namahatta.org - Congregational Development Ministry

My thought this morning:

Preachers should be compassionate. Administrators should be just.

When mercy replaces justice in a land, the people are left unprotected by the rule of law.

One of the great things about our modern political systems is that they are based on the idea that everyone should be protected by the rule of impartial law. There are no favorites, no elites who can act with impunity.

Our Bhaktivinode Thakur Sankirtan Festival begins today with a harinam procession in downtown Palo Alto. Here is an excerpt from an email Vaisesika Prabhu sent out to inspire everyone for the upcoming festivities.

It is a really amazing glimpse into the heart of a vaishnava; I am very grateful to be connected to such a wonderful personality.

As His Holiness Bhakti Vidya Purna Maharaja put it so succinctly: "When men are men, women are women."

That's a simple yet powerful statement with profound implications in terms of both ideal and strategy for implementation.

A lot of problems come when unqualified men demand that roles be respected when qualification is not present. This is the same dynamic that lead the people to reject the varnas at the time of Buddha. Similarly people have rejected traditional gender roles.

Just as both Buddha and Sankara demonstrated at their relative points in the course of social development, we need intelligent readjustment. We have to keep the goal in sight like the pole star ("normative view" in the language of Krishna-kirti prabhu), and work our way back onto the "royal road" of varnasrama (as Srila Prabhupada describes it Bhagavad-gita—the safer path).

by Devaki dd

The highlight of my visit to Mayapur this year was Anuttama Prabhu's seminar on leadership and management—an extremely valuable course, which teaches so many important skills and principles of effective leadership and management.

Taking this course confirmed my realization that there is another reason why we have lost so many devotees worldwide over the past years besides the fact that we have failed to create a supportive spiritual culture which would give nourishment and shelter to each and every devotee joining this movement. We have also failed to educate and train our leaders systematically and equip them with the necessary skills in order to become true servant-leaders, who lead with affection and detachment. Rather we have so often allowed that dangerous weed to grow and flourish: the attachment to power, position and facilities...

Preaching and Leadership, at their essence, are the same thing. It's influencing others to change their actions and align them with a mission. A preacher is a natural leader.

The old way of preaching and leading is basically to bully and coerce people into doing something. You know, it's essentially standing on a street corner and yelling at people that they must "turn or burn."

Unfortunately, this style of leadership and preaching is not very effective. It might make the preacher or leader feel good, feel that they are doing something, but it won't have much of an impact in making positive change. Generally what happens to a person who takes this approach is that their circle of influence shrinks, and they end up becoming more and more bitter.

by Akrura das

You can learn from the past--but don’t get stuck in it. Don’t cling to it, don’t dwell on it, and don’t grieve over it. For example, the old way of leadership of command and control doesn’t work anymore. Both in spiritual and material organizations you experience the same. You can’t lead people as you used to. There has to be a new style, a new type of leadership. I think that right now our leaders are staggering between the old and the new style.

I had a good experience of what I call the new style of leadership in ISKCON. I had a conversation with our GBC secretary about an important question. During the conversation he took notes. When I finished he said:  ”Let me see if I understood everything correctly.” He read his notes for me. He asked a couple of questions to be sure that he had understood everything correctly. You can imagine how I felt. I felt completely understood and very inspired over the fact that this leader was interested in what I had to say. I spoke 95 percent of the time.

Here is an insightful article from www.iskconconstitution.com, a website established by Sita-pati Prabhu as a community forum to share and discuss information about ISKCON's constitution, which is being developed by a committee established by the GBC.

In my opinion, both the article by Rob Edwards and Sita-pati's comment very nicely describe one of the main problems we have to deal with before ISKCON can aspire to lead the whole world into Lord Caitanya's Golden Age.

Not only new devotees require support and counseling, but also and especially those in leadership positions.

There is a useful saying: "Never ascribe to malice what can be explained by incompetence".

Napoleon Bonaparte is often credited with coining this phrase.

I've found it useful, and I try to live my life by it. I believe in giving people the benefit of the doubt.

Over the past couple of years, however, I come to some further realizations. I'm going to work on a series of articles laying them out this year.

by Jaya Krsna das

Photo © www.trilokaphotos.com

Content: History; current education in Europe; the strategy of the Ministry of Educational Development; the GBC Succession Committee on leadership training

Leaders from European Yatras met at Prabhupadadesh, Italy, from 10-13 September 2007. Several presentations and papers have been published by Dina Dayala Prabhu at the Euro-GBC web site in different file-formats (.ppt, .doc, .pdf). I'm publishing some of these documents here as Flash- and HTML-documents, which I find more convenient to use on the internet.

Content:

• Kripamoya Prabhu: Explanation of and Introduction to Social Development (Adobe Flash)
• Jaya Krsna Prabhu: Update on Education in ISKCON (Adobe Flash)
• Centro Studi Bhaktivedanta (HTML)
• "The Educational Needs of My Yatra" (HTML)

by Kripamoya das (ACBSP)

Photo © www.trilokaphotos.com

Kripamoya Prabhu's "Explanation and Introduction to Social Development," presented before the European Leaders' Meeting that took place in Prabhupadadesh, Italy, from 10-13 September, 2007.

A fragment of a discussion between HH Bir Krihsna Maharaja, Kripamoya Prabhu, and Matsya Avatara Prabhu regarding the coming European Leaders' Meeting were published by Vaishnava Blog Feeds recently. The source of this information isn't mentioned and the discussion's context isn't clear, but these three senior preachers provide interesting glimpses into their vision for ISKCON's future development:

Kripamoya Prabhu: What could we do to keep more of our existing members happy and actively engaged?

Bir Krishna Swami: Change our managerial paradigm from domination based to empowerment based. Separate the spiritual leaders from the temporal managers.

Kripamoya Prabhu: How could ISKCON in Europe become widely known as a movement whose members are experts in the field of spiritual development?

Bir Krishna Swami: Change the structural paradigms of our movement.

I have a friend called Ekendra das. He is a person who lives in New South Wales, Australia, about an hour and a half from me. Here is a link to his blog. He has written a post that addresses some of the same points that my recent posts have, so I'm going to comment on his post. Here is a link to his post: Ācāryas – Why do they exist?.

I welcome the opportunity to engage in dialog on this subject, because, as Kaviraja Goswami tells us in his Sri Caitanya-caritamrita, one should not avoid controversial topics, for they strengthen the mind. They also allow robust discussion of a subject to reveal additional insights, or hidden flaws. Plus, Ekendra is a Texan, and he's into smackdown philosophy (I've got my white flag ready in case I need it). :-)

The existence of humorous parodies such as these indirectly indicate the existence of the real thing, that is genuine leadership. So understanding properly what is real and what is counterfeit is important, and requires careful discrimination. Blindly rejecting everything is equal to blindly accepting everything. It arises from a lack of discrimination.

One of the most popular Google searches that brings readers to this site is “hedgehog concept”. This is a term made popular by Jim Collins in his book “Good to Great”. This book, which I’ve reviewed on this site previously, examines an elite group of companies that have in their history transitioned from “nothing special” to outstanding performers in their field and have sustained this level of performance for more than 15 years after the transition.

The Hedgehog concept (read a detailed explanation here) refers to a discipline or behaviour that all the so-called “Good to Great” companies exhibit. It is so-named from a parable that demonstrates the principle:

By Sita-pati das, published 21 December 2005 on www.sitapati.info, at this location.

In an article entitled: “Level 5 Leadership: The Triumph of Humility and Fierce Resolve” Jim Collins summarizes some of the findings of his study published in Good to Great, specifically relating to the kind of leadership character found in the most highly successful organizations in the US. You can read a summary of that article here, courtesy of the US Coast Guard.

The greatest leaders combine the paradoxical personal qualities of extreme personal humility and an iron professional will. This is in stark contrast to the currently popular notion of the strong leader as the boastful, outwardly aggressive personality. Famous captains of industry such as Lee Iacocca (Chrysler) and Jack Welch (GE) fall into the category of Level 4 leaders - good, but not great. The difference is in the legacy that they leave. A great leader is not defined by what happens when they are around, but what by what happens after they leave. A good leader creates excellence. A great leader creates a culture of excellence.