By Akrura dasa
What is coaching?
Coaching is one-to-one assistance that helps people clarify their priorities and use their qualities and skills to succeed in their chosen areas. Coaching for ISKCON leaders, in particular, assists them in ways that honour their individuality, at the same time considering their service to ISKCON.
As ISKCON has grown over the past forty years, the need for first-class spiritual leaders has become obvious. Apart from spiritual training through the morning program, scriptural study and senior guidance, there seems to be a need for learning skills such as inspiring and energizing devotees, respect for devotees from diverse backgrounds, and adapting to rapid change. Some leaders take time to upgrade their leadership skills, whether through ISKCON or professional sources. Although this is valuable, regular systematic coaching can help them to be even more effective, as well as immensely benefit their temples, projects and zones.
Coaching ISKCON leaders:
– Helps them more clearly recognise their strengths and challenges.
– Enables them to choose wisely how to react to events.
– Improves their self-discipline and communication and relationship skills.
– Integrates their personal well-being and spiritual development with ISKCONâs missionary goals.
– Reduces destructive and self-destructive behaviours, enhances teamwork, aligns individuals to collective goals, facilitates training new leaders, and supports ISKCONâs continuing improvement.
– Enables them release other devotees’ full potential.
– Helps attract intelligent people to Krsna consciousness.
I believe that coaching ISKCON leaders will help them succeed both short- term and long-term; it will help fulfil Srila Prabhupadaâs desire to have first-class devotees who will lead the global community to a bright Krishna conscious future.
Akrura dasa (Akrura@pamho.net) Bhaktivedanta Coaching ISKCON Soho
pardon me for the intromission but to my judgement you are trying to install ISKCON as a religion complete. Did all our great and true leaders like Jayananda, Vishnujan and many unknown others to date need to get “coaching”?
True humility, dedication and personalism will not come as a result of your “education” programs but by the sincerity of purpose of the devotees ready to do it.
Oh my God, would tis be a new Roman catholic but without the money and power? Tragicomic.
with all respect,
Does not the guru coach ?
ys mvdas
re: Coaching for Iskcon Leaders
Wonderfull atricle Prabhu.I would like to suggest we first have a system to determine
who is eligble for such coaching activities,the local GBC member should be able to make that determination,if the GBC member requires coaching,then the local
administrators and congregation need somewhere to turn,likely the regional or
national leadership administrators.
Some comments on the issue of Leadership:
We should be, at least, thankful that Akrura prabhu is trying to make a contribution for the betterment of ISKCON managers. We shouldnât discourage with our comments.
It is obvious that ISKCON is experiencing a crisis in leadership; only people with short-sightedness wouldnât see that. That lack of leadership has created havoc in many fronts (family, marriages, abuse of children, defalcation, embezzlement, etc.)
In regards to Kubricâs comments, I can add the following: No one can âcopycatâ Jayananda, Vishnajana or anybody else. In leadership you learn from their experience; thatâs obvious. Yet, their experience is not everything that there is about leadership. Moreover, they were good at leading âin their own field.â There are countless other fields in which they didnât provide examples of their leading, not because they were inept, but owing to the fact that they didnât face the challenges we are facing today. So, leadership knowledge must be adapted to the changing conditions in which ISKCON managers find themselves.
Mr. Kubrick also makes the absolute statement that âtrue humility, dedication and personalism will not come as a result of your education programs.â First of all, what kind of authority do you hold that enables you make âabsolute statementsâ? Although we grant you that humility, dedication and personalism are integral parts of effective leaders, and we also grant you that those qualities may arise from sincerity of purpose, we still have seen, in the real world, that the very same qualities are present in people (leaders) who do not even profess Vaishnavism at all.
I have seen many devotees mess up their devotional services (temples presidents and other managers) not so much because they werenât sincere; but rather because they were untrained, âuneducated.â In fact, in my 3 decades in ISKCON, working with GBCs, gurus, regional secretaries, TPs, I have concluded that most of them are not bad people or bad devotees; they are simply bad managers, ineffective and inefficient leaders.
Seeing this lack of leadership direction and training, I myself have written on this very important topic. Most of my articles were published in the old Chakra website.
At any rate, letâs hope that what Akrura has to offer will contribute to the betterment of ISKCON leadership.
Hare Krishna. Yugala Kishor dasa.
Dear Yugala Kishor dasa,
My experience regarding temple management (I started a temple from scratch in the 80´s) is that it is the simplest thing for the simple that follow strictly the basic instructions of Srila Prabhupada and do not revolve on them looping the loop, as your goodself is trying to do.
The sincerity of purpose is mainly attained by praying every day sincerely that you are a servant of the less capacitated or new devotees at your charge. You do not need to be a supermanager.
Now, you say “Vishnujana, etc they were good at leading âin their own field.â There are countless other fields in which they didnât provide examples of their leading”
Could you please provide me ONE important field in KC that you can think of they wouldnt be good at leading?
And are not “their fields” “our fields”?
I think your words are offensive to these great souls, while trying to protect the current “status quo”.
And if you look attentively, Srila Prabhupada did not want corporation leaders, just purity and spreading of KC and the is the most simplest thing to do.
Now, if you want to follow suit with the corporation style then, yes, you need coachers, material business plans and probably soon satellites to control the ISKCON population.
By your words, you are assuming that to be an ISKCON leader material expertise is as important as spiritual maturity, or that spiritual maturity is not the most important for that matter.
Now, my question is who is gonna coach the GBC, TP, etc? The have to be more mature and advanced devotees. Then let them fill the posts and we will gain precious time.
Just trying to protect “senior” devotees that failed for many years to manage to the minimum level of acceptance.. now the excuse is they need “coaching”. Come on. You and people like you just perpetuate the mess.
Time will tell if am not right. Lets hope that ISKCON do not completely downslide to a perfect material religion with coachers and all inventions in place. Time will tell if your concoctions breed any good for our society at all.
with respect
PS: regarding “what kind of authority I hold that enables me make âabsolute statements” I would beg you to hear what it is been said not who is saying it.
Dear Mr. Kubrick,
Hare Krishna! Here is my response:
I am not advocating a corporate style of management for ISKCON, simply because most ISKCON members (it seems, including your good self) donât have a clue of what that is, or what does it entail. Our ISKCON organization is light-years away from being managed as a regular corporation.
Following Srila Prabhupadaâs basic instructions on how to run a temple ARE NOT to be superseded by, what you call, corporate style of leadership. What Prabhupada gave us stands paramount. His teachings remain the sine-qua-non of guidelines or fundamentals that we canât disregard.
Taking help of outside in running ISKCON is not something new. Srila Prabhupada himself did it. Just look or consider what SP did when he established the BBT. He acquired machinery and equipment, purchased trucks to deliver the books, sent devotees to learn the required skills to use this equipment, and get appropriate driver licenses for drive the trucks (not so easy as we might think). In fact, there is an instance when he stated that ISKCON managers would do a better job if they learn how to run it from the Catholic Christians; they have been running their organization for over 1500 years. (Now donât go into another spin here; I was never a Catholic.) Moreover, SP always said that we can find gold in a pile of stool. The idea is that we would take the gold and leave the stool.
If you canât understand the leadership issues I raised surrounding Visnujana Swami, then you ought to read his biography (from Prabhupada lilamrita, etc.) In no way did I mean disrespect to them; my words were not written in that manner. I canât figure it out why you conjured such meaningâŚ.
No. I am not trying to protect ISKCONâs status quo. Again, I canât figure it out how you invoked such conclusion in your mind. In fact, I am just the opposite!!!
Your phrase âmaterial business planâ may portray a sentiment of grumpiness about how you look at the world. There is nothing material about the âtechniques of organizational planning.â What makes it material is the purpose for which you do it. If you use these techniques for sense gratification, then it is obviously material. But if you use the âvery same techniquesâ (including organizational leadership techniques) for the purpose of satisfying Vishnu, then it is entirely spiritual. The techniques themselves ARE NOT inherently material, bad or evil; it is we who make it material or spiritual depending upon the intended use.
Again there is no such thing as âmaterial and spiritual expertiseâ as you inferred from my original statements. Just like there is no âmaterial or spiritual money.â Money is money, what makes it material or spiritual is intended use thereof.
I have always said it (and will always say it): ISKCON leaders and managers need to be educated, on top of being experts lecturers on the science of Bhakti. Yes! Why not? Had they been basically educated, they could have avoided untold misery for which now we are all paying (child abuse, break-down of marriage institution, defalcation, embezzlement, etc..) Doing that will enable them to make their service more effective. If they are not willing to do that, then let them retire and chant the Holy Names underneath a holy tree ⌠Thereâs nothing wrong with that.
I am not trying to protect senior devotees from anything. I, for one, have always said that inept managers and leaders (whether GBC, TP, gurus, or whatever) should step aside and let others (with more experience, education, and maturity) do the job. And to be frank, I have seen many of them, and still do. And for raising these issues with local ISKCON members, I have been in trouble, sometimes.
At any rate, donât take this stuff personally. We are here âin the same boat.â We have to try our best to better ISKCON, not by leaving as some devotees have done, but by sincerely and intelligently figure it out options. We should remain faithful to ISKCON mission.
Yours in the service of Srila Prabhupada.
YKD
Wow! So many comments. I’ll also comment as soon as I get time.
ys
Akrura dasa
Yugala Kisora Prabhu
Can you please sedn me your email address to akrura@pamho. net
Thanks.
ys
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Dear Kubrick, Hare Krsna
Could you please send me your email address to akrura@pamho.net
Thanks.
ys
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Dear Devotees
PAMHO AGTSP
There is a new version of this article. Perhaps you would like to read it.
ys