Our higher purpose is the source of our divinity; our innovation; of being good and doing good; being happy, and making others happy.

Without a higher purpose, innovation is not possible. Therefore, if students and teachers are not driven by a higher purpose, a school's culture of innovation will remain a pipe dream. 

Our beliefs are good substitutes for pursuing a higher purpose. 

Beliefs are truths arrived at by individuals experientially. They are ethical and pro-life, and the individual has to be a practitioner. In case he is only inspired by the beliefs, he must build his capacity to export it to others for the common good. Only then will meaning arise. 

The following steps must be taken :

Step 1 : Inspired by the beliefs either as a witness or through deep-reading.

Step 2 : Seek clarity on relevance and concept of the concerned beliefs.

Step 3 : Conduct a SWOT on what capacities are needed.

Step 4 : Practise it at work and in one's personal life.

Step 5 : Once the individual is confident that he is ready to influence others :

• Set a vision.
• Write down challenging goals.
• Make an implementation plan in work and life.
• Create meaning to life.

I am skeptical about my success in mentoring over the last six years. Those who have really benefitted will be around ten percent. For example, let's take my last five blogs on mentoring. In the present group of 31 mentees, only six have responded. Their responses too have been partial with no cross-engagement of each other's views.

What is the reason?

I attribute this to the absence of being able to invest quality time and resources on the self and in community. There is always talk about work-family balance but never about work and life balance. There is more to life than work and home. Life goes beyond, and encompasses the self, the community and even nature.

Our hierarchical cultural structure has prevented this from happening. Investment in these two areas, however, comes with a price tag - it invariably creates turbulence in one's relationships. Everyone is encroaching on the other's space in the family. And mentoring is about transforming oneself. Transformation cannot happen by sitting at home and in the office.

I want you to understand one grim reality: unless you transform yourself, you are not empowered.

When asked the question "Why do you want to lead?"the overwhelming answers I receive are, "I-oriented," for example:

Self-expression

Know myself better

Exercise knowledge

Be happy

Manage myself better

Live rightly

Face challenge

My question is: do you not think that we have responsibility to a greater world? Are we existing only for ourselves? To be able to lead oneself is to equip oneself to lead others and make a difference.

The word 'self' appeared for the first time in the Oxford Dictionary in 1573. In the field of psychology it was first used in 1870 in the Harvard University Press. With few exceptions, self in a Western sense derives its meaning from Descartes, "I think, therefore, I am." Self in Western philosophy is about the mind, about reason - "I am my brain."

In sharp contrast, the concept of self in India has existed for 4000 years. It lies at the core of Indian spirituality, and is one of the routes to human salvation and self-realization. I believe it is also a fundamental principle of leadership, about leading one self first, then others.

The Indian middleclass is a product of the Western education system, and it is, therefore, not surprising that in our daily lives we spend little or no time even thinking about the self. Very, very few individuals devote quality time on a regular basis for their emotional and spiritual growth. They are either unaware, or caught up in the daily grind, or are afraid of disturbing relationships. Consequently, we experience a lot of imbalance in our lives. I admit it is extremely difficult to get the balance right, and each person has to find her answers. But it is possible. I will welcome your views.

How do we restore balance in our life? For average people like us, we need to reconnect with Nature and the Community. When you reach out, you reach in; the reverse seldom happens. We have to find time to invest in ourselves. There is no short cut.

In addition, we should consider introducing the theoretical and experiential study of common essentials of all religions. We will then realize that Truth is one, although there are many highways that take us there.

Teachers seldom consider themselves as leaders. If this did happen the education system would have reformed a long time ago.

Most teachers say that while they intellectually subscribe to the idea of whole-education, they  are usually intimidated by the 'system.' Presumably, the system comprises parent expectations, as well as the aspirations of the student, to score high marks in examinations. Even the school managements push hard for results as they believe that this is the hallmark for excellence.

I say, suppose all these impediments vanished this very moment, will you be able to deliver a whole-education curriculum? There is an uneasy silence and hesitation. Most teachers will say, "yes."

I continue. If a teacher has never practised whole-education and lifelong learning, for example, in her personal life, how will she deliver the programme? Most teachers will remain silent.

Therefore, the problem is not the parent, the child or the management; it's you. You are the problem and you are the solution.

While the school can certainly manufacture crucible experiences, the difficult part is post-experience reflection. It is reflection that eventually brings about transformation. There is a need to have well-trained mentors who can facilitate this process.

In my next blog I shall share my thoughts on how the lack of understanding of the concept of 'self' has contributed to gross imbalance in leadership development.

India's metros are the battlegrounds for terrorists.  Terrorist attacks in any metro can cripple economy, force politicians to respond to the demands of terrorists, and provide media publicity. Kill one in a metro and you can scare a million. New York's Mayor Michael Bloomberg, once said:

            "When you catch a terrorist and look at the map in his or her pocket,

            It is always a map of New York; it's not a map of some other place."

I have always been of the view that, civil police is better equipped mentally and culturally to deal with terrorists, and even terrorism, than the military. Regrettably, the idea has taken firm roots in the police minds that, fighting terrorists is well beyond their competency. Many policemen also say it is not their role.

There is a subtle difference between a soldier and a policeman, and we need to take this into serious consideration. For a soldier it is straight forward: it is to kill the enemy. Personally I do not agree with this mission because I feel that killing can never be an objective of any military force. "War-winning" cannot be the aim of war at least in the 21^st century. The higher purpose of the military must be to "prevent wars."

In the context of terrorism especially, the role of the police is to prevent killing, to prevent crime.

To deal effectively with terrorists, the police need the support of the people. That will be forthcoming provided three conditions are met:

• First; the crime rate must be brought under control. Fighting terrorism cannot be at the cost of crime getting out of control. Moreover, effective crime management reinforces the confidence and trust of the citizens in their police force.
• Second; you need adequate manpower. In metros, the ratio must be a minimum of 250 policemen for every 1,00,000 people. Currently, it is 142 and this is grossly inadequate.
• Third; you need leadership. This is a vast area and will require a lot of discussion and understanding.

I feel that there is a greater challenge on our hand - how to live with our own people - how to live with homogeneity. We face this problem in our families, in the organizations we serve, and in society. In India, for example, there is an insurgency in the North East, 35,000 to 40,000 persons have been killed in Jammu & Kashmir, and 32 percent of the country's districts are under Naxal influence. Add to this the alienation of millions of Muslims and Dalits.

I firmly believe, that before we start living with global diversity, we must first learn to live with our own people.

It has been often said that the purpose of education is to bestow reason. History debunks this.

A nation known for giving the world many of the best philosophers, scientists, doctors, engineers, soldiers, and music composers, exterminated 6.5 million Jews. What happened to reason? Pol Pot, educated in one of the best universities in Paris, did the same thing in Kampuchia. What happened to reason? All the extreme ideologies in the 19^th and 20^th Century - Marxism, Fascism, National Socialism, Islamic fundamentalism, and Al-Jehad, were propagated by philosophers and highly erudite leaders. Again, what happened to reason?

Reason is like mathematics; it tells us how to go. The heart tells us where to go. Educating the head without educating the heart may produce brilliant scientists, CEOs and philosophers, but who will use their brilliance for destructive or evil purposes.

Schools must, therefore, have a social purpose that goes well beyond academics. Socialization must aim at value-education and bringing out the inner spiritual potential of the child.

1. Unless schools bring out the inner potential of a child and help her to become self-aware, she cannot lead herself. Leadership is the ability to lead oneself first; then others. School education must, therefore, have a social purpose; not merely academics.
2. Leadership in schools will emerge only when students and teachers are empowered. In its fundamental sense, empowerment will occur when the responsibility for learning shifts from the teacher to the student. Will teachers allow this; because in a diminutive sense, it will be seen as loss of power. After all, empowerment is about exercising power over oneself, not others. This transition is not going to be easy. So how do we manage the process?
3. Leadership will arise when schools move away from teaching skills to enable students to acquire competencies, especially:
   
   • Ability to become lifelong learners.
   • Ability to love and the capacity to forgive.
   • Ability to live together (with nature also) to include conflict-management.
   • Synthesizing vast amounts of data and making sense out of it. Transdisciplinary-knowledge is essential in this regards.
     
4. Leadership will happen when teachers teach the child (whole-education) and not merely the subject.
5. Principals and all teachers are ultimately transformational leaders, not instructional. They transform themselves, the curriculum, and the child.
   

One of the primary reasons why India has not been effective against terrorism is because the civil police do not have a clear mandate, role and training to fight terrorism. Whatever strategy exists is police-centric because of the inability to distinguish between 'terrorists,' which demands armed action, and 'terrorism' that requires addressing the root causes of religious and political violence. The former is body-warfare; the latter is mind-warfare.

26/11 has conclusively proved that the police, and even the National Security Guard, (NSG) are grossly wanting in mission clarity, intelligence, and training. It did not require 400 NSG commandos to take 48 hours to deal with ten terrorists! Then they are not commandos. I cannot imagine GSG 9, SAS or Delta Force deploying a battalion to snuff out ten terrorists.

The civil police are mentally and culturally better equipped than the Army and para military forces (PMF) to fight terrorists and resolve the root causes of terrorism. This approach was largely responsible for success in Punjab and Meghalaya. Since Other Forces are tenure-based they lack continuity, and therefore, there is pressure on them to produce results through the 'body-count' game. Comparatively, these forces  lack empathy in ascertaining the emotions and feelings of the community. To make matters worse, they are wanting in local terrain knowledge, cultural sensitivities, and the inter-play of community problems.

The police on the other hand enjoy the advantages of local recruitment, continuity, transfers and job rotation within geographic areas, and neighbourhood familiarity. Moreover, since they are stakeholders there is higher accountability of their actions. It is, therefore, not surprising that the police often enjoy greater acceptability and empathy of the locals than the Army or the PMF.

Following on from this hypothesis, I believe that the role of the NSG should be restricted to surgical intervention in extraordinary situations such as hijacking of aircraft, ships and oil rigs; hostage rescue; nuclear, chemical and biological threats; vertical or submarine insertion; and counter-terrorist operations outside India. Everything else should be within the purview of the civil police.