Vishal Gupta – författare

Can leadership lessons be learnt from the Mahabharata? Demystifying Leadership positively asserts that we can and probes inquiry in the lives of six characters-Bhishma, Ashvatthama, Karna, Shakuni, Kunti and Krishna. It studies these characters in inescapable situations as they navigate through life by demonstrating values, decision-making ability, integrity and principles. Within the given constraints, some of these characters swim and rise, while others sink in moral turpitude. Extrapolating these successful and not-so-successful character traits to corporate leaders and linking them to scholarship, the authors provide lessons for leaders and managers operating in diverse situations.Borrowing from different disciplines, such as literature, philosophy, politics and psychology, Demystifying Leadership proposes to link essentials of leadership in the form of a Leadership Triangle comprising six levels: positive personality, peace with personal identity, purpose, positive use of power and politics, paradoxical leadership and principled pragmatism. It takes a grounded approach in amalgamating mythology and leadership through scholarship and practice.

How do you lead, motivate and inspire individuals who are as knowledgeable as you are?How do you lead individuals who are knowledge creators (innovators, scientists, academicians, entrepreneurs, etc.) and whose core task is to create something new?While we live in a world that is becoming increasingly automated, humans will continue to dominate one significant kind of work-knowledge work. Knowledge workers can be found in professions like education, consulting, engineering, architecture, design, art and R&D. First among Equals describes the ''T-R-E-A-T'' framework of leadership that is a combination of five behavioural traits-task-orientation, relation-orientation, empowering, authenticity and team-building. By presenting real-life examples of leaders from India, the book describes how the ''T-R-E-A-T'' leadership affects the ''L-E-A-P'' (learning, enjoyment, autonomy and performance) of knowledge workers and impacts their perceptions of fairness, creating positive psychological capacities and generating autonomous motivation. Leaders of knowledge workers have to consider themselves as ''first among equals'' in order to be effective in a knowledge work context.