Sing, Dance and Lead (Leadership Lessons from the Teachings of Srila Prabhupada, Founder Acharya of Iskcon)

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An indispensable book for all leaders and professionals, Sing, Dance and Lead expertly combines ancient Indian philosophy and wisdom with modern management principles to deliver insightful lessons on life and leadership. It brings alive pioneering ideas of leadership from one of the most impactful spiritual leaders in history. Srila Prabhupada founded ISKCON, known as the Hare Krishna movement, which has become a respected global organization. This book not only looks at his leadership in the light of existing theories and knowledge systems but also how his profound teachings went far beyond. Srila Prabhupada's divine aura, scholarship, genuineness and humility attracted people from all walks of life, especially the youth, to him. His unique leadership legacy has left a lasting imprint, inspiring his followers to continue his mission and strive for the welfare of humanity even today. This book will broaden your horizons and enable you to view leadership from a whole new perspective. This pioneering work is undoubtedly essential reading to help you understand the timeless Indian guru-shishya parampara as a vital source for leadership development.

HINDOL SENGUPTA is an award-winning historian and author. He has won the Wilbur Award for Being Hindu, the Valley of Words Award for The Man Who Saved India, the Kalinga Literature Festival Award for Sing, Dance and Pray, and the PSF Award for public service through writing.

Hindol has been shortlisted for the Hayek Prize given by the Manhattan Institute for Recasting India. He has been a Chevening Scholar at the University of Oxford and a Knight-Bagehot Fellow at Columbia University. A World Economic Forum young global leader, he also has a doctorate from the Geneva School of Diplomacy. Hindol is a professor of international relations at O.P. Jindal Global University. This is his thirteenth book.

Leadership is a word used so frequently and in so many contexts, it has become a little difficult to sometimes comprehend what it really means. Therefore, it is more important than ever to study the best models of leadership and what a true leader can indeed achieve.

Western leadership studies have mainly focused on examples from the Western world, but much more work is needed in bringing to light clear examples and case studies of Indian ideas and principles of leadership that can be useful not only to India or the Global South but to the entire world. In this light, the life and achievements of Srila Prabhupada were ripe for the extensive study achieved through this book.

Srila Prabhupada is a striking example of such leadership-a lone seventy-year-old who stepped out of a steamship in New York City in 1965, armed with practically nothing but an unwavering conviction and a burning desire to share the timeless wisdom of India's bhakti tradition with the world. His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami, the founder and acharya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), widely known as the Hare Krishna movement, was respectfully addressed as Srila Prabhupada.

With no financial resources, no institutional backing and no prior connections, Srila Prabhupada embarked on a mission that would defy any conventional wisdom of organization-building. Through his unyielding determination, compassionate leadership and unwavering commitment to his master's instructions, he ignited a global movement, a spiritual revolution that would touch the lives of millions, transcending cultural, linguistic and geographical boundaries.

I consider this book an eloquent tribute to the extraordinary leadership qualities of Srila Prabhupada, who demonstrated that true leadership is not about chasing personal aggrandizement from material success but about service-mindedness, humility, devotion and resolute determination for a higher purpose. Through his remarkable example, Srila Prabhupada showed us that leadership is not merely a skill or a technique but a way of life-a life of service with integrity, humility, total dependence on supreme providence and sharing of hard-learnt wisdom to perpetuate goodness beyond one's generation.

As you delve into the pages of this book, you will discover the remarkable story of Srila Prabhupada's leadership, which continues to inspire and guide countless individuals around the world. You will learn about his courage, resilience and creativity in the face of adversity, as well as his unwavering commitment and faithfulness to his spiritual principles and values.

If you are reading this book, you may have read my first bestselling book on Srila Prabhupada, Sing, Dance and Pray. It is a book that introduced me to the power of chanting and changed my life. It also allowed me to dig deep into the archives of the writings, teachings, letters and speeches of Srila Prabhupada, who arrived penniless in America at the age of sixty-nine and built a global institution with more than one hundred temples devoted to Lord Krishna' around the world by the time he was eighty. His 'Krishna consciousness' movement, or what came to be called ISKCON (International Society for Krishna Consciousness), attracted tens of thousands of followers from New York to Sydney, Austria to Africa.

While writing this book, an old question resurfaced. During my time at Columbia Business School (CBS), one of the mandatory courses I took was Lead, a programme designed to teach ideas and ideals of leadership and organizational change.

One of the things that used to strike me as odd in that otherwise mind-bending and challenging class was the complete lack of examples or ideas from India or even the Global South.

At that time, I wondered why we, in India, do not talk about our own examples of breakthrough leadership and exemplary institution-building. While this seemed to be a missed opportunity, it was one definitely worth correcting.

During the same course at CBS, I was introduced to a book on leadership with a bit of a reputation, written by the serial investor and venture capitalist (and PayPal co-founder) Peter Thiel. This book claims the power of innovation (in this context, technological leapfrogging), as the primary fuel that governs and propels change. He compares it to globalization, a kind of transformation that he calls 'horizontal' change, whereas tech advancement is 'vertical-it changes things faster, in more unpredictable ways and is the real engine of change. He, therefore, argues that without constant innovation (doing and creating things that have never been done before) that allows humanity to take quantum technological (and productivity) leaps and reduce competition for access to resources, humanity cannot advance.

According to Thiel, instead of going from 'one to n', it is much better to go from 'zero to one'-that is, to introduce ideas, concepts and techniques that have never been seen before.

When I started to read about Prabhupada and his life during my research for Sing, Dance and Pray, I thought about this Thiel principle-going from zero to one, instead of one to n.

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