Karaniyametta sutta as a scriptural source for leadership skills development

Abstract

Leadership is known as a particular human quality that helps people to reach their goals. Human beings develop skills to achieve their needs and goals. Such skills can be inborn talent for leadership. However, Leadership skills from early childhood to youth are developed with societal, cultural, educational, and psychological impacts. In Sri Lanka, it seems that most students have less opportunity to develop their leadership skills through leadership programs and activities because of the examination aimed education system. This milieu shows the necessity of leadership development strategies among school students in Sri Lanka. It is possible to formulate the most effective leadership skills that can be implemented for school students in Sri Lanka. The Karaniyametta sutta is recited in majority of Buddhist schools in the morning assembly. This study attempts to identify a collection of leadership skills in the Karaniyametta sutta beneficial for Sri Lankan students. The literature on this discourse shows that the Sutta is applicable to gain benefits for both mundane and super mundane well-being. Not much attention has been paid on discourse as a source for developing leadership skills. The objective of this paper is to interpret the Karaniyamettaa sutta as a source for developing leadership skills and thereby suggest adopting them for students’ understanding of leadership skills. The study also compares the perceived application of the Karaniyametta-sutta as a development process in the students’ mindset. Hermeneutics methods and methodology will be used for the study. The Key source is the Karaniyametta-sutta of Samyutta-nikaya. Qualities such as perseverance, uprightness, self-confidence, working hard with compassion and benevolence until achieving the target will be formulated in terms of leadership skills. The paper will be a contribution to the Buddhist psychology and its concerns on theoretical and pragmatic approaches. In the Buddhist psychological perspective, the Karaniyametta-sutta [“Karaniya metta sutta’’] is known to be a profound discourse that evokes comprehensive awareness of the human mind through positive stimuli. The discourse teaches 13 qualities. For the school students leadership development the following qualities have been identified as key traits that could be associated with effective leadership. They are sakko, uju, Suju, Suvacha, Anathimani, Subharo, Nipako etc. The teachings of the Karaniyametta-suttawas identified as the ultimate source in which leadership skills are explained.