Dr. Supatta Pinthapataya

Kalayanamitr Leadership: Strategic Leadership for Success

The meaning of Kalayanamitr

The word Kalayanamitr is derived from Sanskrit, which means true-good friend. The word has been used to portrait the person who is kind and considerate, who is willing to help others and who is sincere.

Concept of Kalayanamitr leadership: True-good friend leadership

The concept of Kalayanamitr leadership is a universal phenomenon because it displays the inner self of the leader who practices. The characteristics of the leaders who exhibit a good friend relationship or Kalayanamitr and are described within as KaLaYaNaMiTr. Each word has its own translation of meaning as follows:

K-knowledge
L-loving care
Y-yield
N-need
M-middle way
T-team

The concept provides the basic foundation of conducts which will be extended in a wide range of behaviours. The main principle to exhibit the characteristics of Kalayanamitr is

‘One must be a truly good friend to his/her colleagues and,

at the same time, be a truly good leader to his/her friends’.

On Becoming a Kalayamitr leader

There are leaders who seek the kind of leadership that is suitable for particular situations. The introducing of Kalayanamitr leadership is an alternative means. A Kalayanamitr leader is someone who inspires others to think and do things righteously and kindly helps or leads others to the accomplishment. The practicing of being Kalayanamitr is common to all human being by thinking what you would like to have others undo for you.

Codes of conduct

In leadership, ethics plays an important part. The leaders must practice to have good consciousness of the way they do as the codes of conduct. Ethics provides a protection for people under leadership to act in a more righteous manner. (Mererk, Phra Medhidhammaporn, 1994). One can choose their own ethics to perform. Mererk, Phra Medhidhammaporn (1994:26) proposes two sets of ethics in Buddhism, the general and the professional or applied ethics. He believes that “as a member of society, a professional person has to follow the general rules of conduct prescribed by the universal code of ethics, and as a member of a professional group, he/she has to adhere to the code of professional ethics of his/her particular occupation.” They are:

General ethics

General ethics are based on the basic principles of the ‘Five - Precepts’, ‘pancasila’ (panca means five, sila means precept). ‘Pancasila’ or the ‘Five-Precepts’ enable people to live together peacefully for mutual protection, solidarity and economic prosperity (Mererk, Phra Medhidhammaporn, 1994:90). The ‘Five-Precepts’ are within the scope of general ethics that pertain to personal relationships in general and are the foundation upon which professional ethics is established. The ‘Five-Precepts’ are as follows:

Panatipata veramani: to abstain from killing any living being.
Adinnadana veramani: to abstain from taking what is not given.
Kamesu micchacara veramani: to abstain from sexual misconduct.
Musavada veramani: to abstain from false speech.
Suramerayamajjapamadatthana veramani: to abstain from intoxicants, causing carelessness.

Professional ethics

In addition, professional ethics are a code of conduct, which serve as a guideline for leadership in professional areas. Leaders usually have three motives: 1) Desire for self-interest (Tanha); 2) Belief in the source of rules (Saddha); and 3) Virtues (Guna Dhamma). However, the first two are not appropriate for good conduct because they motivate people by conditions based on a temporary state. The strongest of the professional ethics is the third, which deals with good mental quality or the great moral value of Pancadhamma: loving-kindness and compassion, generosity, contentment with one’s own spouse, truthfulness and temperance. It is important that a morally good action (Kamma) has to become a habit, which stems from an intention or will (Cetana) that controls the action by body, speech and mind.

Buddhism and Kalayanamiyr Leadership

Skills of Leadership for success

In leadership, Mererk, Phra Medhidhammaporn (1994:39) suggests the three skills of leadership for success. The first skill is vision (Cakkhuma), which is the ability of the leader to see what is really important in a given situation as well as to see how things might be different in the future. A visionary leader can set priorities and choose goals to be achieved by his/her team. The second skill is task competence (Vidhuro). It is the leader’s technical skill or knowledge of how to perform a task at hand and to see that it is applied in its mission and within its environment. The third skill is confidence inspiration (Nissaya-sampanno), or the ability to inspire confidence and persuade others to do something, and human relations skills.

Dhamma-oriented leadership

In general, there are three styles in Thai leadership. The first is self-centred leadership (Attadhipateyya). The leader is authoritarian and wants to control thoughts and actions rather than letting his subordinates choose and decide things themselves. This is the style of bureaucratic administrators. The second, people-oriented leadership (Lokadhipateyya), is characterised as the tenderhearted leader with a laissez faire attitude who wants to be loved and admired by his/her subordinates, but has little concern about work. He/She has no vision. The third is Dhamma-oriented leadership (Dhammadhiyateyya), the one style of leadership that is strongly proposed for all leaders to follow.

The principle of Dhamma-orientation leadership is comprised of four virtues of power (Mererk, Phra Medhidhammaporn, 1994:41). The first is ‘Wisdom Power’ (Panna-bala). Leaders must have knowledge of doing the right thing with wise attention (Yoniso-manasikara) and with positive thinking (Uppadaka-manasikara), good planning, effective problem-solving, good decision-making, effective prioritising and rational judgment. The second is ‘Effort Power’ (Viriya-bala). Leaders must have energy, determination, perseverance, and willpower to avoid creating problems (Sumvara padhana), must make efforts to solve the problems arising (Pahana- paddhana), must make efforts to produce good things towards growth and full development (Bhavana-padhana), must make efforts to maintain good things (Anurakkhana-padhana). The third is ‘Faultlessness Power’ (Ananvajja-bala), or the power to have self-control for honesty, fairness, and without faultfinding. This connects to the moral practice of mindfulness (Satii) and to the moral precepts (Sila). The last is ‘Kindliness Power’ (Sangaha-bala). Leaders must be of kindly disposition, have kindliness, sympathy, and friendliness, be helpful, assist, protect others, and demonstrate favours. There are four ways of showing kindliness to others in a principle called Sangaha-vatthu. This is characterised by: 1) giving material gifts and advice (Dana); 2) uttering kind words when communicating ideas and feelings (Piyavaca); 3) performing beneficial actions rendering service (Attacariya; and 4) giving equal treatment and behaving properly towards others in all circumstances (Samanattata).

Within Kindliness Power, there is a Dhamma principle, especially relating to leadership practice as well as for all to adapt as a way of life. This principle is called Brahmavihara: 1) the desire to make others happy (Metta); 2) the desire to free those who suffer from their suffering (Karuna); 3) having sympathetic joy or rejoicing with those who are fortunate or successful (Mudita); 4) having the ability to have a balanced state of mind. (Upekkha). This kindliness power contributes to a friendly relationship or a good friend (Kalayanamittata-dhamma). All of these concepts of Thai leadership bring about peace and happiness to the organisation and reveal the connectedness of the actions of the Thai people.

Dhamma principle for leaders

The Dhamma principle of ‘service mind’ - rendering service to others -brings about a mutual contribution to the community. There are three objectives or benefits for the Buddhists to observe: 1) Attattha - the objective for oneself, or for one’s own benefit; 2) Parattha - the objective for others, or for others’ benefit; 3) Ubhayattha - a mutual objective, or benefit to both parties. The collective benefit of happiness and virtue for the community or society, including positive environmental conditions (Payutto, Phra Dhammapidok, 1998:9) helps to create and maintain both self and community. It is believed that they must fulfill one own needs before he/she can give the excess to others and that he/she has to learn to limit the need to the level that he/she can contribute to others as well.

Basic rules of thumb

The study of the Kalayanamitr leadership conveys an important aspect of taking good care of the followers. Most of time people are talking about how to get the work done perfectly. But do we care about other that that? What about human values? What people think of themselves as a human being. Here are some rules to think about .what people want to have or to be.

People want to be respected

People value themselves as a human being. They have a right to be respected as individuals or as ones who gain status quo in the society. Children have to respect their parents. Students have to respect their teachers. The fact that we belong to community The hierarchy system still exists in our society. The important element in the hierarchical system in an organization is seniority or Vayavudhi. In fact the seniority system plays a very important role in any society and has an effect on their social life too (Podhisita, 1985:32). In the organization, the number of years living and working is viewed as contributing to life experience. The senior members gain respect from younger colleagues for their years of contributions to the organisation. The values of care and consideration are rated rather high in cultures that observe seniority, according to Komin (1985).

People want to have self-pride

Everyone has self-sense of his/her own. The constraint challenging in the organizations may arise from the sense of self-pride of the people. The suggestion is personal contact. It works for compromising and bringing the sense of self to the level of awareness. The language has a large extent to classify the closeness between people in contact. In some culture like that of Thailand, the level of personal pronouns in verbal communication for example, addressing others as brothers and sisters, lessens the distance between individuals are used to lessen the conflicts. The use of more informal dialogue than official speech and soft nature and pleasing words also lowered the number of stressful situations and the degree of resistance. People need to have mutual respect and acceptance while leaving the ego untouched. Whenever self-esteem is violated, strong emotional conflicts result, and once such violations occur, they often remain irreconcilable (Komin, 1985:185). The avoidance of using direct authority to coerce people to task may also have an effect on ones’ ego.

People want to have a sense of belonging

All human being wants to be loved. The sense of belonging is very important for people to satisfy their need to live happily. It is one of the hierarchy needs of human as described by Maslow The sense of being to be a part of an ‘in-group’ is also essential in the organisation. The leader may have to visit the working plants just to see how they are doing and show their concern by conversing with the employees on the bottom line. This will inspire the workers to be fully willing to work for their company and do more work attentively. Many companies give their employees market share stocks to have them feel that they also own the companies.

People want to have information

People want to know what is coming up. Sharing of knowledge can be in the traditional sense and the most common practice of communication has been in the form of dialogue. It has been found that people favour private conversations over formal dialogue because they can discuss details. Verbal communication skills, such as talking or chatting, are culturally based and make explicit the level of relationships. What people favour in informal verbal communication is that they can observe reactions and make interpretations more ably in small discussions. However, formal communication would bring about the starting time to move which should be made more clearly.

People want to be relaxed

The value of being flexible at all times may slow down the work process. However, flexible time and schedule make people less emotionally tenses. They seem to be happy to get involved with more work by more or less flexible time. There is a suggestion that leaders should have a sense of humour in order to level down the stresses caused by hard working among the workers. A peaceful and harmonious working environment brings joy and happiness to life. Every job must be enjoyable. Enjoyment and care have a mutually dependent climate.

People want to have a good conversation

A person with a positive regard has positive thinking in his/her mind. People do not want to be blamed. Behaviours that affect emotionally in a negative way, either verbally or through physical contact which cause them losing face .are prohibited at all times. Good dialogue and compromise manners are the major keys to get along.

People want to have harmony in life

Harmony means a pleasing combination of elements in a whole. Life would be fulfill when things get along so well. They are many principles of how to have harmony in life The principle of harmony in Buddhism composes of six Saraniya-Dhamma (conditions leading to mutual recollection) had to be observed: 1) Metta-kayakamma - friendly action; 2) Metta-vacikamma - friendly speech; 3) Metta-manokamma - friendly thoughts; 4) Sadharana-bhogi - sharing of gains; 5) Sila-samannata - moral harmony; and 6) Ditthi-samannata - harmony of views (Payutto, Phra Dhammapidok, 1998:23-24). Mercy and ‘metta’ apply to giving a helping hand and not creating blame or hard feelings that might ruin the mutual understanding among people. Moral justice is required for fairness. Faultlessness Power and Kindliness Power act as guidelines for authorities to analyse the system as indicators for development. The ‘ego-self’ and high self-esteem make evaluation very sensitive. Criticising anyone’s work results in conflicts and hard feelings and might lead to emotional aggressiveness..

It is clear that, strategic leadership comes in as a tool for leaders to use. The ways to satisfy their want may vary from on another. However, leadership is a part of the system that is dealing with the culture of the organization. Since man is a social animal, it takes the leaders to be more concerned about human nature of socialisation and the culture, which becomes their ways of life. It is important that the leaders know how to gain advantage from the culture and find a unique way to applying their strategic leadership to accomplish their role within that culture. The leaders should also observe values and how they influence others’ thought and act in the organisation. Other than the clear goals and directions; it was important for the leaders to be aware that self-concept, self-esteem as well as ego-self. Senior status and the hierarchical chain of respect were also important.

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