Leaders Must Prioritize the Preservation of Positive Environments

The Fragility of Goodness: A Leader's Responsibility

In the complex tapestry of leadership, there exists a moral imperative that often goes unspoken. It is a duty that is not only about doing good oneself, but also about protecting the goodness that already exists in the people around us. This quiet yet demanding responsibility is a crucial aspect of leadership that is often overlooked in favor of more flashy attributes.

A leader who understands this will recognize that goodness in human beings is fragile. It can be worn down by repeated exposure to compromise, eroded by the slow drip of cynicism, and abandoned altogether when the cost of being good becomes too high to bear alone. This is not a phenomenon limited to individuals, but rather a collective issue that can afflict entire organizations.

The concept of moral leadership has been explored by various thinkers and philosophers throughout history. Vivekananda, the Indian philosopher and spiritual leader, offered a simple yet profound message when he urged his listeners to "be good and do good." This phrase, which has been quoted so often that it has lost some of its edge, carries within it the entire architecture of leadership as a moral vocation.

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To be good is the inner work, the steady tending of one's own character. To do good is the outer expression, the work one undertakes in the world. However, doing good cannot be confined to one's own actions alone. It must extend to protecting the good in others, because every act of moral courage that is left undefended weakens the climate in which goodness becomes possible for anyone.

The Bhagavad Gita, a sacred text from Hinduism, speaks directly on this question. Krishna draws a distinction between two dispositions that exist within human beings and within human collectives, the daivi sampad and the asuri sampad, the divine and the demonic endowments. The daivi qualities he enumerates are not the dramatic virtues of saints and renunciates, but rather the quiet, working qualities of fearlessness, purity of heart, steadfastness, absence of malice, gentleness, modesty, and the refusal to slander others.

These qualities are almost a description of what a healthy organization looks like when one walks through its corridors. However, institutional life often puts these qualities under steady pressure, testing fearlessness, purity of heart, and steadfastness every single day. A leader's responsibility is to ensure that the daivi qualities in the people around him do not slowly give way to the asuri ones.

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The leader's role is not to manufacture goodness in others, but to create the conditions in which the goodness that is already there can express itself without fear, without penalty, and without the corrosive feeling that one is the only fool in the room still trying to do the right thing.

In practice, this protection looks deceptively simple. It begins with the willingness to stand publicly with people when they do the right thing at personal cost, and acknowledging small acts of moral courage that go unnoticed in the rush of daily work. Above all, it means refusing to ask people to do what you yourself would not do, and refusing to look away when others ask it of them.

The world has no shortage of clever leaders, ambitious leaders, even visionary leaders. What it suffers from is a shortage of leaders who understand that the goodness of those around them is something they have been given to safeguard. Everything else in leadership flows from whether one accepts that trust or quietly betrays it.

Dr. R Balasubramaniam, Member, NITI Aayog, Government of India, and the founder of the Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement and GRAAM, is a testament to this understanding. His work with grassroots communities, government, corporate boards, and young students has given him a unique perspective on the importance of protecting moral courage.