Description
Course content:
Srimad Ramayana narrates the timeless story of the archetypal battle between Dharma and Adharma, in which Dharma emerges victorious, but only after a great struggle. Sri Rama is the hero and aayana (journey) is his journey and adventures. The Ramayana contains great wisdom and lessons in all aspects of human life i.e., in the fourfold human pursuits of Dharma (righteousness), Artha (economic development), Kama (fulfillment of desires) and Moksha (liberation).
The Srimad Ramayana presents an inside-out ‘leader and leadership development’ perspective on management and leadership as compared to the outside-in ‘leadership development’ perspective from the research and scholarship emerging from most contemporary institutions.
Sri Rama demonstrated transformational leadership qualities and acted as an ideal king, ideal son, ideal brother, ideal husband, ideal friend and ideal student and even as an ideal enemy. There are numerous leadership lessons from all the kandas (books) of the Ramayana and many other characters besides Sri Rama.
Course Learning Objectives:
In this course students will be able to:
1) Engage with the conflicts in Dharma, and the challenges of choice that we are faced with in our everyday contemporary life.
2) Apply the management and leadership lessons from the Ramayana to enable them to live a Dharmic life and fulfil their aims in life.
3) Demonstrate effective management and leadership within the Dharmic framework in their work organization or in a community.
4) Appreciate the greatness of Ramayana by Valmiki from its historical, philosophical and leadership perspectives.
Class Structure:
The class will be interactive and highly participatory with short lectures, group discussions, presentations, short videos and case analysis. students are encouraged to contribute their own managerial leadership experience and organizational issues to search for answers from the Ramayana. This is in accordance with research on adult learning, which shows that a deeper level of learning occurs when there is active participation on the part of the students.
There will be 1.5 hours class with the faculty every week. At the end of this course the students will be required to make short presentation of their leadership action plans and submit a written assignment (a self reflection essay- not more than 1000 words).
Required / Elective: Elective
Prerequisites: Admission into a Program of Study
Faculty / Instructor: Dr Balakrishnan Muniapan
Time: 09:00 pm EST – 10:30 pm EST / (Sunday – 6:30 am IST – 8:00 am IST)
Day: Every Saturday
Start Date: July 16, 2022
End Date: September 24, 2022
Quarter Offered: Summer 2022
