Man Ni Tarango (The Waves of Mind)

I always keep telling my students, literally again and again, that though a lot of good quality research is going on in almost all the areas of Organizational Behaviour, probably a lot of work has been done in two areas more than any other areas: leadership and motivation. One area, that really interests me, has been the so-called, "Authentic Leadership". Luthans and Avolio (2003) defined authentic leadership as "a process that draws from both positive psychological capacities and a highly developed organizational context, which results in both greater self-awareness and self-regulated positive behaviors on the part of leaders and associates, fostering positive self-development" (Source: http://www.le.ac.uk/oerresources/psychology/organising/page_16.htm). Authentic leaders do not "pretend" anything, they say. They display their "real" self to the others and do not behave differently in public and private lives. They maintai...

Recently, I read an article ( http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/jobs/over-50-candidates-fumble-during-interviews-report/articleshow/51698670.cms ), which noted how many of the interviewees fail to crack the interviews. Though that article was based on a survey, and my article and that one has no direct connection, it did prompt me to write about the other side of the story. See, they say that cracking a job interview is an art. And a lot has been written (and should be written) about how to crack a job interview. But, probably, enough attention seems not to have been paid to on how to conduct an interview. Once again, based on my personal experience, I would like to point out a few errors that interviewers may be making. Of course, those, who conduct interviews are in that position purely due to their merit and experience and this article, by no means, implies even fractionally that those who conduct interviews are not qualified or intentionally indulge in the ...

Recently, one famous journalist, Barkha Dutt, took on another very famous jouranlist, Arnab Goswami. While Goswami referred to Barkha Dutt as, "“pseudo-secular and pro-Pakistan”",  she shot back calling him, "“cowardly hypocrite". While the spat like these may go on between such top level journalists, it brings us to the question -- what is the duty of media in a country like India and where does it need to draw the line? The stand of NDTV seems to be, at least on paper, that a media house has to be extremely neutral in its reporting. One of their reporters had cited the example of BBC to support this view of theirs. BBC, a top English news channel in UK, calls the British Army as "The British Army" whenever UK is involved in any war. It refrains from using the words like, "Our Armed Forces or Our Army", indicating the neutral stand they maintain. The implication of such philosophy is that a news channel has to be extremely honest in reporti...

The Merriam Webster dictionary defines religion as, "an organized system of beliefs, ceremonies, and rules used to worship a god or a group of gods" and "the belief in a god or in a group of gods". This clearly entails that the whole idea of religion depends on the existence of God(s). No God - No Religion. Second inference of these definitions is that one must "believe" in the idea of "God" for religions to exist. Believing in God gives one purpose, solace and peace. There is nothing wrong in believing in God as long as it keeps the stress away and helps one achieve higher purpose in life. Oh My God! Then, where is the problem? If it were so simple (i.e. believing in God and attaining the peace / ultimate goal), the earth would have been a great place to live! With so many great religions around, almost all seven billion people on this earth would have found at least one religion which gives them peace; which helps them find meanin...

A lot has been written about Stress Management. So, without beating around the bush, let me share a few tips, which can easily allow you to manage stress easily! 1. Live in the Moment: I am writing this blog right now -- that's it! -- My 100% attention on the blog means I can write it as effectively as possible -- without bothering about what happened an hour back or what will happen after an hour. When you focus on "NOW AND HERE", it has two benefits: better concentration and more effectiveness. 2. Do not "Run Away": Prof D M Pestonji, the most renowned expert of Stress Management in India, writes in his famous book: Stress and Coping: The Indian Experience, that there are two possible reactions when one faces stress: fight or flight. Deciding to face a problem and trying to solve it is a fight response. Running away from the problem, or taking a vacation to avoid attending a difficult meeting is a flight response. While the flight response ...

Why do people join the group?! Of course, there are many possible answers. But the one, that is most relevant to us contextually is, that it is impossible to survive without being a part of group--be it in personal life or be it in professional life. Group Discussion - one of the methods of selection for job - is widely used now a days by many employers. The primary reason for testing a candidate by this method is to know if he / she is capable enough to communicate across her ideas in a group. Because as a part of any professional job, one is required to communicate in meetings, presentations and so on. So, it is not enough to be able to communicate effective and successfully in a one to one dialogue (e.g. in interviews), one must be able to communicate well in a group too. Cracking the group interview is generally very tricky, because of its inherent structure - a lot of people are vying for attention at the same time. Let us look at some the "tips" that ca...

"There is no free lunch!"- and FB is offering it--sometimes calling internet.org and sometimes "Free Basics". This so called "Free Basics" is a direct threat to the concept of "Net Neutrality". Here is why: 1. It is a threat to entrepreneurs: When the services, say for example, like WhatsApp, are offered free under this scheme. This will initially please the users for being free, but in long run, this will create a monopoly of WhatsApp as users will not use any competing messenger because they will have to pay data bill to use any other messenger. Thus, any young entrepreneur, who wants to launch a competing messenger will find it very difficult to launch it as no surfer will be ready to try this product for which they will have to pay the data bill. 2. It is a threat to privacy: When one will access the any service under "Free Basics", one will have to visit access the server / website of that service through the p...