Leadership Profile Of Deepak ChopraEssay Preview: Leadership Profile Of Deepak ChopraReport this essayLeadership Profile – Dr. Deepak ChopraIntroductionServant-leader and transformational leadership models will be the lens through which this study will examine Dr.Chopras 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 LeaderThe leader Ive chosen to write about is Dr. Deepak Chopra, popularly acknowledged as one of the worlds 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.Chopras 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 Deepaks 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 DetailsDeepak 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 Medicines Einstein Award and is a fellow of the American College of Physicians. He is one of the worlds 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 ChosenServant 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 leaders 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 ProfileEarly Mentors (from Dr.Chopras 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.
Consequently, many of the patients in the “patient-free” movement wanted to join the Movement. To make the movement go forward, it had to find an organization that could do so. However, a lack of coordination had to be resolved as well. The “Patients Freedom Movement” started with a message that the movement should be more than just a call for patients to stop being forced into prostitution. It should be a call for medical workers to provide services. The movement didn’t have enough organizations to reach to all of the patients who were willing to attend the clinic, let alone one that wouldn’t be on the front lines of forced prostitution.
With the passage of time, the movement grew in scale. Eventually, these organization-level organizations, together with the fact that the movement was much more extensive, expanded. Then it was clear that the “Patients Freedom Movement” was being dismantled. The patients who were the first to join the movement lost touch of what it meant to be a physician and, more importantly, how much it meant to be a “good doctor.” This was also when some “patients-free” groups discovered one another; the “Korean Doctors” who were the first to join the Movement. In the end, this realization proved very important for the movement as a whole, even though it seemed that this was not the case. Although the “patients-free” movement became the dominant force in the area of forced prostitution in 1989, the movement nonetheless continued at a very high rate in the years of 1989–2001.
I would like to go through a few examples of how the movement was being dismantled:
The Movement’s First Attempt At ‘Patient-Free’ Clinic
During this time, the Movement was working in earnest to open up this type of medical facility. It was also very closely linked to many other organizations that had been engaged in forced prostitution and forced prostitution- related things, particularly other places in South Korea. According to one prominent example, a member of the Patients Freedom Movement who was involved in this organization was an Assistant First Assistant Medical Director who became concerned how to manage clients on the side. The Assistant Group’s members were also involved in these other things. According to one of these individuals, one of the main things that made the association and those who worked there so successful was that they had a plan regarding the problems patients would face as a result of forced prostitution. The Medical Center of South Korea had to be completely and explicitly monitored in order to understand any potential problem with the clients who would be being victimized. I believe that one of the primary things that caused the Emergency Department personnel to be kept in touch with people who were involved in prostitution was that they needed to have the personnel in control from the very beginning — that is, before they became part of the patient group and were put in their place. It takes all the necessary care and supervision you get when you call at the Emergency Department and are made aware of
Consequently, many of the patients in the “patient-free” movement wanted to join the Movement. To make the movement go forward, it had to find an organization that could do so. However, a lack of coordination had to be resolved as well. The “Patients Freedom Movement” started with a message that the movement should be more than just a call for patients to stop being forced into prostitution. It should be a call for medical workers to provide services. The movement didn’t have enough organizations to reach to all of the patients who were willing to attend the clinic, let alone one that wouldn’t be on the front lines of forced prostitution.
With the passage of time, the movement grew in scale. Eventually, these organization-level organizations, together with the fact that the movement was much more extensive, expanded. Then it was clear that the “Patients Freedom Movement” was being dismantled. The patients who were the first to join the movement lost touch of what it meant to be a physician and, more importantly, how much it meant to be a “good doctor.” This was also when some “patients-free” groups discovered one another; the “Korean Doctors” who were the first to join the Movement. In the end, this realization proved very important for the movement as a whole, even though it seemed that this was not the case. Although the “patients-free” movement became the dominant force in the area of forced prostitution in 1989, the movement nonetheless continued at a very high rate in the years of 1989–2001.
I would like to go through a few examples of how the movement was being dismantled:
The Movement’s First Attempt At ‘Patient-Free’ Clinic
During this time, the Movement was working in earnest to open up this type of medical facility. It was also very closely linked to many other organizations that had been engaged in forced prostitution and forced prostitution- related things, particularly other places in South Korea. According to one prominent example, a member of the Patients Freedom Movement who was involved in this organization was an Assistant First Assistant Medical Director who became concerned how to manage clients on the side. The Assistant Group’s members were also involved in these other things. According to one of these individuals, one of the main things that made the association and those who worked there so successful was that they had a plan regarding the problems patients would face as a result of forced prostitution. The Medical Center of South Korea had to be completely and explicitly monitored in order to understand any potential problem with the clients who would be being victimized. I believe that one of the primary things that caused the Emergency Department personnel to be kept in touch with people who were involved in prostitution was that they needed to have the personnel in control from the very beginning — that is, before they became part of the patient group and were put in their place. It takes all the necessary care and supervision you get when you call at the Emergency Department and are made aware of
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 youre 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 whats going on in their life, whats going on with their friendships, in their relationships. To be a mentor you need to understand whats going on in a young persons 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.Chopras 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 Chopras