how to deliver lectures, how to cook, how to worship Deities, how to handle finances, how to safeguard ISKCON assets, how to support book distribution, how to handle operational and peoples problems, how to deal with public, how to fundraise and how to make the temple congregation grow, how to encourage temple devotees, how to service the congregation, and on and on. Knowledge of operations is indispensable for effective leaders. Leaders cannot afford to be weak in any of these aspects of operations. On the other hand, there is a considerable tendency – a bad one – in our ISKCON leaders to function as “the one-man-show” approach. Being well-versed in all these areas of management should not be an indication for leaders to do everything themselves. Some efficient degree of delegation of authority should be there. But they are expected to be experts in all these areas, so that when they exercise supervision, they know exactly what they are looking for.

Self-confidence. A manager must analyze much information and consider many aspects of a problem in order to make the right decisions. Low self-confidence would incapacitate a person in this regard. Therefore, self-confidence is usually necessary to succeed as a leader. Decision-maker have to have confidence in their own capacities and abilities. Nonetheless, self-confidence comes from experience and a conscious effort to better oneself, to keep improving, to expand our abilities, day in and day out.

Inclination to Lead. Generally speaking, successful leaders do like and are comfortable with being leaders. They enjoy - to some extent – exercising power. Devotees should not take the post of leaders unless they can handle it. Liking being the leader also means that, one also likes the additional responsibility concomitant to leadership. It also means that he enjoys helping people, working with people, listening to people, talking to people, directing them, guiding them, spending time with them, doing service alongside them. A leader’s life pretty much pivots around people. And in ISKCON, unlike any other religious organization, this a twenty-four hours-a-day affair.

 The great man theory mentioned earlier was formally propounded by Sir Francis Galton in 1869 in his book entitled “Hereditary Genius”. As the title suggests he argued that leadership qualities were based on heredity. This was probably the by-product of Darwinian thought quite common in the intelligentsia of the time.

The research on leader attributes, i.e. trait model of leadership, was brought together by Ralph Stogdill in his 1948 work. Stogdill reviewed 124 empirical studies of leader attributes covering quite a number of recurring characteristics. From all his studies, he identified some consistencies which led him to conclude that leaders generally exhibit the following characteristics: intelligence and initiative. Intelligence, in this context, simply means that leaders possess superior academic knowledge, verbal fluency, superior overall knowledge, originality, and high levels of insight. Initiative means that leaders tend to show high levels of energy, desire to succeed and persistence.

An interesting discovery emerged, though, from many researchers including Stogdill; and that is that the profile of a successful leader varies with the situation! What this means is that different groups and different group activities required different types of leaders.

This concept of different style of leaders for different groups and their activities is clearly visible in, and applicable to our ISKCON Society. Our membership or constituency is composed of wide variety of people from different parts of the world. For example, we have women whose interests are very peculiar – and in a sense different than that of men. Or another example is the Indian community, which – in many parts of the world – play a very important role in our societal dynamics. We also have different ethnic groups, cultural groups. ISKCON has spread to so many geographical areas with different languages. All these different groups require different leadership style. One leader may be appropriate for one group while quite inappropriate for another. Perhaps one good idea would be to identify, train and provide leadership services to devotees or ISKCON members that match the requirements of their followers or groups. On the other hand, ISKCON members who intend to lead such a variety of groups ought to take enough time and resources to learn about who they are trying to lead. Our leaders have to understand that they will be required to constantly improve their competency in dealing with such group diversity. This is so true for leaders whose managerial roles extend over different countries, cultures and languages.

© CHAKRA 15-November-2000

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