Diwali Re-interpreted For Leaders

What does Diwali mean to you? I have always been fascinated by the deeper symbolic meanings that are there hidden in our festivals if we just care to look for them. Today, I'm going to share five such ideas that are very closely associated with the Festival of Diwali and how they can be interpreted in the context of Leadership.

The Festival of Lights

On Diwali, we light diyas, we buy strings of lights and decorate our homes so that we welcome prosperity into our lives. Light is symbolic of our inner divine self, the pure essence of who we are.

Leaders can take away two key messages from this.

One is to remind oneself that all of us have that same divine light. When you look at your team, can you acknowledge their light, their divine self? Can you look at them deeper than the role they play in your team or their personality and flaws?

If a leader is able to see we all have the same Divine Light, then it becomes easier to drop your biases and the lens through which you look at different people differently. There is a chance for deeper bonding with each of the team members at a core human level. Such connections are full of respect for the inherent value of each being and lead to greater engagement.

Secondly, leaders need to connect to their own inner light first, to be able to see the inner light in others. This calls for forming a deeper connection with self, inquiring into your own true nature, conditioning, habits and being able to see THE SELF that is beyond the worldly interpretation of personality.