Men and Women are equal but different and that is why reason exist

For every culture, country, civilization human being have realized that the Man and Woman are different. They are different physically, psychologically thus leading to different responses to their externalities, often complimentary. It is the way they are born, way they are destined to live their life on earth. It is also a realization that both Men and Women are necessary and sufficient for the continuation and existence of humans as a species. Culture to culture this difference have been celebrated in multiple ways, in terms of dress code, societal conventions and so on. Problem comes when some societies in their primitive understanding of life sometimes forget that Men and Women are also similar in many ways. In every male, there is an element of female and vice versa. Human brains are a mosaic of male and female structures. There is no one person that has all the male characteristics and another person that has all the female characteristics, or if they exist they are really, really rare to find.

"Gender is not an attribute of individuals but a social relationship, historically varying, and encompassing elements of labor, power, emotion and language; it crosses individual subjectivities, institutions, culture and language" : I disagree. My understanding is that maleness is the principle of pure consciousness while female is the principle of matter. It is the female as a substrate accepts the male. Yes, Vedic thought. Biological differences between males and females can relate to behavioral dissimilarities (such as in physical aggression and aspects of reproduction), but the majority of our biological characteristics (like our brains) reveal that males and females are much more similar than they are different. So, how should society and religion handle this aspect of dualism and similarity. Jobs should be allocated (or chosen) by each for their natural ability until at a point, the job itself evolves into a state where both male and female can participate equally. When that state is reached, then both (male and female) should have equal opportunity to participate, it is only this way that the society can maximize its ability to survive and thrive. Religion should accentuate this. The change in the nature of the job is primarily brought in by Technology: a case to the point is that of the work of a soldier. A soldier is somebody who at a point of time, needed , a considerable amount of physical strength, and that is why in early days there were no female soldiers . In modern times, because of technology (battles are fought today with automatic weapon vs swords like a couple of hundred years ago) to become a soldiers one does not need lot of physical strength, bur more endurance. Thus, we see a lot of female soldiers. 

As sex differentiated comparative advantage in tasks is dissolved, we enter should enter into a world where we perform the work that is best suited to our abilities and where an individual in a position of authority receives the same respect, regardless of gender.

Then why keep (or rather celebrate) dualism of male and female alive. If not for anything else than just to avoid wearing unisex clothing. Diverse perspectives, almost always can inspire creativity and drive innovation.  In the case of male- female, this existence of diversity is not case of controlled expansion of entropy, rather complimentary and necessary for human existence.  For every event happening in life, I would rather have multiple (at the least two) interpretations as opposed to one, as this will make life interesting, more avenues to the ultimate truth (which is the true purpose for all life)  will open up. It will bring in an essence that is in balance and unification of masculine and feminine principles – a dynamic interdependence that pervades all life. The march of technology is changing the very nature of our existence and dissolving differences under the purity of reason and rational thinking. However there will always be the universal principle that is unchanging, uncaused but is present everywhere and because of that there will also be the purpose as to why change happens, transforms and transcends all of the time. This is why there is “cause and effect”, the basis of rationality. It derives from the very existence of male and female, whether we celebrate the difference or not, it will exist in spite of it, otherwise we as human species do not survive. 

Let's embrace this difference, allow reason to exist and make life diverse and interesting.

All politics is identity politics.

If you think about it, politics involves making common decisions for a group of people. It is about achieving and exercising positions of governance—organized control over a human community. In some ways, it determines the governance means. Beyond anything, politics determine how we (as human beings) manage our own world and world around us. In some ways, politics do contribute to make meaning out of the confusion of living.

When we say personal identity, it is one's sense of self and its persistence but that does not directly apply to sense of politics because politics is all about group. If it is a group, then several people will need to have similar sense of self and that ‘sense’  will need to be socially recognized otherwise they will not be able collate with each other. Thus differences exist between multiple groups (with each group having similar idea of who they are), group identity is established. What is common is the transparency of the experience and unification of expression amongst the group members.

One way to look at the phenomenon of a group having a unique identity is to look at the differences of experiences-expressions and see how essential they are:  if they did not exist then the idea of identity will not exists in its distinctiveness and solidity. In 21^st century , what we call the modern society , as soon as a man is born, an identity is created – he/she is someone’s son or daughter and is citizen of a country. Over thousands of years of human civilization, we humans have created multiple identities (via evolving religion, cultural norms, kingdoms and so on), dissolved some, and stayed with many, all in the name of progress. Today’s man does not have a singular identity, rather manifold identities. In fact, at its core, there is whole hierarchy of them ….

Figure 1: Hierarchy of Identities

While human existence has no meaning without a sense of identity, it is natural, did exist before and will exist in future, forever. Traversing through these identities it is important to understand which of them have the understanding of ‘recognition of the others’ in built with them. It is this aspect, which determines the politics of oppressor-oppressed. If an identity recognize the rights of the existence of another with an equal footing, with respect, then it is not an oppressor, else it is. Yet in the oppressor-oppressed relationship both parties want to sustain the concept of ‘different identities’ for different reasons. It is the interest of the oppressor that the identity needs to be preserved in a certain way and therefore, the maintenance of one identity (or field of identities) involves the conversion of some differences into otherness, or one of its numerous surrogates. On other hand oppressed members of constituency assert or reclaim ways of understanding their distinctiveness that challenge dominant oppressive characterizations, with the goal of greater self-determination. So, identity requires differences to endure, and it converts difference into otherness in order to secure its own self-certainty.

The following matrix gives in some way the association between the basic identities and ‘recognition of others’.

Identity Type	Recognition of Others (Yes or No) i.e. their right to exist and thrive	Comments
Humanity	Yes	Everybody is needed even Oppressor needs the oppressed.
Man or Woman	Yes	Needed for Humanity to continue
Religion	No.	Many Abrahamic religious believers think that either they are the chosen people of the world and others are nothing OR their religion is the only way and no other way is good enough and thus should not exist.
Country	Yes or No	For patriots Yes for nationalists it is NO
Race	Yes or No	Depending on the culture and values of distinctive races.

Given this notion of identity and that of politics, I would say that all politics are in some way identity politics, activities based on the interests and perspectives of social groups with definitive and distinctly different and unique identities. Identity is the pillar on which all politics good or bad, red or blue rests. Thus, the politics become violent when the identity itself (as understood by the political actors) exclude others and assert its own as the only thing that has the right to exist in the world. Examples of this can be found throughout the history : most recently … in  Religion : Islam when it converted people of other beliefs via sword; in race: White peoples dominance  over Blacks and subjugation of them to slavery or German and Japanese aggression in World War II, in  nations: when early kings like Alexander, Chengis Kahn did not want the existence of other countries other than their own and subsequently set about conquering the world. While a person’s lived experience should never be invalidated, but we should also be aware that no identity makes the beliefs that someone derives from their lived experience automatically more correct. That is not an identity, rather a logical fallacy and projected ego , like the chicken-egg scenario , which comes first chicken or egg...for me the egg representing the lived experience that results in the mental constructs called identity.

In the age of wisdom, as we would like to call it, end of twentieth century and beginning of 21st century, hopefully, without any backlash, we have come to accept the fact the world is inherently diverse and diversity is the strength. Multiple identities will exists and it is for the good of all humanity as it brings in numerous perspectives on same events of life. So we all need to create a political identity which will enunciate itself and claim for itself by entrenching, restating, promoting the distinctiveness of each identity. If there is an acceptance of diversity then the politics with a goal of self-determination will not have to challenge the domination of the oppressive characterization of any singular identity. There will not be a structure of the oppressor-oppressed rather an understanding of universal goals i.e. of all humanity.

In that sense there will be one identity – humanity and all others are sub identities, which are religion, gender, cultural, ethnicity and so on. There can be and should be strong differences between then engaging in continuous debates but all leading, through multiple ways, to claim some common goal of humanity like an egalitarian society, equal rights, no poverty and so on.

Therefore, what should be the governance values?  the idea of maintaining the privilege and power of those superior beings (of some singular identity) who claim dominion over the earth and right to rule other humans, breaks down in the face of acceptance of manifold identities. In its place, we need harmony, autonomy and respect as the driving values for any kind of political structure. The responsibility to recover, understand , absorb and preserve these values will lead to political systems that are designed to fit with the realities of people and provide opportunities to make , interpret and enforce ‘laws’ in a manner that is consensual and inclusive.

A Case for India

Because of the huge diversity, national Identity of India (in the sense the western countries) did not exist in India. So to create a similar one, time, space, geography, caste, religion – all needed to be redefined by the supposedly superior knowledge, science and ethics of the imperialists (in the case of India it was the British) . This meant both physical and mental mapping. It did not work. It was impossible to force Indians to redefine their age-long civilization in terms of the ‘superior’ ideals of the West. The primary reason was that the ideals of West were not superior. India is one of the oldest civilizations in the world with a kaleidoscopic variety and rich cultural heritage.

This was also the problem for the founders, to exist in the modern world (post world war II) as an Independent (free from oppression) Country amongst all the others in the world. Multiple identities that a typical Indian possessed (like that language, state, religion, culture, birth and so on) had to exist within the context of national Identity. All these identities needed a political expression. Thus was conceived a unique political system where a whole hierarchy of elections exists like that ladder of identities, the highest being the national identity. It is important to note that the national election and prime minister of India is elected by direct participation of the voting public, thus giving national identity the same place (not superior) as every other one. Elections are held at different levels. The two major election levels are at national level, after which the national government is established and at state level after which the state government is established. Elections are also held for city, town and village councils.

So for an Indian citizen, other than being a human (or humanity) Indian national identity supersedes every other identity that he or she might be having. India has numerous identities that are not necessarily mutually exclusive, and all have the right to coexists but when it comes to call of duty, every identity, like every Indian will need to work towards a political and psychological unity of India.

If we try to (as described before) adhere to the idea of identity hierarchy, Indian national identity for all Indian citizens is at the highest level .There is not direct physical mapping as Indians do not share a common culture but they do share a common legacy. Centuries of Indian civilization and years of amalgamation of various traditions, mould today’s Indian citizen. Transformation undergone may not be prominently visible on physical attributes, but psychologically Indians have developed finer characteristics of innovation in limitations, co-existence of traditions with modernity, surviving the odds by hypocrisy and believing in a common legacy.

India survives as a single state, India is the largest democracy in the world. India has the biggest number of people with franchise rights and the largest number of political parties, which take part in any given national election campaign and they all share one national identity of India.

With the above analytical framework the political structure of every other country can analysed. The basic premise being ..'All politics is identity politics'. 

Indian Classical Music vs Western Classical Music : My Take

I am not trained in the technicalities of music. I do not know the ragas, I can’t play any instrument, nor do I have any singing skills. I do have a sense of rhythm but that doesn’t not go beyond the easy 4/4 or 3/3 ones.  I cannot technically identify the complex micro rhythms of tala yet I can feel them. I am a music lover, music has lived with me for so many years, helped me grow, developed my aesthetics, made me mature, imbibed empathy in me, gave me spiritual joy, took me into raptures of physical pleasure and so on. The list goes on and on. Music has defined and redefined me in so many ways that I cannot express all that in words. Yet when it comes to express emotion about music it is so hard to write anything.

A bit of History …

The roots Indian classical music can be found in the Vedic literature, thoughts and Philosophy. Even before the ancient Natyashastra (the classic Sanskrit text on performance arts by Bharata Muni) was written much of the basic tenets of this musical form have been formalized. The oldest form still existing today is Dhrupad. Before dhrupad, there were probably other different genres of music, including “Sam Gana” or Vedic chants, but presently no body has any idea about the structure of those musical forms. It could be completely different than what we listen today. Other older forms are “Jati Gana” and “Prabandh Sangeet” but like Sama Gana, presently hardly anything is known about these categories. Been (Venna) was one of the main instrument in those days, at least since the birth of dhrupad. Been should not be confused with its present day form, look and feel of Veena, which is probably a 15th Century instrument. Carnatic music developed significantly during the Bhakti movement. From around the 12th Century, changes between Hindustani and Carnatic music began to occur due to Persian and Mughal influences in the north while Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka in the south of India see the development of the Carnatic Sangeet. Moderately a new form of Hindustani music (Music of the North) appeared in early to mid 1700 century in Gowalior court under the patronage of king Muhammad Shah Rangile. This form is known as Kheyal. As the name suggests, form and elements of the music was highly influenced by Persian culture (Khyeal in Persian means Imagination). Development of Instruments like sitar and rabab, also hold their lineage from Persian tradition. Presently Hindustani music adopted several other lighter forms also, like thumri, tarana, kajri, and many others. However, till this day, there are some significant differences between Carnatic (music of the South) vs Hindustani (music of the north).

	Hindustani	Carnatic
Origins	North	South
	Vedic tradition	Bhakti tradition
Raga	6 principal ragas known as bandish and 10 modes or thaats.	Scales of 7 notes containing semitones and 72 modes or melankara.
Style	Gharanas singing style.	More vocal style even when played by instrument.
Words	Formal and not clearly articulated.	Words important in order to express emotion.
Improvisation	Specific format as to how improvisation takes place.	Improvisation is less restricted.
Tempo	Slow with long note values increasing in intensity.	Faster tempo that remains more constant with shorter note values.
Ornamentation	Ornamentation is used to enhance the emotion.	There is an oscillation between the notes to create a spiritual and more intellectual performance.
Instruments	Tabla, sarangi, sitar, santoor, and clarinet.	Veena, mridangam, mandolin, and jalatarangam.

However, western classical music history is more recent, can be extended around 1550 CE, a little further beyond the classical age. Music during those days, were more on polyphony, mass music for churches. (1450-1600) Renaissance Period: is when the thinking about music started changing. The music became more complex, sometimes more grand and secular, often played by small group of musicians known as consorts.  Probably, the most complicated form of western music appeared was during Baroque age (1600–1750 CE), a major change over the musical thought process took over, where there was obsession with decorations and added frills to just about everything and music was no exception. Complicated instruments like harpsichord, organ and lute family of instruments, and several complicated wind instruments shaped the musical tradition. Subsequently Western Classical Music forged its own path, gained in prestige and morphed into multiple forms of both instrumental and vocal.  Depending on the location of the European country, their musical identity also got severely influenced by the musical culture of the adjacent countries. Say in the case of eastern European countries, they were influenced by Arabian and Persian music.

What is common in both the cases is that the origin of the complex music is faith based.  The difference is the approach to the faith, in West the religion is much more organized, involving masses, pulling them to church in regular fashion. Whereas in India, religion is very individualistic, it is your own faith and can be pursued at your home in your own way.  This difference in approach to the religion, is what I think has reflected in the evolution of music. When multiple, voices jointly pray to God, in order for the prayers to be musically powerful to the ears and create high sense of beauty and aesthetics amongst the worshippers, you need to have them sing in harmony. On the other hand, in India, a lone individual, in his own seclusion, travelling through time or life at moments of devotion may pray to God in most melodious way known to him. To appeal to his God and to his own sense of high beauty and aesthetics. He doesn’t need another individual to sing in harmony with him as he is not wanting to be separate from God asking for God’s judgment. His sole goal of his existence is, as an individual, is to merge with God.

homophony vs. polyphony / melody vs. harmony

Western music is harmony and polyphony based. Harmony is when two notes of certain frequency gap are played simultaneously. Generally, to create harmony, one note and its proceeding third Major / Minor note is played, for example (without going into the details of what constitutes a major and minor scale), D and F# will create a harmony in major scale. If there are more than two notes are used, say D, F# and A is played together, it is called a polyphony. Harmony and polyphony are the central to Western music both Classical and popular. The whole structure of a composition piece is created around it ,  without them, this music will be  incomplete. The magic lies to a great extent in polyphonic composition, where counterpoint, harmony, and the texture created using multiple voices is critical. Melody exists in western classical music too, but from a broad perspective, is not the singular or defining focus of most of the works.

However, the garnish that completely distinguishes Indian Classical (both Hindustani and Carnatic) music from most of the other genres of music, including Western classical is the usage of Meend. Meend is the glide from one frequency to other one (like glide from Re to Ga). This glide gives an exclusive identity to Indian music (both popular and classical). That is why; Piano (a dominant instrument for Western Classical Music), which only allows generating discrete notes cannot play Ragas, the backbone of Indian classical music. Indian classical music is primarily homophonic, which means its focus is on melodies created using a sequence of notes. The magic that is primarily experienced is with the different melodies constructed within the framework of the Raagas. The Glide is like a single drop of water poignantly hanging in a moment of time or smoothly transforming itself from one form to other. It can smoothly glide through time; on the other hand, western classical music is like a waterfall, with multiple streams of water moving at varying pace, all gushing together in one direction, coordinated to flow in a harmony. For harmony, you need organization, for organization you need a shared goal which is the direction of the flow.

Symphony Vs Raga and Perfection Vs Improvisation...

Symphony, a western classical music construct, is a composed piece by a particular composer. The composer writes it down on paper, defining everything from the notes to number and type of musician who will play the music and how they will play. For the musicians it will be a performance. It requires enormous practice and perfection to synchronize with all the musicians playing together. Generally, in a symphony there are more than 200 musicians, they watch one person, conductor, who gives the instruction of when to play, how to play and stop in order to synchronize. This is an unreservedly an extremely difficult job for any not professionally trained musicians. It is practice of perfection, towards perfection. Additionally, for a concerto, lead musician has to remember all the notes for the composition, which may go beyond an hour. One mistake can ruin the whole synchronization of the music.

Ragas, on the other hand, are free flowing. Less than 4% part of the total presentation is composed, which is called bandhish (term used in Hindustani classical music, Carnatic will be have something similar) or the song. Everything else comes from the improvisation of musician. Same raga, by same musician could be very different in space and time, depending on the mood of musician and his/her response to the present environment. It is quite hard to imagine, that within few notes (for some raga, number of notes can be as few as 3, like Malashri) a musician plays non repetitive musical phrases for hours, seeking only the strictest fidelity to the mood of a raga. Indian classical music has two foundational elements, raga and tala (a cycle of beats centered around ‘Sam’ that repeats itself. Western Classical Music doesn’t use such complex beat cycles). The raga forms the fabric of a melodic structure, while the tala measures the time cycle, cadence. The raga gives an artist a palette to build the melody from sounds, while the tala provides them with a creative framework for rhythmic improvisation using time (Indian Classical Music makes extensive use of quarter-tones & microtones, usually referred to as ‘Shruti’. Western Classical Music has a few microtonal pioneers and has largely been restricted to using semitones).

On one hand the endeavor, in western classical music, is to display in modern framework, a long ago created frozen work of art as perfectly as possible, on the other hand, in Indian classical music, it is the creative process and creative work itself both are developed live in front of the audience. There is much more freedom, much more flexibility, all one needs to do is to keep the spirit of the music (as framed by a Raga), the very essence. In the modern rendition of a piece of western classical music one can argue that there is some element of individual interpretation (even though it has to be predefined) by the Musical conductor but by all means and purpose it is a team effort. It is because of these it is hard for the western classical music to adopt the freewheeling nature of Indian classical music. It’s like turning around an ocean liner versus a dolphin, jumping, dancing around one the waters of the ocean.

Nature, Spirituality & Real World Scenarios …

Indian classical music has a closer, intimate association with nature than Western Classical Music. Ragas have specific times of day or seasons of the year associated with them, while most of Western Classical Music doesn’t have any such characteristic. The roots of Indian classical music are the Vedic thought which epitomizes individualism and its spirituality. The intuitive belief in the idea of Brahamana and all the forces of universe are linked has deeply influenced very structure of Indian music, the formation of the essence of ragas. In Western Classical Music, the roots are more non-spiritualistic real world scenarios and events, in factors like individual episodic experiences, significant historical events in human history, entertainment, occasions with dance celebrations, and so on.

Vocals or Instrumentation..

In both Indian and Western classical music Vocals are used, but the way they’re treated in relation to other instruments is different. When vocals are used in Indian Classical Music, all the rest of the instruments are mere ‘accompaniments’ — there are Tanpooras that act like drones, harmonium that follows the tonality of the voice by providing chords, etc. Tanpoora and Harmonium creates the background color of the canvas of music, thus creating a texture, on which the singer (the artist) with his palette of colors (ragas) improvise spontaneously and create paintings (music). In other word the voices forms the basis of the structure and the artwork.

Western Classical Music, when vocals are used, the instrumentation still carries a lot of weight in the overall composition, it is just another addition, to all the other instruments, that are playing the structure of the composition. The term ‘voice’ is hence used in a generic way and doesn’t always mean human voice. A ‘voice’ can be any theme played by an instrument. So, one can have a four-voice fugue being played on the piano using two hands, where each hand is playing one of four voices at any given time.

It is always the surrender of the individual to the team in the western tradition, and the team in turn work to enhance the long ago written down composition of a past great musician. Unlike, Indian belief of that Brahma exists within every individual it is about man vs superman in western tradition. The superman being the Musician whose composed music is being played by the man (musician).

A series of events sliced by framework vs everything is connected and are relative to each other....

Western music is scale based (frameworks) with the frequency of each note being absolute. Although, it is said to be equal tempered, minute differences still exits. Hence, progression in C scale do not sound exactly same as that in C# scale. For a western classical composition, composers fix a scale before composing. Thus the notation follows equal tempered frequencies within an octave, which is divided into 12 notes (C, C#, D, D#, E, F, F#, G, G#, A, A#, B). Probably this the reason in a Piano , which is the central instrument for Western Classical music we find that within one octave there are exactly 12 keys.

Indian classical music (is not equally tempered) is more dependent on relative distance between two notes. Whatever the scale may be, relative distance between notes (Sa, Re, Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha, Ni) will be exactly same always. In a scale, only frequency of one sa and pa (sometimes ma or ni is also used) is fixed, other notes are played on the basis of these reference notes. They do not have absolute frequency. Thus it’s notation system is complicated and some times vary depending on the style of music that is being played. In practice of Khayal (Hindustani Classic- sub category of Indian Classical Music) , one octave is generally divided into 22 notes, called micro tones, or Shruti. Unfortunately nowadays, many of the Hindustani practitioners use only 12 notes, and avoid the usage of complex shruti, which is fairly good way of diluting the Hindustani music. Shruti is more finely defined in dhrupad (in case of Sadharani Geeti particularly), where each note can be divided into seven audible shrutis. Number of notes in this kind of division become 84 within a single octave, which is far beyond any kind of imagination in Western or any other form of music.

While both of them (music systems) arose from different traditions and are harbinger of different philosophies, outlook to life. Yet there is one common bond between them, which is of aesthetics, the worship of beauty.  Wrapped in raptures of ethereal beauty both form of music gives us intense pleasure and complete deep satisfaction of mind and soul. While there is some liberty of self-expression and creativity in striving towards perfection in representing the superstructure of melodies created by a genius, however it is always about praise. In taking a lower pedestal, looking up, praising and thanking the genius for giving us (individuals of limited personality) his great work.  This to me, of Western Classical Music- Us versus Him, this separation is while appreciating the beauty of the work do not touch me.  Too me what touches my soul is an artist with his/her own skill creating variations of melodic flourish and ornamentation all along endeavoring with his/her heart and soul to merge himself/herself to God. In the process inviting us, the audience to join the creative process and drown ourselves in the ecstasies  of music to unite with God. This is the central law of existence, unification of us (the artist, audience, the nature and everybody) with God and not cut ourselves adrift from God. This is fullest of self-expression, from heart to heart, from soul to soul and true beauty. Indian classical music brings this to me and for this only I listen , I enjoy I thrive in the spontaneous feeling .

Leadership : An opinion

There are hundreds of theories and thousands of way to define and redefine concepts associated with leadership. I would approach the topic in a slightly different way. I would say for mankind the concepts associated with leadership is just not necessary but something that we cannot do away with it. It is part of our psyche, embedded in our consciousness, it is what we are. Why is that? It is because human beings realization of time is linear and unidirectional. Only way we can conceive time is that there is a start and an end to time.  While the start we all know is with our birth and the general ending we all know is with our death.  The questions is what happens to the multiple slices of narratives that we live within our life, they all have a ‘start’ as a causal effect of events that we sometimes control and sometimes we don’t. However the ‘end’ of these narratives is what are absolutely out of our control as we do not foresee the future and thus we do not for sure in which direction the things will go. All we can do is chug along with faith in our heart and this is where the idea of leadership comes in. The perception of leadership embodied in a person (whom we call a leader) is the concept of someone who intuitively knows the way in the future and shows the way to a predefined desirable outcome that we can define or understand in the present or past. So a good leader must have futuristic vision and knows how to tie his ideas into real-world success stories that has been conceived in the present.

So the questions how do we know who has that futuristic vision? Is that possible at all?  If one man can predict the future, then why not everybody ? Turns out that nobody knows what will happen in the future. So, then, who is a leader?

Some postulate that leadership depends on one's "blue blood" or genes. Monarchy takes an extreme view of the same idea, and may prop up its assertions against the claims of mere aristocrats by invoking divine sanction. In family owned business, the leader of next generation is the son or daughter of previous generation. In all these cases there is no prediction or special intuition of the future rather an assertion of “defining the future” as one sees it. Like a monarch who claims to have the divine right to define the future of the country in the way he wants it to be and everybody (all the citizens of the country he rules) has to accept (because of divinity claim) and align towards it. This is a claim of the future of the country or the company (inherited from parents), the end state.

Another belief has been that leadership could be nurtured by identifying young people with moral force of character and instincts to lead, and educating them in such a way that those characteristics are further developed. There is that understanding that certain traits need to exist within individuals who can then be identified as leaders. Once again these do not imply that these leaders will have futuristic vision. On the contrary, based on whatever characteristic, they might be able to convince others of what they think should be the future and intellectually compel them to accept that vision. So what they think should be the future or would be the future may not even get realized at all. There is no guarantee.

While we, human beings need leaders but I would argue that leaders are not someone who knows the future in any form. That is simply not possible. Leaders know the present holistically and are someone who can tell us what we should do as a group to achieve the end that we all want, giving us the best possible chance. This do not meant that “the best possible chance” is absolute; it is the leader’s belief in it and requesting the followers to have faith in him. There is no single psychological profile that exists for a leader because the action an individual takes as a leader is entirely dependent on the environment that he is working in. Like for in the business world we know that for a startup firm we need leaders who have large appetite for risk whereas once a firm reaches a stable state (is in the cruise mode) we need level headed personality with a very little tolerance for risk. All the time, essentially what the leaders will be doing is manage the present so that the firm gets “the best possible chance” to reach profitability (as they see it).

Managing the present is, digging deep in the underlying concerns of the group affected by the leadership and in the process discovering what emerges as the most dominant conception. So a leader shares the inherent concerns of the group with greater commitment to the future and the transpiring path towards it. Who is this person? Is somebody who can change their behavior to meet differing circumstances or widen their behavioral range at will, has strong integrity and is completely self-aware, self-regulated, motivated, having enormous empathy towards others. Although a certain degree of analytical and technical skill is a minimum requirement for success, emotional intelligence will be the key attribute as that will act as an enabler for understanding the interests of the group being led, the ability to understand and manage moods and emotions in the self and others. That is why groups generally prefer leaders that do not exceed intelligence prowess of average member by a wide margin, as they fear that high intelligence may be translated to differences in communication, trust, interests and values. Leadership emergence is curvilinear; individuals who are more aware of their personality qualities, including their values and beliefs, and are less biased when processing self-relevant information, are more likely to be accepted as leaders. This is the reason for every group, every situation or group-situation combination there are different type of leaders.  There are no universal traits. Leaders are not born nor are they made but they emerge because of an inherent need of human being (be it an individual or in summarized form of a - group).

Then there are leadership styles, a leader's style of providing direction, implementing plans, and motivating people. It is the result of the beliefs, personality, and experience of the leader. That is a different matter and hovers around autocratic, democratic, laissez-faire, task-oriented, and relationship-oriented. It is the execution of leadership responsibilities.