Exploring Dharmic Leadership as a Holonic Approach to Ethical Decision-Making and Navigation in Management

The ancient Indian epic, the Mahabharata, illustrates the concept of Dharmic leadership through the relationship between Krishna and Arjuna during the war of Kurukshetra. Krishna’s guidance and Arjuna’s inner journey to understand his moral and ethical duties provide a rich context for exploring the principles of righteousness, duty, and moral order in the face of doubt and uncertainty. I was looking to investigate how Dharmic leadership can be perceived as a holon, integrating individual, organizational, societal, and planetary responsibilities for navigating complex decision-making scenarios.

Hypothesis: Dharma as a Holon

In holonic systems thinking, a holon is a unit that exists both as a whole and as a part of a larger hierarchy. Dharmic leadership can be conceptualized as a holon, encompassing responsibilities at multiple levels:

Personal Level: At the microcosmic level, it embodies an individual’s duty, personal ethics, moral values, and their role in their personal life, well-being, and society. Each person’s dharma is unique, rooted in their swabhava (individual nature) and raison d’être (life’s purpose).

Organizational Level: Dharmic leadership extends to organizational culture, employee treatment, incentive structures, and individual growth opportunities. It encompasses defining factors that shape the company’s ethos.

Societal Level: On a broader scale, Dharmic leadership represents collective duties and responsibilities, guiding inter-subjective actions within a community, city, or nation. It emphasizes justice and well-being for all.

Planetary Level: At the global level, it highlights our collective responsibility as interconnected beings on Earth, focusing on ecological sustainability and overall well-being.

Leela and Game theory

In Indian philosophy, Leela is defined as the divine play and that the universe operates in its mysterious and playful ways which give life an emergent property and that the holon creates it’s destiny and it is the destiny.

Objective of the game is to stay in the game and be well:

From this perspective, with the holonic nature of the player in the universal game of Leela, the objective of the game must be a positive sum game following the rules of dharma to play an infinite game.

Thus using the game theory framework for decision-making in competitive, cooperative or mixed situations, we want to identify the parameters of decision making, the options evaluation frameworks, and the choice impact evaluation along with the interconnected karmic nature to help individual leaders practice karma yoga through a process of self-discovery, self-understanding, self-management for interbeing based on the principles of dharma, the cycle of karma and moksha for physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being and happiness.

The Challenge

Navigating daily decisions in a holonic system such as Dharmic leadership presents a significant challenge. It requires aligning these fractal levels of responsibility to maximize well-being, harmony, and happiness.

In this context, Vedic knowledge suggests that self-awareness, situational awareness, mindfulness, and inter-subjective awareness are essential for identifying biases and thoughts that may influence individual choices and actions.

Dharmic Leadership as a Value-Driven Philosophy

Dharmic leadership is a value-driven philosophy that aims to help individuals and organizations align their values with those of stakeholders while fostering a long-term vision for a positive impact on society and ecology. It promotes self-actualization, mastery, harmony, and well-being.