The Laws of Karma and the Rule Based Leadership

Leadership is always associated with individuals who are known as leaders. The leaders are also human beings who have feelings, liking and disliking. They have prejudices and pride just like any others. Hence most leaders tend to develop a coterie of followers around them who then shield them from the ordinary followers. The coterie soon filters all the followers from the leaders and soon become the de-facto leaders. It is they who decide the matter but the leader has to bear all responsibilities since the coterie always work in the name of the leaders. These leaders soon start losing their popularity and trust from the people and they are soon discarded by the followers. Often they do not get time to correct their mistakes since the bad news is always filtered by the coterie of sycophants.

It is difficult for most leaders to avoid the sycophants as everyone loves praise for himself and hate to hear his failings. The coterie fulfils this need of the leaders as they never tell them his failings and always exaggerate his achievements.

The leaders can avoid falling into this trap by developing rule based leadership. The idea of rule-based leadership is similar to the laws of karma enunciated in scriptures. All scriptures unequivocally state that everyone has to pay the price for his actions. Everyone reap what he sows. In Hinduism and Buddhism, these laws are called the laws of Karma which are responsible for the fate of every human being. The principles of Karma are considered to be so powerful that its effect continues even in the next life and the birth of the man in his next life is determined based on the accumulation of his past karma. God, who is the creator of the principles of karma, never interferes with the rules of karma.

A good leader never governs his followers by his individual preferences and prejudices. He awards and punishes the people based on some principles and rules which are well laid out to the followers. People must know that the leader shall be fair with all the followers. They must also know that if they follow the rules, they shall be rewarded and if they break those rules, they have to be punished.

While most people understand the rules of karma and follow laws in their lives, there are people who commit mistakes. While the laws of karma are rigid, people always want to avoid the punishments of doing their sins. Under these situations, only God, the maker of these rules of Karma, can help them. God can forgive even the biggest mistakes of their people if they realize their sin and promise not to do it in future. A sincere apology can wash millions of sins as God is all forgiving and loving.

Every great leader too must be loving and forgiving. However, this does not mean that the followers can take his mercy for granted. Leaders must be merciful only in exceptional cases when the followers genuinely realize his mistake and wishes to start a new life. They must sometime intervene in the laws of Karma and forgive the people if they have committed the mistakes innocently or they wish to reform.

The rule based leadership brings fairness and justice within the organisation. It builds trust between the leaders and the followers. It also connects the leaders with followers since the followers come to the leaders for justice. The leaders can always mend the rules, if they are found to be unfair and unjust. Gradually a set of rules are developed which are so good that they can themselves run the organisation and the role of leader is to only ensure the rule of law within the organisation.