Mysore/Mysuru: The book titled ‘Leadership Lessons For Daily Living (LLDL),’ authored by Dr. R. Balasubramaniam, Founder of Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement (SVYM), was launched at a virtual event recently in the presence of distinguished guests. Grassroots Research and Advocacy Movement (GRAAM), Mysuru, is joined by India Leaders for Social Sector (ILSS) in co-publishing this book.

Well-known academicians, social sector leaders, writers and development practitioners attended the book release ceremony in the virtual platform. 

The virtual programme started with a panel discussion on ‘Democratising Leadership’ with the eminent panellist Pramath Raj Sinha, Founder and Chairman, Harappa Education, Founder and Trustee, Ashoka University and Dr. R.S. Praveen Kumar, IPS, Secretary, Telangana Social Welfare Residential Educational Institutions Society.

The panel discussion was moderated by Anu Prasad, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of ILSS. 

The discussion started with ‘leadership based on their experiences and in this unequal society how we can make leadership gender inclusive.’ 

Speaking from his experience, Pramath Raj Sinha mentioned that in general language, leadership has been always related to the concept of politics (neta) and power but for me it’s much wider than that and it is more about leading our inner selves rather than leading the people. 

Adding to the discussion, Dr. Praveen Kumar mentioned that for him leadership is about finding solutions to the wicked problems through collaborations and amalgamation of the purpose of life. To quote him, “For institutionalisation of leadership, first and foremost a leader must find the purpose of life and nurture his/her inner self”.

To make leadership gender-inclusive, Dr. Praveen Kumar emphasised that there is a dire need to first break the stereotypes associated with the women and he quoted the example of Poorva who made history by becoming the youngest girl in the world to climb the Mount Everest at the age of only 13 years with constant support from her mother. Pramath Raj believes that there are two reasons why the leadership space has not been gender-inclusive — firstly, from very young age the society has been disadvantaging the women and secondly, there are organisations who are not ready to bait on the leadership skills of the women.

After panel discussion, Dr. Basavaraju, Executive Director, GRAAM, introduced the celebrated author Dr. R. Balasubramaniam quoting his vast experiences in the social development sector and the ample time he has spent working with the indigenous communities of Karnataka. 

Dr. Basavaraju spoke about the book and said: “The book is rather a mirror that reflects what kind of leader one is and what one need to develop. It exposes the ‘illusionary traits’ sometime we feel that all leaders must possess and brings us to the reality. 

“The book beautifully takes us through the real-life situations of the author and the extraordinary people he has met. We get to know how one need to find a higher purpose in life, why can’t one be a crusader all the times,  rather one need to stay alive and continue the long battle with a coalition. It gives a lesson for not only leading a small community, also the large organisations. It gives an answer to the questions like What it requires to be a complete leader and how one can sustain his/ her leadership? How to lead selflessly and especially at the time of a crisis? More importantly, all these lessons the readers get is through those so called ordinary, but really extra-ordinary people that the author has met and interacted,” he added.

Speaking about his new book, Dr. Balasubramaniam emphasised that this book is not only about democratising leadership but more about celebrating the voices of the people from the grassroots. He said: “I began by realising that the prominent voices in the country were simply the ones that were loudest. That is why I turned to the grassroots for stories that came from extraordinary everyday leadership. We need to demystify leadership and bring out the remarkable potential in all of us. This book is about celebrating real people, and real lessons.”

For him leadership is more about the spiritual journey and understanding our incompetence and about understanding the voice poverty which has been missing from the mainstream society.