Managing Thyself to be a Productive Manager: Insights from Bhagavad Gita

DOI: 10.34047/JAMAR.2020.v02i01.003

Abstract

Bhagavad Gita; the divine song of the God, is not only a spiritual text, but also a guide book to develop productive managers and people at work in the modern dynamic environment. To be a productive manager one should manage thyself first, which is considered the foundation stone of any people management practice. It is observed that the practitioners are fed-up with the western views and practices discussed in the extant literature. On the other hand, eastern philosophy of managing thyself is little focused in western literature, but gaining an increasing attention today. Hence, bridging the lacuna in the domain, the current study attempts to review and report the insights manifested among the teachings of God Krishna, in Bhagavad Gita, to be applied in managing thyself to be a productive manager. Anarrative literature review of Bhagavad Gita, and key research articles on the same known to the authors was conducted. It is found in Bhagavad Gita that, managing thyself starts from mental peace and internal consistency. For that, one should free from the feelings of greed, envy, egotism, suspicion and anguish. Moreover, the ability to create and follow a realistic vision for the life, and perceive the holistic view of the things better manage
thyself with the proper understanding of the causes and consequences of the practices in management ultimately. In view of the above, this article recommends practicing mangers to incorporate the insights revealed in Bhagavad Gita in designing and delivering employee training & development programs, mentoring programs, performance coaching, employee counselling and grievance handling..