Leadership Lessons from Dhritarashtra

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Introduction

Before we delve into leadership lessons that we can learn from Dhritarashtra, the mighty king of Hastinapura from the Mahabharata times, let us spend some time knowing who he actually was. He was born to Ambika and Vyasa. He ought to have power of hundred thousand elephants. He was blind by birth. He was father of a hundred children by his wife Gandhari. These sons came to known as the Kauravas. (jatland.com, 2014)

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(topyaps.com, 2015)

Leadership Lessons

However the life of Dhritarashtra was and however the turn of events was, there are surely a few lessons that can be learnt from his life. Perhaps, the greatest contribution of Dhritarashtra could be what should a leader avoid. How a leader should take decisions that may impact his/her future. In the Mahabharata, it is evident that Dhritarashtra had an option of stopping or avoiding the war. He could have stopped his hundred sons and numerous title holders from dying. He could have been more resolute in stopping Duryodhana, his eldest son from going to the war. He had powers of thousand elephants and yet he could not stop any of those from happening. A powerful king or a leader should not get his emotions in way of decision making, which could be selecting an option that is for the greater good.

Veda Vyasa went to Ambika to grant her a son after the death of her husband. When Vyasa visited Ambika, she saw his dreadful and forbidding appearance with burning eyes. In her frightened state, she closed her eyes and dared not open them. Hence her son, Dhritarashtra, was born blind. (wikipedia.org) Though he was elder than Pandu, people often questioned his right to inherit the throne. If I look back to my Organizational Behaviour 1 course, I can comment that in terms of psychology, Dhritarashtra suffered from low self esteem, which actually stemmed from continuous comments that people made around him. It could be seen when he refused the crown initially. Also at the time of his marriage he was shocked that someone was ready to marry a blind man.

Dhritarashtra could not take decisions at critical moments that lead to the greatest of great disasters in Indian mythology. His attitude offers great lessons to young minds/managers who are going to be the future leaders; who have the power in their hands and resources to work for the development of self, the organization and the society. Their inability to make decisions might lead to the downfall of the organization. He was in blind love with his son Duryodhana, which eventually caused death of all his sons. This also offers lessons to the leaders who become blinded by the short term benefits, who are either blinded by greed or by power and hence fail to realize the entire context. Leaders often tend to promote the subordinates whom they like the most without actually considering merits etc. These kings of decisions do more harm to the organization in the longer run. When the turn of such subordinates come to strategize and make decisions for the organization, they fail and such decisions turns out to be disastrous for the organization.