Leadership Profile Of Deepak Chopra

Leadership Profile - Dr. Deepak Chopra

Introduction

Servant-leader and transformational leadership models will be the lens through which this study will examine Dr.Chopra's leadership style. This paper will analyze the leadership effectiveness of Dr.Chopra in his key leadership position as a world renowned medical practitioner in the U.S, and also examine how events throughout his life have ignited his passion to serve as a leader.

Description of the Leader

The leader I've chosen to write about is Dr. Deepak Chopra, popularly acknowledged as one of the world's greatest leaders in the field of alternative medicine and unified consciousness.

It was during the years I worked for a fortune 100 company in the US, that I was drawn to Dr.Chopra's teachings. This period in my life was primarily marked by complete dis-satisfaction at work, as there was a sole demand to find ways to be more productive, to meet or exceed the bottom-line, to the exclusion of everything else.

Being in this pressured environment drew me to critically examine all concepts that I had upheld, and to find out what I actually wanted from life. These questions lead me to one of Deepak's workshops.

At the end of this remarkable lecture, there was a clear sense of the tremendous possibility, to flow with life, without being consumed by thoughts of what each event in life should "be" or "bring". So, this knowledge helped me at that crucial time, to resolve the dilemma of staying in the job, and has subsequently opened up infinite pathways to align with it in my everyday life.

Brief Biographical Details

Deepak Chopra was born in Poona India in 1947. He was the eldest son of Krishan Chopra, a prominent cardiologist. With his father being a doctor, Deepak Chopra was raised in the tradition of Western Medicine.

Dr. Chopra is a board certified physician and has received the Albert Einstein College of Medicine's Einstein Award and is a fellow of the American College of Physicians. He is one of the world's best known healers and alternative medicine advocates and the self-help books he writes is widely read and 10 million copies of his books have been sold in English alone.

Time Magazine (June 1999) calls Dr. Deepak Chopra as one of the top 100 heroes and icons of the century, and credits him as "the poet-prophet of alternative medicine."

Leadership Models Chosen

Servant Leadership model (Robert K Greenleaf):

* Servant leadership becomes apparent in people, whose primary motivation is a deep desire to help others.

* There are 10 characteristics realized as central to the effectiveness of servant-leaders. These are skills in the areas of listening, empathy, healing, awareness, persuasion, conceptualization, foresight, stewardship, building community and commitment to the growth of people.

* The basic governing principles of Servant Leadership are 'To Live', To Love', 'To Learn' & 'To Leave a Legacy'.

* The tests of servant leadership are whether those served grow as people, whether they become wiser and more autonomous during the process, and what the effect is on the least privileged in society.

Transformational Leadership model (Burns):

* Transformational leaders aim to change the status quo1, which is achieved by "appealing to the followers' values and sense of higher purpose, reframing issues to align with the leader's vision and followers' values and operating at a higher level of moral development than their followers".

* Transformational leaders 2 are charismatic, practice inspirational leadership, provide intellectual stimulation and demonstrate individual consideration.

* Per Burns, these behaviors have to take place within a specific value system, as transformational leadership is not simply about change for the sake of change, but that which includes motivating followers by appealing to their end values.

Why these Models?

As can be seen from reading the detailed profile and analysis, Dr. Chopra embodies the key aspects of desiring to serve with an aim to change the status quo, which are the core values sought in the servant-leadership and transformational models respectively.

Detailed Profile

Early Mentors (from Dr.Chopra's autobiography):

My most important mentors were my parents. My father was a very prominent physician and cardiologist. Once a week he would see patients free of charge for charity. And patients would come from all over the country, actually, to see him, on trains and buses. My mother would cook food for them and pay their bus fare and train fare. And my little brother and I would escort the patients in to see my father, who would not only write the prescriptions, but pay for the medicines for them as well. And at the end of the day, my parents would sit with me and explain what had happened during the day. And the moral of the lesson always was that if you want to be happy, then you have to make somebody else happy.

I grew up with this notion that you must always have somebody in your life that you can trust, that you can confide in, that you can seek advice from, and that you can learn skills from. And the best skills come not in school, they come from the people that you're close to, that care about you, that you care about.

At one point in time, I have three, or four, or five people that I am acting as a mentor for. And I listen to them mostly. I listen to what's going on in their life, what's going on with their friendships, in their relationships. To be a mentor you need to understand what's going on in a young person's life and you just want to have an internal dialogue that says, "How can I help? Because I really care."

Early impressions on leadership (from Dr.Chopra's autobiography):

Dr. Chopra indicates that he first appreciated the true power of a leader when he was a boy and Jawaharlal Nehru came to his Indian city. As millions gathered on the streets, the first prime minister of independent India threw a rose from his lapel to Chopra's