No less a magazine than the Economist described Mother Teresa and Lady Gaga as icons of the ‘leadership industry’. While I agree that both have thousands of fans, what threw me was the attempt to compare the two. Is nothing sacred? I asked myself. Then again, I didn’t want to start off feeling biased.
The Economist is not alone. TIME’s 100 most influential people in 2010 also featured Lady Gaga. In case you were wondering as to who has the most influence on Lady Gaga, it is Deepak Chopra!
Many an academic dons his deerstalker, grabs a pipe and a magnifying glass and decides to burrow into the lives of famous people who have a huge following. They search for those elusive elements that seemed to have come together uniquely in that person.They try to make sense of their findings , analyze them , may be run them through some arcane modeling and arrive at their ‘revelations’. This would then be packaged in a suitably important sounding expression and then launched at an unsuspecting world as the hot new Mantra.
Lady Gaga has the Antwerp Management School and the European School of Management hard at her heels. India is not far behind. One of our worthy management institutes is planning to map Dhoni’s brain activity to unravel the secret of his leadership and management skills. Good luck is all I have to say. (Of course this activity was planned before the tour of England.)
In management, one is always looking for the holy grail. The more outlandish the hunting ground, the better it gets. Chefs, sports coaches, reformed charlatans have all had their day. Am sure there’ll be many a book eulogizing Bin Laden’s leadership style. Who’s next?
Any guesses as to how many authors have Anna Hazare in their sights?
(Mohan Menon)
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Many an academic dons his deerstalker, grabs a pipe and a magnifying glass and decides to burrow into the lives of famous people who have a huge following. They search for those elusive elements that seemed to have come together uniquely in that person.They try to make sense of their findings , analyze them , may be run them through some arcane modeling and arrive at their ‘revelations’. This would then be packaged in a suitably important sounding expression and then launched at an unsuspecting world as the hot new Mantra.
Lady Gaga has the Antwerp Management School and the European School of Management hard at her heels. India is not far behind. One of our worthy management institutes is planning to map Dhoni’s brain activity to unravel the secret of his leadership and management skills. Good luck is all I have to say. (Of course this activity was planned before the tour of England.)
In management, one is always looking for the holy grail. The more outlandish the hunting ground, the better it gets. Chefs, sports coaches, reformed charlatans have all had their day. Am sure there’ll be many a book eulogizing Bin Laden’s leadership style. Who’s next?
Any guesses as to how many authors have Anna Hazare in their sights?
(Mohan Menon)
Share this:
