4 out of 4 stars
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Trust and confidence in leaders and leadership is at an all-time low. Garauv Bhalla tackles the need for leadership reform and how it can be achieved in his nonfiction narrative, Awakening a Leader’s Soul: Learning Through Immortal Poems. Bhalla calls all leaders, traditional and nontraditional, to emulate the good Samaritan and “stop and help” their organizations, communities and planet by employing the methodology behind what he calls “soulful leadership." Soulful leadership is a human-centric form of leadership in which the leader benefits “the greater good” by becoming in touch with themselves, and ultimately, their own humanity.
??Soulful leadership focuses on two systems which combine to create this holistic form of leadership: the one within the leader and the one between the leader and their organization, community and planet. In order to fully understand the latter, a leader must fully understand the former. The world of a leader is full of difficult choices that require sacrifices. How does a leader decide what to sacrifice? How does a leader decide if the risk is worth it? The leader must look within themselves to find the answer; but first, they must truly know themselves due to learning from various “teachers,” such as poetry. If one is fully self-aware and centered, then the tumultuous, ever-changing circumstances of the real world will be easier to handle when it comes to making a decision.
??The first section of the book covers the details of soulful leadership, how it can be acquired, and examines its necessity to create the trustworthy, strong and humane leaders that the world so desperately needs. The following section deals with “The Leader’s World”: who they are, what they think, how they act and how the exploration of these lead to a self-awareness that results in soulful leadership. The topics covered include things such as keeping the ego in check by walking away from the “I am the universe” mentality, treating failure as a genuine opportunity for learning, and the dangers of the insatiable need for “more." ??
The section that follows is called “Beyond the Leader’s World” which discusses the “orbits” of the leader: employees and customers, communities, and the planet. Each section focuses on how a soulful leader can impact all of these orbits positively — ideally in ways that are positive to all parties involved. Overall, this defines the duties of a leader to each orbit. ??
Bhalla gives detailed instructions at the end of each essay on how one can implement these ideologies in their leadership roles by giving them probing questions to think about, discussion topics to brainstorm with others, and ideas about how they can turn these ideas into action. While this is exceptionally helpful, I found the poetry to be the most unique and beautiful aspect of this book.
Bhalla believes that we must all search for new teachers if we are to grow and know ourselves, and the immortal poets are exemplary teachers. To better exemplify his point, he uses a line from “Ars Poetica" by Czeslaw Milosz: “In the very essence of poetry there is something indecent: / a thing is brought forth which we didn’t know we had in us.” The essays begin with an excerpt from a literary work, ranging from T.S. Eliot to The Lorax to Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream,” and Bhalla weaves his essay around the poem’s message, while peppering it with excerpts from other works. This juxtaposition of data and facts with the arts exemplifies the idea that we all must work as a whole: the left side of the brain needs to be exercised just as much as the right.
??I have absolutely no experience with the business world and was worried that I might not understand some of the complex ideas examined in this book in their full entirety. However, Bhalla uses simplistic language and explains things in a way that is neither lofty nor condescending. He always makes sure to include real-life examples that illustrate his points. I appreciated that he usually included at least a couple examples with different outcomes in order to show that there’s no “right answer” but only your right answer.??
As the essays all build on one another in order to show the holistic system, they got a bit repetitive at times; honing in on points that had already been established in previous sections. Sometimes, the inclusion of so many examples were a bit draining; they weren’t quite different enough to really add something substantial to the narrative, but merely reiterated the same points as previous examples.??
Despite this, the message of this book is too important and well-researched to not give it 4 out of 4 stars. It’s well-written and I didn’t find any errors. Most importantly, it begs all of us to get in touch with our humanity so we can be better leaders - whether we are leaders of an organization or less traditional leaders such as parents or nurses. I recommend this book to anyone who has a love for self-knowledge, poetry and an interest in leadership. Really though, this book is not just about leadership; it’s about exploring oneself, the importance of always learning through various teachers, and that our actions will always impact those around us. I think anyone could benefit from reading this.
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Awakening A Leader's Soul: Learnings Through Immortal Poems
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