Ghandi and the leadership

Prepared by:
Mohamed Adly
Aly Saber
Ahmed Atef
Amr Shams
Wael El –Sahn
Sherif Hassan
BUS-509 - ESLSCA 41C ,
Dr. Maha Hafez,
Mar 2013

[GANDHI

AND THE
EADERSHIP]
“Be the change you want to see in the world” Mahatma Gandhi

Contents
Acknowledgment .......................................................................................................................................... 2
Summary ....................................................................................................................................................... 3
Introduction .................................................................................................................................................. 3
Introduction to Leadership ........................................................................................................................... 4
Consequence of Charismatic Leadership ...................................................................................................... 5
Gandhi’s Life summary.................................................................................................................................. 5
High Standers of Leadership ......................................................................................................................... 9
Gandhi’s Top 10 Fundamentals for Changing the World............................................................................ 12
1. Change yourself. ................................................................................................................................. 12
2. You are in control. ............................................................................................................................... 12
3. Forgive and let it go. ........................................................................................................................... 12
4. Without action you aren’t going anywhere. ....................................................................................... 13
5. Take care of this moment. .................................................................................................................. 13
6. Everyone is human. ............................................................................................................................. 13
7. Persist. ................................................................................................................................................. 13
8. See the good in people and help them. .............................................................................................. 13
9. Be congruent, be authentic, be your true self. ................................................................................... 13
10. Continue to grow and evolve. ........................................................................................................... 13
The Servant Leadership Behavior Scale Model ........................................................................................... 14
Leadership Lessons learned from Gandhi ................................................................................................... 14
1. Innovation ........................................................................................................................................... 14
2. Leading by example ............................................................................................................................ 14
3. Simplicity ............................................................................................................................................. 15
4. Truth.................................................................................................................................................... 15
5. Continuous Learning ........................................................................................................................... 15
6. Sacrifice ............................................................................................................................................... 15
7. Energy ................................................................................................................................................. 15
8. Vision................................................................................................................................................... 16
9. Importance to Customer ..................................................................................................................... 16
Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................... 17
References .................................................................................................................................................. 19
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Acknowledgment
"We would like to thank Dr. Maha Hafez,
For the valuable advice and support he gave us in the writing of this report, encouragement and guidance.
We’d like also to thank ESLSCA EGYPT, for giving us the chance to understanding, improve and learn."

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Summary
This report is a highlight of a leadership framework within which lessons drawn from Gandhi’s life can be used to bring the moral and spiritual dimension to leadership and guide us to a higher standard.

Introduction
The qualities that Gandhi exemplified, such as personal responsibility, truth, love, respect for the individual, and courage, have applications throughout our work and social lives.
In our Life we all have leadership roles, such as presidents and CEOs to parents, elders, and teachers who have the opportunity and obligation to influence the youth of the world. Those of us not in power have a responsibility to raise our standards so our leaders will have to follow.(3)

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Introduction to Leadership
Leadership is an attribution that people make about other individuals. People tend to characterize leaders as having the following traits: intelligence, outgoing personality, verbal skills, aggressiveness, consistency, determination. They are expected to have the capacity to motivate others to action. The manner in which leaders accomplish this varies as leaders and their styles vary greatly. Successful leadership is correlated to the compliance of followers. In a reflection on leadership, Winblad (1999) states that leaders are decisive. They are forced to make a lot of decisions quickly, and they learn the fine distinction between decisive and authoritarian-a skill in which the relative inexperience of the leader is most obvious. Leaders should create an environment where there is honesty, inspiration and realistic goal setting.
Communication and clarification of goals should be continuous. Some leaders develop their team and foster loyalty by making members feel that all the accomplishments realized are a result of a collective effort. Some leaders are adept at allowing followers to come to their own decisions and develop on their own. They may provide very little direction and exercise little authority over the group. There are other types of leaders, who may referred to as democratic, who provide directions, allows the group to arrive at their own decisions, offers suggestions and reinforces team members ideas. More specifically, “the leader encourages members to develop goals and procedures, and stimulates members’ self-direction and actualization”
(Devito, 1999, p 276). There is also the type of leader who sets the pace, makes all the decisions for the group without their input, and seeks little approval from team members. (1)

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Consequence of Charismatic Leadership
Max Weber a sociologist defines charismatic as “resting on devotion to the exceptional sanctity, heroism or exemplary character of an individual person, and of the normative patterns or order revealed or ordained by him”. Another theory of charismatic leadership was proposed by
Conger and Kanungo (1987) based on the assumption that charisma is an attributional phenomenon. However a refined version of the theory was presented by Conger (1989) and by
Conger and Kanungo (1998) which stated that follower attribution of charismatic qualities to a leader is jointly determined by the leader behavior, skill, and aspects of the situation.
Some people referred charismatic leadership to a certain famous figurehead like Adolf Hitler,
Mahatma Gandhi, Mahathir Mohamed and etc. They are some examples of well-known leaders that said to have a very charismatic leadership in their era. Adolf Hitler is said to bring German country to become a new world power nation before the Second World War (WWII).
Nevertheless he was later commit suicide due to the loss of German allied in WWII. (2)

Gandhi’s Life summary


Mohandas Gandhi was born in the state of Gujarat, India in 1869.



At the age of thirteen Mohandas was married to Kasturba. The marriage had been arranged for him by his family. They had four sons.



When he was 18 Gandhi came to London to train as a barrister. He tried behaving like an
Englishman and took up ballroom dancing. We know that he took a dislike to his landlady’s boiled cabbage! In these days he got ‘stage fright’ when speaking in court.
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

He returned to India in 1891, and then accepted a job at an Indian law firm in South
Africa.



His experience of racism in South Africa proved to be a turning point in his life. He was refused admission to hotels, beaten up when he refused to give up his seat to a white man on a stage coach and thrown off a train when he refused to move to a third class compartment, after he had paid for a first class ticket.



When he was about to return to India, he heard that a law was going to be passed to prevent Indian people from voting. He decided to draw attention to this injustice and became an activist.



However, Gandhi said: ‘There are many causes that I am prepared to die for, but no causes that I am prepared to kill for.’ He developed a new non-violent way to make things right, by getting lots of people to disobey unfair laws, and to be un-co-operative with rulers who were treating them badly.



Over the next seven years Gandhi led a non-violent campaign of resistance to laws which were unfair to ‘colored’ people. During this time thousands of Indians, including
Gandhi, were flogged or jailed, and many were shot for striking or burning their registration cards.



Eventually the government was forced to seek a compromise with Gandhi, and when he left South Africa, conditions for Indian people had greatly improved.



He spun his own yarn and made his own cloth. He encouraged others to do the same, instead of buying imported British material.

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

At this time Indian villagers were poorly paid, and many were dying of famine. In 1918
Gandhi began a campaign to get them to stand up for themselves against the British who were ruling India.



It was at this time that Gandhi became known as Mahatma, which means ‘Great Soul’.



The British became worried about keeping control. Soldiers were ordered to prevent people from gathering together for meetings.



Nevertheless, in 1919 ten thousand unarmed people attended a protest meeting in
Amritsar. Without warning, British soldiers fired on the crowd, killing nearly 400 people, and wounding over one thousand. People were very shocked by this atrocity, and many more joined Gandhi’s campaign.



Meanwhile the British rulers continued to collect heavy taxes from the people, which kept them in poverty.



In 1930 Gandhi led a 248 mile march to the sea, as a protest against a tax on salt.
Thousands joined him in making salt of their own. Over 60,000 people were arrested.



However, the British government was forced to negotiate with Gandhi, and they agreed to release political prisoners if he stopped his campaign of non-co-operation.



In 1933 Gandhi went on a fast for 21 days to draw attention to the treatment of the very poorest people in India, who he called ‘The Children of God’.



By 1947 Gandhi’s campaign had weakened the British government’s hold on the country, but with independence looming, killings and riots raged between Hindus and
Muslims who hoped to take control of the new Indian government.

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

During the Second World War, Gandhi and his followers made it clear that they wouldn’t support Britain unless India was granted independence. In 1942 Gandhi was arrested by the British, and imprisoned for two years.



It was decided to divide India into two separate countries - India and Pakistan. Gandhi was strongly opposed to this idea, but was forced to agree because of the threat of civil war. 

The violence continued. Gandhi 's appeals for calm were ignored, so he began another fast. Only when the Hindu, Sikh and Muslim leaders promised to renounce violence did he agree to take a sip of orange juice.



A few days later, on January 30th 1948 Gandhi was shot by a Hindu fanatic on his way to a prayer meeting in Delhi.



His ashes were dipped in all the major rivers of the world before being enshrined in the
Mahatma Gandhi World Peace Memorial.



In India Gandhi is often called ‘The Father of the Nation.’ Gandhi’s birthday, October 2 nd, is a public holiday in India. (11)

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High Standers of Leadership
Mohandas Gandhi was born in Oct 2, 1869 into a family of royalty. His father was the Prime
Minister of a state in India and he was the son of this father’s 4th wife.
From young, he was reading a lot of Hindu Scriptures and Indian Classics and this gave him a foundation for his work in his later years.
At a young age of 13, he was married to his wife of age 14, due to the customs of the region at that time. They would have a miscarriage, and go on to have four sons. (7)
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi has been a political, spiritual and ideological leader of India.
Primarily Gandhi was not only a political but ethical leader; His main principles were the belief in truth, non-violence and Swarej, which means individual as well as political self-policing.

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Gandhi is very well known for his role as the leader of the Indian Independence Movement and became Mahatma, the Great Soul of India. Gandhi encouraged the people of India to free their own state and defeat the British with their own weapons.
What made him famous is his non-violence, non-cooperative approach he believed in. (cf.
McMahon. p.18)
Gandhi studied law in London and returned to India to practice his studies afterwards. Two years later he went to South Africa to do legal work and stayed there for 21 years.
At that time South Africa was still controlled and owned by the British and an Indian minority was living there.
While Gandhi was In South Africa he faced direct discrimination against the Indians. He was thrown out of the train when he refused to move to 3Fd class even though he bought a 1 class ticket (cf. Nojeim, p.73).
These happenings were the turning point in Gandhi’s life. While he protested against the British government he developed a new way of resistance. The basic principle of this form of resistance was non-violence and civil disobedience. Gandhi believed that behavior is more important than achievement.
The biggest achievement in his career during the Independence Movement was the Salt March which finally led to the British government to release India. In India it was forbidden to sell or harvest salt, by marching more than 300km to the sea and just doing that, Gandhi set a symbolic sign and ridiculed the British.

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After the Independence of India Gandhi continued his work, He spoke up for a united India where everyone would be recognized.
Critics claim the limitation of his support to Indian people only. Some people even found
Gandhi a racist because he refused black people.
He was nominated for the Peace Nobel Price five times and got killed the year he was supposed to receive it. (4)
Mahatma Gandhi’s mission was to win freedom for India from British rule through nonviolence, and also to create a more just and exploitation-free social order.
Gandhi derived his sense of self-worth - his sense of happiness, fulfillment and meaning - by dedicating his life to a greater purpose that was in sync with his core values and beliefs.
Throughout his life, Gandhi faced many setbacks, both personal and professional. He suffered from bouts of doubt, and there were times when he was tempted to give up the struggle. But he knew he had to soldier on - not for himself, but for the sake of the poor and hungry millions in India who were suffering under the weight of the unjust British rule, the caste system and an exploitative economic structure. In Gandhi, the poor and downtrodden saw hope, and he knew that. It was this strong sense of calling and belief that became one of his greatest sources of stability.
It helped him hold steady and stay on course amidst the roughest seas, and ride out the fiercest storms. Throughout the epic Indian freedom struggle, great setbacks appeared, and many seemingly insurmountable hurdles turned up. But it was this greater purpose that carried him through adversity and the moments of doubt. (5)
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Gandhi conceived of his own life as a series of experiments to forge the use of satyagraha in such a manner as to make the oppressor and the oppressed alike recognize their common bonding and humanity: as he recognized, freedom is only freedom when it is indivisible. In his book Satyagraha in South Africa he was to detail the struggles of the Indians to claim their rights, and their resistance to oppressive legislation and executive measures, such as the imposition of a poll tax on them, or the declaration by the government that all non-Christian marriages were to be construed as invalid. In 1909, on a trip back to India, Gandhi authored a short treatise entitled Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule, where he all but initiated the critique, not only of industrial civilization, but of modernity in all its aspects. (8)

Gandhi’s Top 10 Fundamentals for Changing the World
1. Change yourself.
“You must be the change you want to see in the world.”
“As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world – that is the myth of the atomic age – as in being able to remake ourselves.”

2. You are in control.
“Nobody can hurt me without my permission.”
What you feel and how you react to something is always up to you. There may be a “normal” or a common way to react to different things. But that’s mostly just all it is.

3. Forgive and let it go.
“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”
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“An eye for eye only ends up making the whole world blind.”

4. Without action you aren’t going anywhere.
“An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching.”

5. Take care of this moment.
“I do not want to foresee the future. I am concerned with taking care of the present. God has given me no control over the moment following.”

6. Everyone is human.
“I claim to be a simple individual liable to err like any other fellow mortal. I own, however, that
I have humility enough to confess my errors and to retrace my steps.”
“It is unwise to be too sure of one’s own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.”

7. Persist.
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”

8. See the good in people and help them.
“I look only to the good qualities of men. Not being faultless myself, I won’t presume to probe into the faults of others.”
“Man becomes great exactly in the degree in which he works for the welfare of his fellow-men.”
“I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles; but today it means getting along with people.”

9. Be congruent, be authentic, be your true self.
“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.”
“Always aim at complete harmony of thought and word and deed. Always aim at purifying your thoughts and everything will be well.”

10. Continue to grow and evolve.
”Constant development is the law of life, and a man who always tries to maintain his dogmas in order to appear consistent drives himself into a false position.” (9)

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The Servant Leadership Behavior Scale
Model
Sendjaya et al., (2008) identified more than 20 themes pertinent to servant leadership by extensive review of the literature and categorized them into six different dimensions of servant leadership behavior. They called it the Servant Leadership Behavior Scale (SLBS), which consisted of six dimensions, namely Voluntary Subordination, Authentic Self, Covenantal
Relationship, Responsible Morality, Transcendental Spirituality, and Transforming Influence.
Gandhi’s ideals and characteristics depict clearly that he practiced servant leadership throughout his life in South Africa and India. (12)

Leadership Lessons learned from Gandhi
1. Innovation
According to Steve Jobs, “Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.” Nonviolence was a great innovation that was innovated by Gandhi. Before this no other battle was won or no other country had got freedom, even nobody had thought of winning any battle with non-violence. But it was Gandhi who had applied non-violence successfully and not only helped
India to get freedom but he is regarded as a father of nation.

2. Leading by example
Gandhi said, “My life is my message”. That short message is enough for understanding the term leading by example. In this regard Gandhi had given us world’s greatest quote and I think

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only leader like Gandhi can only give this greatest quote because his life was a message. “Be the change you want to see in the world.

3. Simplicity
I think Gandhi was one of greatest simple leader in the history. His life, his messages, his lessons, his books, his quotes and even all the things related with Gandhi are simple. His simple living and high thinking was a great example of simplicity. Simplicity is a great virtue of great leaders. 4. Truth
Gandhi had done lot of experiments with truth. These experiments tell us a lot about Gandhi.

5. Continuous Learning
Gandhi was a great learner and he believed in continuous learning. Continuous learning is the key of continuous changing.

6. Sacrifice
Gandhi had done a lot sacrifice not only for getting freedom but after freedom when he had denied taking any great position in Indian politics or Indian Government. He could be a president or prime minister.

7. Energy

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Although Gandhi had done lot of fasts but still he was considered a great energetic leader. His energy was a great inspiration.

8. Vision
Gandhi was a great visionary leader and with his vision India got freedom with non-violence.

9. Importance to Customer
Gandhi rightly point out the importance of customer. "A customer is the most important member to our premises." Mahatma Ghandi. Today we say that customer is king but Gandhi had given this quote a lot of years ago. That was his vision. (10)

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Conclusion
A charismatic leader is a leader that makes you believe in his ideas (makes them appealing), and not just accept them, exactly like a transformational leader. He really wants the subordinates’ commitment to the company’s goals and to the leader himself. To gain employees’ approval of himself, the charismatic leader will prove to be good at handling crowds of people, at analyzing their mood and consequently at talking to them. He will not rely on his power as a superior or the authority it gives him, and will take personal risks, which will grant him the trust of the people he works with. On the other hand, a transformational leader, who could well be charismatic, has the objective of transforming the whole company: thing that only a charismatic leader with good intentions would want to do. As the charismatic leader has everyone’s trust, it can be very dangerous for the organization if his priorities are not properly set and/or if they have a too high opinion of themselves and their capacities. In some cases, a leader can be so charismatic that subordinates would believe anything he says, even when it’s not the best for the company: and this is the main difference between charismatic end transformational leadership (6)
When analyzing Gandhi’s leadership skills, the focus will be on ethical, servant and spiritual leadership. Both are normative theories of an ideal to be accomplished. They focus on the relationship among people, thus on the leader and its followers. The values catered by both theories include “honesty, altruism, kindness compassion, empathy, fairness, gratitude, humidity, courage, optimism and resilience

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Gandhi never saw himself as a powerful leader. He was convinced people would follow his beliefs if they had a reason to do so. He considered himself an eye-opener and thus would never force his opinion upon people, but waited until they were ready to see it themselves. (4)

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References
(1) “Charismatic Leadership” By Gabloov, Feb 2013
(2) “Consequence of charismatic leadership” By Kbcjong, Aug 2012
(3) “A Higher Standard of Leadership: Lessons from the Life of Gandhi”, By Keshavan Nair, 1994
(4) “Leadership Theories - Gandhi as Leader”, By Anna Lena Bischoff, 2010
(5) “Gandhi On Personal Leadership” By Anand Kumarasamy, 2006
(6) “Charismatic Leadership & the New Leadership Approach” By Amelel, Dec 2011
(7) “Mohandas Gandhi Leadership Case Study”, http://www.leadership-with-you.com/gandhileadership.html
(8) “History and Politics, Mahatma Gandhi”, http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/southasia/History/Gandhi/gandhi2.html, Vinay Lal, 2001, 2012
(9) “Gandhi’s Top 10 Fundamentals for Changing the World” By Henrik Edberg, 2008
(10) “Gandhi and leadership Lessons” By Lalit Bhojwani, January 31, 2012 http://expertscolumn.com/content/gandhi-and-leadership-lessons (11) “The life of Gandi” By Amel Begic, Capuchin High School, Mar 2010
(12) “MAHATMA GANDHI – AN INDIAN MODEL OF SERVANT LEADERSHIP” Annette Barnabas
M.A.M. College of Engineering, Tiruchirappalli and India Paul Sundararajan Clifford M.A.M. B.
School, Triruchirappalli, India, 2012

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References: (3) “A Higher Standard of Leadership: Lessons from the Life of Gandhi”, By Keshavan Nair, 1994 (4) “Leadership Theories - Gandhi as Leader”, By Anna Lena Bischoff, 2010 (5) “Gandhi On Personal Leadership” By Anand Kumarasamy, 2006 (6) “Charismatic Leadership & the New Leadership Approach” By Amelel, Dec 2011 http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/southasia/History/Gandhi/gandhi2.html, Vinay Lal, 2001, 2012 (9) “Gandhi’s Top 10 Fundamentals for Changing the World” By Henrik Edberg, 2008 (10) “Gandhi and leadership Lessons” By Lalit Bhojwani, January 31, 2012 http://expertscolumn.com/content/gandhi-and-leadership-lessons School, Triruchirappalli, India, 2012 19