A STUDY OF HOW AN ORGANIZATION CREATES A CLIMATE OF CARING

A Project / Dissertation as a Course requirement for

Master of Business Administration

S. SAI ADITYA
15500

Department of Management and Commerce

Prasanthi Nilayam Campus
December 2016

Om Saayeeshvaraaya Vidhmahe
Sathya Dhevaaya Dheemahi
Thannassarvah Prachodayaath

ii

DEPARTMENT OF MANAGEMENT and COMMERCE

SRI SATHYA SAI INSTITUTE OF HIGHER LEARNING
(Deemed to be University)

PRASANTHI NILAYAM CAMPUS, PRASANTHI NILAYAM 515 134

Anantapur District, Andhra Pradesh, India

CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that this Project titled A Study of how an

Organisation creates a Climate of Caring submitted by S. Sai
Aditya (Regd. No. 15500), Department of Management and
Commerce, Prasanthi Nilayam is a bonafide record of the
original work done under my supervision as a Course
requirement for the Degree of Master of Business
Administration.

..

Prof. Radhakrishnan Nair

Dr. B. Sai Giridhar

(Project Guide)

(Head of the Department)

Place:
Date:
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iv

DECLARATION

The Project titled A Study of how an Organisation creates a Climate

of Caring was carried out by me under the supervision of Prof.
Radhakrishnan Nair, Department of Management and Commerce,
Prasanthi Nilayam as a Course requirement for the Degree of Master
of Business Administration and has not formed the basis for the
award of any degree, diploma or any other such title by this or any
other University.

..
Place:

S. Sai Aditya

Date:

Regd. No. 15500

MBA
Prasanthi Nilayam

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I express my gratitude to my Guru, the One Reality, that has embodied itself in my life as Sri
Satya Sai Baba.
I take this opportunity to thank my guide Prof. Radhakrishnan Nair, whose support and
guidance at all stages of the study have helped me in completing this project.
I am grateful to the authorities of the Institute Computer Centre and the Photocopying
Department for extending their timely help.
I thank all those who helped me directly or indirectly in the completion of this work.

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viii

Table of Contents
1

INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................... 3
1.1

Need and Significance of the Study ........................................................................................ 3

1.2

Scope of the Study .................................................................................................................. 9

LITERATURE REVIEW ..................................................................................................................... 13

THEORITICAL BACKGROUND ......................................................................................................... 21

3.1

3.1.1

What is good leadership ............................................................................................... 21

3.1.2

Yardstick to measure good leadership.......................................................................... 22

3.1.3

Who are good leaders ................................................................................................... 22

3.1.4

Good leadership process............................................................................................... 22

3.1.5

What makes a good leader? ......................................................................................... 23

3.1.6

How does caring begin .................................................................................................. 25

3.2

What constitutes a leader ..................................................................................................... 25

3.3

What leaders really do .......................................................................................................... 26

3.4

Test of leadership.................................................................................................................. 26

3.5

Leadership: Power of Transparency ..................................................................................... 27

3.6

What do employees really want ........................................................................................... 29

3.7

The work of leadership ......................................................................................................... 29

3.8

Leadership: Love and Profit .................................................................................................. 30

METHODOLOGY AND DESIGN OF THE STUDY .............................................................................. 35

4.1

Nature of the Study............................................................................................................... 35

4.2

Objective of the Study .......................................................................................................... 35

4.3

Data Collection ...................................................................................................................... 35

4.3.1

Procedure ...................................................................................................................... 36

4.3.2

Confidentiality ............................................................................................................... 37

4.4
5

Man Management ................................................................................................................ 21

Limitations of the Study ........................................................................................................ 37

DATA ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION ........................................................................................ 41

5.1

Self-Concept .......................................................................................................................... 41

5.2

Inclusiveness ......................................................................................................................... 42

5.2.1

Caring perspective ........................................................................................................ 42

5.2.2

How to create this culture?........................................................................................... 43

5.3

Open-mindedness ................................................................................................................. 44

5.3.1

Caring perspective ........................................................................................................ 44

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5.3.2
5.4

Relational Management........................................................................................................ 47

5.4.1
5.5

How to build this culture? ............................................................................................. 44

How to build Relational Management .......................................................................... 48

Performance Appraisal ......................................................................................................... 48

5.5.1

Caring Perspective......................................................................................................... 49

5.5.2

How to build this? ......................................................................................................... 49

5.6

Decision Making .................................................................................................................... 50

5.6.1

How to build it............................................................................................................... 52

5.7

Redefining Caring Leadership ............................................................................................... 53

5.8

Caring Leadership process .................................................................................................... 55

5.8.1

Levels of truth ............................................................................................................... 57

5.8.2

Self-Esteem ................................................................................................................... 58

5.8.3

Levels of open-mindedness and inclusiveness ............................................................. 59

5.8.4

Behaviour that enhances good relations ...................................................................... 61

5.8.5

Caring Leader behaviour ............................................................................................... 61

5.8.6

Workforce relationship ................................................................................................. 62

5.8.7

Resolving issues............................................................................................................. 63

5.8.8

Organisational atmosphere .......................................................................................... 64

SUMMARY CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS ............................................................................ 67

BIBLIOGRAPHY .............................................................................................................................. 71

List of Figures
Figure 5-1Caring Leadership process .................................................................................................... 55
Figure 5-2Caring Leadership: Linking Individual, Relationships and Organisation ............................... 55

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Abstract

Caring is the central element of human relationships which goes beyond certain behavioural
patterns, actions, feelings and emotions. It is a way of life that motivates an individuals
personal and professional actions to help them grow and develop in their own right. It must
occupy the central place in the norms and expectations of the professional role and must be
reflected in their actions, development and evaluation. Caring is embedded with virtues like
empathy, compassion, kindness, forgiveness, respect and creates a need to be competent in
action and interactive with others in terms of their needs, concerns and happiness. This creates
a sense of belongingness and trust in the work culture which enhances ones self-esteem, selfconcept and self-confidence. Leadership that cultivates this caring atmosphere in organisations
is defined as caring leadership. Caring leadership affirms the uniqueness and importance of
every individual working in the organisation. The impact of this kind of leadership makes an
individual go beyond the imaginary boundaries existing between the employees, managers and
leaders to develop a greater sense of experience, enthusiasm and engagement. Caring
leadership imparts a culture where everyone is encouraged to talk his opinions and feelings,
everyone wants to come to work, wants to work hard and produce quality results, everyone
takes responsibility for their life. This is done by putting people first, giving importance to their
feelings and voice, appreciating and empowering them to grow.

The caring leadership perspective aims at helping individuals increase their self-awareness,
self-confidence and self-esteem and realize their full potential, both individually as well as part
of the organisation. If the individual is willing to open himself to his feelings, ideas,
experiences, he will be part of creating a culture where the following things can happen:
1. Everyone tells the truth.
2. Everyone takes full responsibility for his actions and feelings.
3. Everyone will operate at their fullest and express themselves to create a culture that
stimulates everyones contribution.

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The fundamental principles that lie behind a caring culture are the following:
1. Self is the core of human conditioning.
2. Self-awareness is the first step in solving organisational and leadership problems.
3. Deeper levels of self-awareness lead to self-efficacy and self-esteem.
4. Self-confidence and self-esteem leads to open-mindedness and honesty among the
people.

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Preface

This is Project that I undertook because of my passion for my learnings from Bhagwan Sri
Satya Sai Baba. I strongly believe that we have reached a turning point in Human Existence
when we must re-examine our assumptions and bring back the simplicity of life that will enable
the human race to live in harmony. Although the Corporate world has limited significance in
human existence, it is important that as a community that influences what happens in society,
we must ensure that this body plays its role in enabling Harmony in the World.
The purpose of this study is to contribute to the development of more caring organisations. It
is my desire that advancements in understanding the human caring will match our
advancements in science and technology. When we realize the power of truth and selflessness,
recognize our full potential to determine our lives and overcome the fear to look openly and
truthfully upon ourselves, we can attain a caring atmosphere where there is fulfilment and
satisfaction with respect to relationships, organisations and most important of all as Human
Beings.

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CHAPTER ONE:
INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Need and Significance of the Study

In the modern times, corporate leaders are in the business of managing technology, information
and relationships. It is their fundamental responsibility to provide situation based leadership,
inspire, motivate, energise to deliver results by adopting contemporary leadership styles with
respect to the changing times. The leadership values must be defined and refined in such a way
that when changes happen which is the reality, leaders must be grounded in the core principles
of what matters most to them. Certain fundamental principles that high performing
organisations follow are fairness, treating each other with respect when it comes to team work
or accepting limitations, being truthful, honesty and integrity. They always embrace a
challenge, work hard, and engage their teammates by helping them meeting a need and give
credit to those who deserve. In a world where there are many competing priorities with respect
to individual recognition and achievement, learning, value of work, achieving various
objectives and rapid pace of technological revolution, corporate leaders are faced with several
challenges in managing the work forces of an organisation. For example, with the advancement
in science and technology, members of an organisation become so isolated and segregated that
they do not even have time to share something with others. Organisations must ensure that
technology does not impede the growth of relationships at workplace. The differentiating factor
that separates a competent leader who tends to be technically sound, intelligent, determined
and has good analytical and cognitive skills to that of a good leader is the ability to energize
the employees and help them stay committed towards a shared vision by creating a trusting
environment. According to Daniel Goleman, the essential feature that separates a competent
leader to that of a good one is Emotional Intelligence. It involves understanding the needs of
the employees and motivating them.
Most of the universities and business organisations exercise various leadership programs on
bringing out financial success rather than how it would impact the lives of people. An
unconventional way of thinking is required in organisations that is used to conventional
thinking focusing on management, science & technology, market analysis, innovative
techniques and measurements like profit maximisation, cost cutting techniques. Most
Organizations cannot recognise like Care and the value it can provide. How do you measure
3

care? How many people working in several organisations consider work as joyful and an
essential part of life? How many people who enjoy a happy family life find work as an
extension of their family? Most of the people spend their waking lives at work place where
they experience stress, fear, criticisms, and internal politics. It is up to the Leaders to ensure
that the organisational culture is devoid of these things and focus upon creating a healthy
atmosphere where work is fun. This happens when the leadership principles are well defined,
systematic and sustained for a long period of time. High performing organisations define fun
as meeting various challenges, getting inspired by value driven goals, getting insights and most
important of all they like winning. Research has shown that winning contributes to the
behavioural change, positive attitude and satisfaction of the employees. What is missing in
todays business organisations is that leaders do not have the necessary skills to create an
atmosphere where natural skills are surfaced out from employees. They do not allow
individuals to express their skills and talents fully. Leaders must ensure that values driven goals
are communicated effectively to employees so that they get inspired. Leadership is not about
identifying perfect people but creating the right culture where people can get the opportunity
to unleash their hidden talents.
It is believed that the most powerful energy in this universe is Selfless love. In an organisational
context this becomes visible as Caring Leadership. Caring leadership is all about allowing
employees to express their uniqueness and bring out a transformational change in businesses
by bringing out the best in people. Every employee dreams to see himself/herself getting an
opportunity to discover, enrich and share their talents and get recognition for leading a
meaningful life. Every employee looks for a culture where he/she can get the opportunity to
empower in their roles. This entrusts the leaders to create the right culture and take up the
responsibility as stewards in inspiring and guiding the employees for achieving greater good
than to exercise power and control to increase the productivity of the company. Businesses
must rewrite the script by taking up the responsibility by unleashing greater hidden potentials
in individuals and gifting Human Leaders to the world. What is missing in todays world of
business is genuine care for others. Many businesses around the world restrict caring to certain
limitations and boundaries of viewing people as a function of achieving something rather than
really expressing care for care itself. People and products are like two wings of any business
organisation and proper balance is achieved by investing in the lives of the people through
caring.

Jim Womack, author of The Machine that Changed the World makes a paradoxical statement
that despite great technological advancements and innovations, the world has not really
changed. Even though most of the companies around the world adopted Toyotas Continuous
Improvement and Lean methodology, why is it that nothing has changed? Most of the time
employees think that waste elimination is a waste of time and finally consider themselves as a
part of waste. This is where the Power of Caring comes in. Caring leadership ensures that the
focus is on people rather than on processes. Focus on only those who are hungry for unleashing
their hidden talents. For this to succeed leadership foundation is based on the belief that focus
should be on the people, because it is people who create and follow processes. Business
organisations must implement responsible freedom into their culture by empowering them to
take charge and responsibility of their lives in creating their own future and shaping around the
legacy of business. There are two parts in responsible freedom, where freedom depicts the
transfer of ownership and responsibility which ensures whether choices have been exercised
with care or not. It is this responsible freedom that drives satisfaction at work place. There are
three aspects regarding responsible freedom. They are: willingly taking an action towards a
shared vision, sharing ones talents with others and accountability. In creating a responsible
freedom, good leaders focus on an inspiring vision and on building a caring environment by
giving autonomy, mastery and a sense of purpose to the employees. Businesses must focus on
giving freedom to innovate and experiment their knowledge rather than offering freedom from
stress, oppression and other burdens. Relieving the employees from pain and suffering do not
provide an opportunity to express themselves. How many people working in various business
organisations view themselves as innovators? Leaders must ensure that each and every member
of an organisation is valued towards a shared vision and must clarify their roles as innovators.
Responsible freedom comes from trust. How do organisations ensure that there is trust? Real
issues that businesses are facing today is something beyond numbers like Whom can I trust?
When there are multiple platforms of growth and expansion in todays world, the biggest
challenge corporate leaders face is keeping their feet on the ground and make a decisive
judgement on whom to trust. This is especially in the case when M&A deals take place and the
biggest impediment employees face is trust and confidence. Also, there are many live
examples showcasing mistrust between bankers and business organisations particularly when
the business is down. Therefore, there is a need for leaders to inculcate a decisive leadership
style of decision making when faced with several challenges and opportunities in this rapid
changing environmental conditions. According to Gallup data survey, only 29% of the
employees are committed and energised at workplace by doing more than what is expected of
5

them. Although leaders are faced with this tough challenge on increasing the number of
employees within the above category, the prime focus is on how best to achieve it.
Effective communication perpetual across all levels of an organisation guarantees trust. What
does this mean? Leadership is a conversation. HBS has surveyed around 100 top companies
and emphasized on the need for Organisational Conversations which installs trust among
employees. This begins with the art of listening which encourages bottom-up conversations
rather than top-down. It brings in the importance of having emotional proximity than physical
proximity which leads to employee engagement and alignment in todays network structures.
Communication is also very important especially when it comes to rewards and recognition.
There are many people working behind the scenes towards a common success that people are
not aware of. Effective communication channels must be installed in an organisation to create
a caring environment where the leader must reward and recognise exemplary behaviours,
positive outputs, achievements and innovation. Thus, Caring leadership acts as a gateway and
as a tool towards achieving this success. Humanising the process by allowing people to take
ownership of the process is one of the key essentials of Caring Leadership. Businesses must
understand that technology, resources and systems are there for uplifting human potentials and
not the other way around. They are here to serve the people. Coming back to implementing
Lean methodology that Jim Womack talks about, businesses must reorient themselves by
focussing on the people to remove barriers that obstruct them in reaching their true potential
and realize the company vision through continuous improvement thereby leading to the value
addition for customers. A caring culture automatically drives business performance and its
purpose by focussing on people.
According to Gallup data survey (2011) conducted on 3100 employees across various
businesses ranging from financial institutions to automotive industries, certain definite patterns
of leading, inspiring and motivating people which guide to the guiding principles of caring
leadership have emerged. They are: building trust, bringing the best out of people, providing
meaningful roles and challenges. They identified that fairness, positive & insightful
communication along with measurable standards with respect to achieving vision installs
mutual trust in employees and leaders. Research has shown that a shared vision plays a crucial
role in transforming any organisation which is process-centric or customer-centric into a caring
organisation. How? Most of the people understand the vision statement but do not know what
to do and how to do. Most of these people fall under the category where they report to front

line managers who they themselves do not know how to communicate. This is where the ripple
effect of caring from top management influences in communicating a shared vision by
constantly educating them to be the person who they really are, knowing what to do and taking
action. A clear vision must highlight and communicate the main purpose of organisation
existence and give direction to employees future. The visioning process must involve engaging
the employees in a shared vision and giving them freedom to support that vision responsibly.
This is achieved by driving the right behaviour in the organisation and creating transparency
through proper communication channels. Once again this aspect clearly shows why leadership
conversation is so important. A caring business vision is achieved through a cultural visioning
process where care is installed so that business growth and individual growth complement each
other. Caring organisations measure success by the impact an action fosters inspiration and
achievement on an individual and in turn on their family.
People do not leave companies, they leave supervisors and managers. Gallup findings tell us
that employees always expect a lot more from their managers, something beyond engagement.
What is that? Many studies have also shown that most of the employees relate to negative
experiences when asked about their managers. Why is that? How can a caring culture address
this issue? According to Gallup data poll survey, most of the workers have positive attitude
towards work but only one third of them really love their work. In 2001, Gallup interviewed
several thousands of employees across various business organisations and found that only 32%
of the employees really loved their jobs in terms of how fully satisfied they were. They found
59% of the employees contributed towards liking their jobs as a measure of somewhat satisfied.
While they were analysing the data, they found that income was the main contributing factor
towards loving a job. Recently, when they did the same survey, they found that income
contributed to only 6% towards job satisfaction. They realized that people are looking for nontangible aspects of work for satisfaction at workplace. They recognised that workplace relations
contributed to 13%, value of work contributed to 13%, challenging job (8%), autonomy (8%),
technology and innovation (15%). What difference does love make? To test this aspect, Gallup
asked the employees as to what would they have done if they had won a lottery of 100million
dollars. 61% of employees who said that they loved their jobs responded saying that they would
quit their jobs. 21% of the employees said that would find new jobs and only 18% of them
responded that they would stick to their current jobs. When asked as to why they would remain
in their current positions, their responses linked to the key word Caring Culture. A culture
that enables them to unleash their true potential. A culture where caring helps them to grow. It
7

is very important for an organisation to create these kind of quality work circles to make people
experience care and help them to grow.
Research has shown that employees who experience love always perform better at workplace.
Love is something that we dont often hear in business organisations but it plays a dominant
role at workplace. Love in the sense, compassionate love based on affection and connection.
Very few managers focus on building a caring culture which has a predominant effect on
organisational performance. If only they knew the power of caring? It is not just about profit
maximisation or increasing performance but about touching the human cord and the impact it
has on the lives of the people to help them realise their hidden potentials. When an
organisations cultural vision is aligned towards creating a caring culture and investing in
peoples growth then people will ensure that your business sustains for the next 100 years. Who
is practicing caring culture? A whole food market industry is already setting up the principles
of caring which will reinforce workplace relationships. Companies like PepsiCo and Zippos
went through a radical shift in their mind-sets in setting up an emotional culture rather than
cognitive culture. They have designed a blueprint aligning company policies and practices
towards fostering caring at their workplace.
The Great Place to Work Institute created a caring environment by imbibing trust amongst their
employees in terms of making them perceive that their managers are credible, follow through
the promises given and respecting them. SAS Institute also developed trust building model to
create a caring environment by identifying that their employees respond better to intrinsic
reward than extrinsic reward. They rewarded their employees by organising professional
programs where they can enhance their technical skills by taking up more challenging jobs and
stimulate growth. They designed their work culture to remove barriers and distractions so that
employees can focus on their jobs. Recreational Equipment Incorporation (REI) also
implemented a culture similar to SAS where employees have open discussions with senior
leaders for enhancing the performance of the company.
According to Gallup data survey, managers are the key determinants in driving a high
performance engaging workplace. It recorded that 70% of the variance in employee
engagement is driven by the influence of managers actions and behaviour. Even in such
scenarios it is wrong to blame the managers every time for disengagement if the employees do
not take ownership of their tasks. Leaders must channelize their energies in a positive direction
and delegate the art of responsibility over authority. In a study of 190 organisations, Gallup

found out that when leaders are highly engaged, managers are 39% more likely to engage and
in turn employees are 59% more likely to engage. Therefore, leadership plays an important role
in employee engagement.

1.2 Scope of the Study

1. To understand the human elements and its implications that are involved in creating a
climate of caring in an organisation.
2. To understand the importance and the impact caring has on the evolution of an
organisation.
3. Are businesses different to real life world when it comes to the concept of caring.
4. Building a culture where workers caring and humanness is promoted by broadening the
mind-sets of managers while dealing with their subordinates.

CHAPTER TWO:
LITERATURE REVIEW

LITERATURE REVIEW

Much of the literature on caring has been featuring predominantly into the organisational life
where culture competencies are rooted in with Positive Organisational Scholarship (Gardner,
2005), organisational commitment (Lilius, 2012), containment of work anxiety (Khan, 2001),
workplace self-esteem (McAllister, 2002), organisational performance (Cameron, 2003) and
productivity (Kroth, 2009).
A lot of studies align caring visible as a response to pain or suffering (Lawrence, 2012). This
study focuses on certain events ranging from individual experiences to large scale events and
how organisational conditions like culture and processes trigger a caring reaction. Much
emphasis is given on the dynamic relationships existing between the stakeholders which is the
central ethic of caring rather than on the theme of pain or suffering. This study identifies the
need for using this ethic of caring resulting from certain moral development processes not just
as a social practice (Tronto, 1993) but as an organisational practice, to get embedded in the
culture of an organisation.
Basically, followers have certain fantasies about their leaders when it comes to caring. They
are prepared to endure hardships and leaders harshness in return for the need of protection
(Gabriel, 1997). In spite of creating a space for caring for shaping individuals work identity
and to aspire to become leaders (Nyberg, 2013), research has shown that caring leadership has
been functionalistic and managerial instead of being humanising (Tourish, 2013). This is
mainly due to a number of gaps still existing irrespective of many studies done on working
relationships (Cooper, 2005) (Cunliffe, 2011), caring as a practice (Zundel, 2012) (Segal,
2010), caring as an ethic (Cunliffe, 2009) (Gabriel, 2009), as an identity regulation (Alvesson,
2005) (Collinson, 2011). Research has shown that there is a need to address organisational care
based on the philosophical ground rather than on the theories of management and commerce
(Kroth, 2009) to close this gap.
The caring leadership model intersects with the philosophically well informed discussions and
experiences across various organisations where the concepts of successful leadership can be
highlighted (Algera, 2012) (Lawler, 2012) (Nyberg, 2013). This philosophical approach allows
organisations to loosen the boundaries of caring leadership and provide rather more
experiential kind of a caring environment. Many studies have been done and most of them are
curious enough to know as to what happens to leadership if there is no standard functional

13

blueprint. Are businesses so mundane that they cannot make any ethical choices without a
reference manual? (Holt, 2013).
Martin Heidegger model of caring leadership brings in a lot of philosophically inspired
discussions and live experiences of how organisations must create a caring culture. Heideggers
approach includes most of the informal practical experiences of how caring is experienced in
organisations (Galvin, 2005), (Tomkins, 2013a) as well as professional caring methodologies
adopted by several health care centres (Benner, 2000), (Paley, 2000). Even though Heidegger
caring perspective coincides with many issues of socialism and difficulty in understanding,
many have implemented this model in several areas like discussions of ethics in leadership
practices (Oliver, 2011),morality (Reedy, 2011)and management learning (Zundel, 2012).
The study follows a pattern on how care manifests in day to day work life by exploring the
concept of leadership as an intervention and second, exploring care in a very non thematic way
of engagement and behavioural patterns so that the culture is experienced as a caring
environment. Recent studies have shown that differentiating a leader and a follower is not a
healthy practice because every member in an organisation whether he is a CEO or a manager
or a front-line employee ends up on the giving as well as on the receiving end. A more
professional word to use for a follower is perhaps Care-Recipient.
Heidegger caring model differentiates the rest of the studies done on how to make a positive
impact on the lives of the people working in organisations not by just emphasizing on the
response to a suffering or pain or any unusual event but by making care visible as a response
to extraordinary events that takes place at work place. This principle separates caring leadership
something that is different to everyday organisational practices and behaviour. Heidegger
caring model focuses upon the fundamental aspect of what is called the Human Element. This
model further emphasizes that caring leadership is foundation for driving employee
engagement, employee well-being and employee satisfaction. It brings two concepts into
consideration. One is concern for others which typically coveys the level of engagement and
second, solicitude which addresses the impact of caring on people.

Leaping-in is a kind of caring intervention which involves a leader putting himself in the shoes
of another person who is faced by a problem or a difficult situation where he takes the
responsibility to address the solution and direct its resolution.

14

Leaping-ahead involves a leader encouraging the care-recipient towards a wide range of future
possibilities and expectations. Unlike leaping-in, this further opens an individual to various
options available.
Heidegger model proposes that everyday organisational events take place between these two
extremes. Although both these aspects have their own merits and demerits, Heidegger caring
approach suggests viewing each one through the prism of the other and uses the concept of
multiplicity to address the limitations these two aspects are facing.
Caring Leadership as leaping-in comes as a welcome relief to the care recipient where we can
call it as a constructive caring experience. This is more related towards controlling (Chia,
2014)which happens in every day-day activities and involves a strong sense of leadership. This
kind of caring must be handled very sensitively and must create a sense of relief and regrouping
back in the situation to the care-recipient. Leaders must be very careful and must not signal
domination and create vulnerabilities or irrelevance. This kind of caring leadership must ensure
providing an optimal space to the care recipients. Some studies propose leadership space as
distance (Collinson, 2005) and few others emphasize on the difference it cultivates (Grint,
2010). Leaping-In caring leadership model takes into consideration only the present and side
steps the elements of the past and future which creates a void in handling various work forces
and missing the big picture. These actions will reinforce leaders to behave what it seems to be
natural and automatic in missing the essential elements of a business vision. Therefore, caring
leadership model must fall under the intersection of discussing leadership as being present
(Ciulla, 2009)and having presence of mind (Fairhurst, 2009). When does leaping-in considered
as caring? Only when it moves beyond the displacement of restoring the credibility back to the
care-recipient, it is experienced as care. The problems of leaping are counter-balanced only
when a rich sense of the overall context which includes history and other aspects are taken into
consideration, otherwise it will remain just like giving instructions (Glendinning, n.d.). Carerecipients do not like to be controlled and even though traditional management practices
consider controlling as a powerful lever (Bourgeois, 1988), it is not a healthy practice to be
followed in a caring culture. Heidegger caring model proposes that control can be problematic
in creating resistance which obstructs the natural flow of workmanship. As a replacement to
control, many theoretical models and practices have emerged in driving businesses which bring
out the philosophical perspective of doing businesses (Chia, 2009) (Langley, 2010), complexity
theories (Stacey, 2012), communication aspects (Habermas, 1990) and relational leadership
models (Hosking, 1995) (Uhl-Bein, 2006).
15

Caring Leadership as Leaping-Ahead is another manifestation of care in Heidegger caring

model. This aspect has a greater opening to meaning compared to leaping-in with respect to
three main concepts. One is, autonomy which talks of providing intersubjective space to the
care-recipients, second is, anticipation which talks of taking future into consideration and
finally, advocacy which reflects standing up for an ideal transformation (Tomkins, 2013a). To
describe leaping-ahead in one word, it is nothing but Empowerment which is the key element
of leadership principles and a substitute to controlling leadership (Ciulla, 2004). Leaping-ahead
is very similar to transformational leadership which empowers the care-recipients by aligning
organisational goals to individual goals (Burns, 1979) (Bass, 1985), (Bass, n.d.), as well as
inspiring and motivating through a shared vision (Conger, 1989). Heidegger perspective of
caring relates leaping-in to transactional type of leadership which addresses the immediate
needs and leaping-out to transformational type of leadership which reaches beyond the present
and opens up to several ways forward. A clear distinction is drawn between the two and
Heidegger addresses a number of leadership problems regarding this. For example, consider a
situation where in an organisation dealing with technical problems as well as adaptive
challenges. Such situations demand an even more hybrid way of caring leadership (Heifetz,
2009). Sometimes Leaping-ahead risks the loss of presence of mind in terms of missing other
leading and behavioural practices because it desires a democratic form of organisational
relationship. Therefore, between leaping-in which leaves the care-recipient with little space
and leaping-out which might involve too much of space, Heidegger proposes what is called as
Care Continuum. A full range leadership where leaders can switch between transactional and
transformational leadership depending on the needs of the situation which is tied to many
factors that are involved in a working environment. This is what multiplicity tries to explain, a
caring continuum experience (Bass, 2006). Heidegger suggests that a single version of caring
leadership model can be problematic and lack sensitivity in missing the subtle elements of
caring.
Recent studies on caring leadership suggest that an idealised version of best practices must be
implemented with care and caution otherwise it might lead to problems (Ford, 2007). This is
the reason why caring leadership prefers more of an authentic type of leadership where
distractions and diversions can be avoided by creating transparency trough openness
(Walumbwa, 2008). Heidegger terms this as the philosophically informed approach of
leadership. The main element of this approach is that it should not position the employees in a
situation of giving instructions and imposing control (Glendinning, n.d.). Heidegger proposes
16

that caring must produce more than what we call as kindness, niceness, compassion and
harmony. Heidegger caring leadership model is more concrete in the sense of intervention and
less concrete in terms of resistance which involves accepting limitations and embracing. This
caring leadership model intersects with the leadership principle of way finding rather than
navigation (Chia, 2009) which involves unfolding of oneself as they experience it. This is pretty
similar to reflecting upon ones self-image while working (Case, 2003) (Smythe, 2007). Caring
leadership ensures that managers equip their intellect with the principle of care (Holt,
2013)which is the most fundamental principle for creating engagement at workplace and
opening other aspects of human experience and existence (Zundel, 2012) .
The world is not in our control which is full of changes and uncertainty. Heidegger caring
leadership calls for the need of having control over oneself and presence in the world (Ciulla,
2009) than on other people and events. Generally, organisations adopt people from outside
rather than inside for generating ideas and solutions (Ford, 2010) because most of the times
they are clouded by their challenges and criticisms. This creates a need for having a caring
culture in every organisation which imparts social influence (Alvesson, 2012) by capturing the
interpersonal experiences and influences.
Mayeroffs caring provided an entry into the intricacies of caring. He offers a clear statement
of carings purpose that to care for another person, in the most significance sense, is to help
him grow and actualize himself. Caring as a facilitation of growth requires devotion to others.
When devotion breaks down, caring breaks down. Even though the purpose of helping others
is complicated by issues of processes and controls, he remains clear that caring is never about
imposing domination or positioning with implications for principles. Caring gives meaning and
a purpose to an individual. He insists that caring must be rooted in individuals distinctive
power. Only when caring emerges from whom we really are can caring relationships centre
around in the organisations.

Gilligan caring examines care as a value and an ethical orientation. Gilligan characterises this
typically on the importance of different truths, empowering the self and the attachment that
creates and sustains human community. Caring implies flexibility and certain nonconformity
to arbitrary rules which imparts the climate of caring in organisations.

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CHAPTER THREE:
THEORITICAL BACKGROUND

THEORITICAL BACKGROUND

3.1 Man Management

In any organisation, a leader is needed to guide the people. There are thousands of individuals
working in several organisations taking on the role and responsibilities of leadership. The
purpose of this study is to present a new paradigm of leadership which is holistic and practical
for the future tomorrow. Every individual has the power to transform himself and therefore
leadership is the ability to identify this potential in an individual for shaping his positive selfconcept. For doing this, the most important element that one should have is character which is
the most challenging human element that one should understand.
Many leadership lessons can be taken from ancient history which depicts the majesty of
leadership. Mahabharata and Ramayana highlight character as the most important quality that
a leader should have. A person with character and selflessness is the beginning step of good
leadership. A good leader must be humble, righteous, open, self-restraint and have his passions
under control. Passion for what? Passion for recognition, passion for money, passion for fame,
passion for luxuries, passion for positions which puts his self-interest above everything else.
That is why it important that every leader must be aware of his psychological elements which
will make him understand the importance of the peoples needs around him and motivation. In
Mahabharata, Bheeshma says that the first duty that a leader should take is towards his people.
He expresses leadership as a symbol of love and sacrifice which is the art of caring leadership.

3.1.1 What is good leadership

Good leadership is the ability to make plans and motivate others to carry them out successful
overcoming difficulties. Plans which are realistic and implementable. Therefore, it is very
important for a leader to be self-aware of his capabilities and that of others and also must be
aware of all the information that is available. Most importantly he should recognize the
capabilities of his people who will be implementing the planning. Good leadership is all about
knowing what to do and doing it in the right manner. The challenge is to implement it in the
right manner which depends on leaders effectiveness on dealing with people.

21

3.1.2 Yardstick to measure good leadership

The metric to measure good leadership is the cultural experience that a leader leaves behind
when he is gone. A great is for himself whereas a good leader is for others. To become a good
leader, one should have good character. Stanford Research Institute has studied as to why
Japanese were dominating Americans during the eighties and they found out one important
aspect that Americans missed out. They concluded that 12% of effective leadership is
knowledge and 88% of it is how you deal with people. Leadership deals with the top line things
like what is to be achieved and how to achieve which is the critical component to drive
excellence in organisations. Research has shown that people like to be lead than managed.

3.1.3 Who are good leaders

The one whose thoughts, words and deeds are in harmony is an ideal and effective leader. The
one who speaks what he thinks and does what he says is an ideal leader. Such leaders are open
and transparent to others which builds in trust and confidence. When it says unity in thought,
word and deed, it means that leaders should have pure thoughts free from anger, greed, lust and
selfishness. Only then they are called good leaders.

3.1.4 Good leadership process

A good leadership process comprises of four steps. They are: To Be, To Do, To See, To Tell.
To Be signifies the composition of a persons character in terms of his values, beliefs and
qualities. The effectiveness of a good leadership depends on the strength of a person to be. To
Do signifies the practicality of what one does what he says. People in organisations look up to
their leaders mainly on this aspect. Good leadership style depends upon their words leading to
action. To See signifies the competency of a leader to be aware of the environmental realities.
They should be aware of what is happening in the external environment as well as internal
environment, only then they can evaluate their options effectively and take the right decision.
They should be aware of the practical realities and not just imaginative thinking. To Tell
signifies the art of conveying to his people. Leaders must communicate with their people in an
understandable and effective manner. The entire good leadership process is driven by only one

22

aspect and that is selflessness which is mothing but giving and forgiving. This is seen visible
depending on how one works with others in the functioning of a leadership process.

3.1.5 What makes a good leader?

All good leaders in the world who worked for the good of humanity have their to Be component
very strong and that is good character. Every individual is a composition of strengths and
weaknesses of mind and heart resulting to the definition of ones character. It is most important
element of an effective leader. Western philosophy defines character based on certain traits like
honesty, truthfulness, sense of duty, standing on ones principles, balance of mind towards
success and failure, loyal and trust worthiness. Eastern philosophy identifies character in terms
of self-discipline, art of responsibility over authority, willing to admit mistakes, selflessness,
self-sacrifice and self-confidence. It is also essential to understand that knowledge is as
important as character. They go together and forms the basic structure of building effective
leadership through self-confidence.
Selflessness is dependent on ones vision he has in life. The higher the vision, leaders must
exhibit greater amounts of selflessness for effective leadership. But, the reality is that people
present a lot of resistance towards this. We cannot ask everyone to be completely selfless but
at least think of your community or family or partner and not think merely of yourself.
Selflessness is a relative quality of measurement in terms of whether one is thinking of himself
or others. The central theme to selflessness is self-confidence, self-satisfaction, self-sacrifice
and self-realization. Selflessness also constitutes truth, righteousness, love, peace and
nonviolence. People who exhibit selflessness do not look for shortcuts, are honest, loyal,
strong, and seek fairness to others
Courage is another important virtue that every individual should have. Courage for what?
Courage to take decisions by being accountable for success or failure in an organisation. Most
of the decisions are made in an atmosphere of uncertainty. Therefore, leaders must equip every
individual with moral courage that enables him to think in the right way and act in the right
way. Courage with respect to identifying the opportunities, focusing on the problem solving
approach, choosing a direction and focusing on the present and future circumstances instead of
dwelling in the past must be inculcated in an individual. Organisations must transfer power to
individuals to aim high with respect to vision.
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Willpower signifies the ability to handle pressure and overcome difficulties. Many difficulties
arise when planning, implementing and executing and therefore leaders must have strong
willpower to overcome setbacks and difficulties. They should have never give up kind of
attitude to be effective leaders. This is the key element for self-development in strengthening
ones character and making his destiny. Willpower is the key attribute in transforming oneself
from bad characteristics to having a good character. This happens by mastering ones own
strengths and weaknesses. One should have proper balance of willpower and flexibility of mind
which leads to the source of effective leadership.
Taking initiatives is one of the key attributes of a good leader. Taking initiatives by anticipating
things based on sound knowledge information, opportunities and difficulties is the sign of a
good leader. They are basically self-starters and dynamic in nature. People tend to be hesitant
and restricted in terms of taking initiates because of fear. Fear of what if a mistake happens,
what others might think will block ones ability to act completely as an individual. This fear
can be eradicated amongst individuals by emphasizing on proper use of their discrimination
power fully. Therefore, it is very important that leaders create an environment where everyone
takes responsibility. Transfer responsibility to every individual to bring out excellence in the
organisation by thinking big.
Knowledge of job gives the power to strengthen ones leadership skills by getting things done
in the right manner. When leaders choose a field of their liking, they expand their knowledge
with respect to the technical competencies of the job and keep learning continuously. This
makes them feel flexible and adaptable rending to the changes that are happening around.
Inclusiveness and open-mindedness in terms of accepting an open feedback is essential for the
growth of knowledge. Gaining experience and being intuitive by enhancing the power of mind
is the ultimatum for any individual to achieve excellence.
Knowledge of Self indicates ones ability to understand his own character. The tragedy is that
most of the people do not want to explore themselves. They do not want to face their
weaknesses, rigidities, fears and negative aspects upon reaching their full potential. Those who
understand themselves well will never doubt their abilities to deal with different situations
whether it is a task or a person. This is an important step to understand other people which
forms harmonious relational management. Leaders must encourage individuals to do selfmirroring exercise in terms of testing their honesty, unity in thought-word-deed, loyalty,

24

courage, taking initiates, persistence, patience, knowledge and skill sets, acceptance of
strengths and weaknesses.

3.1.6 How does caring begin

A leader in any organisation has to deal with people with respect to building his team into an
effective and motivated group, winning the trust and cooperation of his people and developing
a highly constructive and meaningful relationships. A leader must care for an individual more
than his mother. They should have an intuitive feeling towards them, know their strengths and
weaknesses and make it clear for them to achieve a higher aim which grooms them towards
excellence. In other words, a leader must know the total personality of the individual and be
able to care for him genuinely which earns his trust. Caring is the quality of attitude having
selfless love, a skill that leads to a caring environment in organisations.
It starts from the point where a leader gets to know him. Communication plays an important
part to nurture caring. It depends on the ability to express and listen. Expression is a medium
to generate trust and this includes verbal language, gestures, body language, facial expressions
and tone of the person. It must genuine and straight forward. Listening constitutes to
understanding the other person. The ability to listen attentively and sympathetically is what
makes the other person feel good to express his opinions. Remembering names is an important
aspect of communication. Listening contributes to 50% of an effective communication and
listening with your eyes and body language makes a communication very effective.

3.2 What constitutes a leader

According to Daniel Goleman, highly effective leaders have high degree of emotional
intelligence and not just cognitive and technical skills. He found that emotional intelligence is
the main contributing factor in making a good leader and experimented on how emotional
intelligence shows up at work and how do people recognise it. In carrying out his work, he
built several competency models to identify what drove effective performance within an
organisation and interviewed thousands of employees to identify the attributes that typified
organisations outstanding performance. When he analysed the data, he found that emotional

25

intelligence is adding more value than technical and cognitive skills in making people identify
a leader as a good leader.
He identified 5 key components in emotional intelligence that contributes in the making of a
good leader. They are:
1. Self-Awareness: Knowing ones emotions, strengths & weaknesses, value drivers, goals
and how it impacts others.
2. Self-Regulation: Redirecting or controlling emotions.
3. Motivation: Driven in the positive direction towards achievement.
4. Empathy: Ability to sense others feelings.
5. Social Skill: Managing relational workforce.

3.3 What leaders really do

According to John kotter, effective management and leadership are required for driving success
in this volatile business environment. Both leadership and management complement each other
and the challenge lies in balancing out each other where good management with weak
leadership and vice versa does no good. He emphasizes on the need to develop leadermanagers who have the capability to lead as well as manage. Organisations must build a
culture to create more of these leader-managers who can manage complexity and lead in terms
of coping with change. He brings out a clear distinction between leading and managing with
respect to
1. Aligning people vs Organising & Staffing
2. Directional settings vs planning
3. Motivation vs Problem solving

3.4 Test of leadership

Why is it that some leaders fail while others succeed? It all depends on handling adversity.
Finding a meaning out of the negative situations in businesses. After interviewing the top 40
leaders in the world, most of them point out to these negative experiences and traumas that
shaped their identity as leaders. These negative experiences take many forms and acts as an
ultimate transformational leadership experience for self-reflection. Their study emphasizes on
26

the need that leaders must adopt Adaptive Capacity to learn fast. Adaptive Capacity in the sense
of understanding the context and emerging on top of these negative situations. A deeply rooted
positive experience touches the human cord and changes ones life.

3.5 Leadership: Power of Transparency

Good Leadership is the greatest competitive advantage any company can have to drive
motivation, organisation change and produce results. To understand what attributes constitute
to this kind of leadership, there are two line of sights to the leadership equation. One is, the
ability to lead and second, the ability to attract followers which is the toughest because each
and every individual have a unique identity and driven by their own powerful motivation.
Research has shown that until and unless followers are powerfully driven to follow to the same
extent where leaders are powerfully driven to lead, leaders will hardly find any of their
employees following them.
From the employees motivational perspective to follow leaders, two aspects come into picture.
Rationality, where employees fall within the realm of a conscious leader and second,
irrationality, where employees fall outside the realm. The latter ones are very difficult to control
because they project their emotions and motivations from their unconscious onto their
relationships with leaders.
Sigmund Fraud, after practicing psychoanalysis for many years was puzzled to find most of his
patients idealizing him for his personal attribute which was hard for him to accept. He later
realized that patients were relating to someone in their past and not because of his personal
quality. This is called Dynamic Transference. It is very important that leaders accommodate
employees uniqueness while moving towards high performance. Spotting and dissolving this
transference is the primary goal of psychoanalysis. Research has also shown that positive
transference has direct connection to productivity. So, transference is the missing link in
leadership that explains organisational behaviour. Psychoanalysis identifies the problem that
has been deeply rooted in an employee since childhood and reopens the wound from the past
and until and unless the employee works upon his/her projection and goes past it, the fact that
the employee is a good follower fails in an environment where organisation structure changes
accordingly. This shows that leaders must adopt transference phenomenon into their
organisation. Transference binds followers to leaders and it is a two-way street where there can
27

be counter transference. A good leader should understand transference well enough to make
others see one another to minimize the gap between employees idealization and leaders
reality.
Dynamic transference cannot be controlled during stressful times during which employees will
be dominated by irrational feelings like praise and protection while at the same time leaders
are preoccupied with crisis at hand. A leader should never be fixed with his transference facet
which comes in many disguises to blind the leader. Employees generally have different
transference feelings on their leaders according to changing organisational conditions,
structures and hierarchies. Some of the transference include parental feeling, mentor type,
brotherly feeling. Therefore, leaders must adopt multiple transference relationships that suit
people who relate to their near equals. For example, GE employees had childhood transference
feelings towards Jack Welch even though they did not meet him face to face. Boeing sought
for sibling transference leadership at a time when consensus building and problem solving was
required. Leaders must manage transferences by increasing the positive transferences and
decreasing negative transferences. This is very important because employees look at their
leaders through different lenses and so what they must really do is to make themselves present
what they really are to others by bringing the unconscious to awareness. Everyone must
understand one another very well and Productive Narcissist Questionnaire tells what
personalities in individuals influence leadership styles for mutual understanding, reducing
problems and increasing objectivity.
Often organisations fall short in selecting new leaders, orienting them, mentoring them and
teaching the core values of leadership. Generally, organisations select a leader who is excellent
in work but do not have the capacity to lead and inspire. This creates a need for teaching and
role modelling the core values of leadership embedded in the principles of caring which
impacts an organisational culture (William, 2011). This process provides a solid base for the
growth and development of a leader which leads to a happy and healthy workplace. In a health
care system, caring relationships are identified based on how a leader enriches and cultivates
the human conditioning.

28

3.6 What do employees really want

Employees who are engaged are those who are committed to workplace settings. Organisation
growth and innovation depends on this. Gallup has identified the need of creating environments
in which employees feel motivated and empowered. It identified that managers have a
significant impact on employee engagement and realized that employees expect a lot more
from their managers than just engagement. What is it that they want? Gallup identified 12
statements (Gallup Q12) to promote high work performance which acts as a powerful link
between employee engagement and business outcomes. One of them talks about the impact of
caring and how it enables people to stay loyal, engaged and more productive. Employees do
not leave companies, they leave managers and supervisors. A manager, especially plays an
important role. Every employee has a good or bad experience with their manager but still they
do not like to be managed because they think of only bad experiences. So the question is what
makes a good manager? Focusing on the caring behaviour and knowing the right person to do
the right job to produce the right result and help them grow and meet their needs within their
roles. According to a recent research conducted by Princeton University, it has found that the
time spent with friends is more enjoyable than family. When it comes to friendship, employees
rank their bosses least. The top management must ensure they are approachable.

3.7 The work of leadership

(Laurie, 1997) Companies are facing adaptive challenges like changes in technology, culture,
competition, markets and societies all over the world which creates a need to expose their
people to do adaptive work in terms of value drivers and shared vision of an organisation.
Adaptive challenges in terms of changing behaviour, taking new roles and responsibilities and
problem solving. Organisations must create a culture where adaptive challenges are identified
and regulated with a certain set of standards and direction.
Many efforts to transform organizations through mergers and acquisitions, restructuring,
reengineering, and strategy work falter because managers fail to grasp the requirements of
adaptive work. They make the classic error of treating adaptive challenges like technical
problems that can be solved by tough-minded senior executives. The implications of that error
go to the heart of the work of leaders in organizations today. Leaders crafting strategy have
access to the technical expertise and the tools they need to calculate the benefits of a merger or
29

restructuring, understand future trends and discontinuities, identify opportunities, map existing
competencies, and identify the steering mechanisms to support their strategic direction. These
tools and techniques are readily available both within organizations and from a variety of
consulting firms, and they are very useful.

3.8 Leadership: Love and Profit

Leaders must be willing to take courage to bend the rules to accommodate each and every
persons uniqueness and use this as a tool in creating a caring culture. Leaders must build in
trust among individuals that the organisation is doing the right thing and their time to prove
themselves would come. Leadership is a part of life and it is all about paying attention and
being more aware and also make others aware of their personal and professional needs. Leaders
must adopt a culture of an extended family life wherein people have an open mentality and be
willing to share their fears. Traditional business practices emphasize that all businesses have
been built through mans intelligence and imagination and whether it grows or declines
depends on those two factors. But the reality is that there are no businesses, only people.
Businesses exists only because of people. Therefore, the most important task that leaders must
focus upon is to motivate others to reach their full potential. One cannot motivate numbers and
so leaders must ensure to motivate individuals as individuals and not as a device to achieve
certain results. Leaders must run their businesses centred around the spirit of caring which
shares a common thread amongst all individuals. Businesses lose only because of their
relational problems and nothing more. They define your business personality where there is a
distinct pattern of thinking among all and a common business language of understanding.
Human intelligence and technology has no room in ones feelings and emotions that make up
the core personality of the business. Therefore, it is very important for leaders to set up a culture
run by a common thread of caring for one another and identify future leaders that take this up
to new levels of organisational consciousness. Leaders must create a culture wherein
individuals do not hide their humanness behind their work personality or their job roles that
they take up and must setup a culture wherein everyone loves to work and show dedication to
work. Generally, people say that they love their jobs which implies that, they love the way they
do their jobs but not essentially the work itself. People who fall under this category are not
emotionally involved in the main core aspect of their work. These kind of mind sets arise due
to symbols of positions and achievements. Leaders must make them focus on loving their work
30

and getting people together to accomplish goals for the organisation. This is done by
empowering and liberating them from being in conflict with their human values and take
responsibility towards ownership of work. People do take their work seriously but do not take
themselves serious and so leaders must bring down the attention on each individual to focus
upon himself and be more aware of his surroundings. Leaders must install a new definition of
success in the minds of the people where they must make them understand that there are many
involved behind the scenes in getting a job done and this enhances relational management.
Caring leadership defines success as accomplishing goals for oneself and the organisation with
respect to how each one feels and takes it. People working in organisations look up to their
leaders and their words mean a great deal of influencing the life of an individual. Therefore,
leaders must inspire and lead others to make them understand that they are not here merely to
work and make money but as a part of an extended family where a shared community kind of
a feeling is sensed. Make it visible to them that their life is a continuum of a collection of work
tasks contributing to a larger work task and inspire them to make things happen as they are and
not how it should be. Typically, organisations give authority to individuals to accomplish the
organisation goals. Caring leadership emphasizes on the need to transfer power to individuals
for which they are willing and committed towards achieving shared goals by mutual trust.
Transfer of power wherein individuals create heroes out of themselves in a culture where there
is equanimity in terms of doing good work. Most of the organisations face trust issues where it
creates a culture of suspicion and less productivity. This happens when an individual is not
paying attention and limiting himself. Trust has got to do mainly with a productive attitude of
an individual and not with the system or rules or policies or laws of an organisation. It all boils
down to the point that leaders must do the right things at the right time and must have
confidence in the abilities of an individual. Caring leadership emphasizes on the need to
manage work force conflicts based on the principles of balance, taking ownership,
responsibility, effective decision making process and managing as parents to create an
atmosphere where individuals learn from their mistakes and limitations and overcome them
which enhances trust among work place relations.

31

CHAPTER FOUR:

METHODOLOGY AND DESIGN

OF STUDY

METHODOLOGY AND DESIGN OF THE STUDY

4.1 Nature of the Study

It is a qualitative study with an intention to bring out the subtle relationship existing between
caring organisation and people engagement. It explores, shares and documents the experiences
and perceptions of seven HR Heads of outstanding global MNCs in Mumbai, Hyderabad and
Bangalore on the theme of promoting care in organisations. This study chooses a qualitative
enquiry because it accommodates the objectives of exploring and sharing the views of top
management to understand their perceptions and experiences of caring leadership. This
qualitative methodology also facilitates the collection of detailed experiences of the
respondents in their natural settings, maintaining their voices and values and allowing greater
proximity between the interviewer and the respondents. This way of study further allows to
present the human elements and its implications behind the stories of these respondents while
recognising the main aim of the project. An informal style of writing was allowed which was
acceptable and engaging to the respondents.
This study is a qualitative inquiry based on interviewing, transcribing and analysis of the
narrations. Many in-depth-life interviews, case histories and personal narrations are included
in this analysis. This study chooses this mode of analysis to understand the importance of
integrating human values into the organisational culture, helping people, empowering them,
feel engaged and giving value to their lives.

4.2 Objective of the Study

To promote the concept of caring in organisations.

4.3 Data Collection

Stage1: The respondents were selected based on producing caring leaders who represented
the following characteristics:
1. Experienced professionals
35

2. Demonstrated an ethic of care which placed people first

3. Served as mentors and have contributed to the development of future leaders.
Stage 2: The interview has been conducted informally stating the case and inviting their
involvement and participation. The interview protocol was then developed and arranged to
meet the respondents to address the questions, concerns and to initiate the process of acquiring
the data. The interview was scheduled to last for one hour. The narrations and conversations
were later transcribed. Then, a formal study has been done if there are any further clarifications
needed.
Data collection was done through tape-recorder, where the respondents shared their stories and
thoughts as honestly as desired. Interviews lasted approximately for one hour and allowed
the respondents to reconstruct their experiences and perceptions in a natural way.
Phase 1: The first part of the interview comprised of questions aimed at exploring the existing
competencies present in setting up an organisational work culture. Each respondent answered
freely and sometimes deviated from the actual theme for putting in additional information.
Phase 2: The second part of the interview comprised questions focusing on their professional
leadership experiences in setting up an organisational culture with respect to four dimensions:
relationships, decision making, feelings and behaviour. It aimed at highlighting the context of
the situations, leadership style, organisational platform, challenges faced and their perception
on the ethic of care.
4.3.1 Procedure

Following this data collection, the study develops narratives through the process of transcribing
and editing the data with Man Management as the referential frame. The respondents have been
asked to highlight their major experiences during the transition of an organisational culture and
relate those to the theoretical concepts of leadership and caring. The edited transcripts of their
responses were analysed to present the experiences of the respondents, norms and values
underlying their behaviour, feelings and relationships. This analysis also identifies repeating
themes found within their experiences.
Data analysis is comprised of: Coding the interviews and reflecting upon the major themes;
identifying and forming links between the themes and Man Management; analysing themes to
identify the subtle relationship existing behind caring leadership.
36

4.3.2 Confidentiality
While undertaking this study, the respondents highlighted on the importance of confidentiality
with respect to the companys name. Under this condition, access to notes, recording have been
allowed. Oral history interviewing allowed greater freedom of expression.

4.4 Limitations of the Study

1. The study does not intend to go beyond the life of seven organisations that have been
considered (financial service sector, chemicals & fertilizers, IT, Telecom) but the
message can be transferred to similar contextual situations that any organisation faces.
2. The study only focuses on the internal environment of the organisation to promote the
concept of caring.
3. The time frame is limited due to which more number of interviews could not be taken.
4. This study has been influenced by the principles of Satya Sai Baba.

37

CHAPTER FIVE:

DATA ANALYSIS AND

INTERPRETATION

DATA ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION

5.1 Self-Concept
Self-concept is the central theme in improving the quality of human life in organisations. It is
very important to understand the human behavioural processes which has an impact on ones
self-concept. People in organisations are unconscious to certain traits within themselves which
they do no not want to get exposed to. Such people restrict their capability of understanding
their full reality and will eventually try to avoid others when they are exposed. They become
too rigid and limited in terms of expressing themselves and that is not a good sign for an
effective functioning of an organisation. Organisations must ensure that people are aware of
their feelings, thoughts and limitations and develop a platform for overcoming their fears and
build on their positive self-concept. They must make them conscious of their behavioural
understanding by having an open discussion towards achieving a shared humanity and goals.
What factors lead to these kind of defence mechanisms in an individual?
1. People exhibiting behavioural patterns of holding on to their positions and status
oriented mind sets, misunderstanding, not wanting to listen to others, anger issues, no
control over their feelings and emotions and not wanting to get exposed to their
weaknesses.
2. People generally admit that they do not have any problems but the reality is that they
do not want to get exposed to their hidden self. They try to ignore everything around
them with self-denial.
3. People want to fall into the category of high emotional contagion where others pacify
and support them for their inadequacies. Such people try to escape criticism of any sort
to avoid their negative aspects.
4. People always engage in conversations where they point fingers to others in an attempt
to escape from others highlighting his inadequacies.
5. People take responsibility for their failures and mistakes in an attempt to avoid other
people blaming and accusing for his inadequacies all the time.
6. People always try to sort out to solve other persons problems in an attempt to escape
their own inadequacies.

41

7. People become more demanding in making others highlight upon his strengths and
attributes in an attempt to escape from their own inadequacies.

5.2 Inclusiveness
A culture where every individual feels that he is been wanted by the organisation, desiring
attention, to associate well among fellowmen, a sense of belongingness, to be unique, to be a
part of the companys vision. Every individual wants to discover who they are (Who am I?) in
the organisation and this emphasizes on the need to create a culture where everyone feels they
are part of the family. The respondents can be classified into two categories. They are: Oversocializing and Under-socializing. Respondents who fall under former relationships are highly
extroverted and want themselves to be visible to the entire organisation fearing that people
would ignore them. Their behaviour is designed to focus attention upon themselves, to be
centre of attraction fearing that they would be left alone. They are more anxious of feeling
wanted by everyone and this results to inappropriate behaviour. Respondents who fall under
latter relationships are too rigid in their approach, very defensive and introverted. They always
maintain distance with others and do not want to lose their privacy. Their unconscious attitude
of No one is interested in me, Withdrawn to oneself, Not risking being ignored by others
and Others do not understand me keeps them very rigid in their personality and makes them
feel less valuable in the organisation.

5.2.1 Caring perspective

A caring cultural perspective emphasizes on the need to be characterised by achieving
appropriate balance between the two and focuses on the aspect of being flexible and adaptable
to any given situation. This will depend upon how well one knows about himself. That is why
shaping ones self concept is very important. The healthier ones self esteem and greater his
self-awareness, the better one feels connected to any type of organisational culture. This allows
him to feel comfortable being with others as well as being alone. A caring culture must drive
in proper balance in an individual being committed to a group as well as dealing comfortably
at a distance when the situation demands. This is reflected in Heidegger caring model where
he emphasizes on the points Balance of mind and Presence of mind.

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5.2.2 How to create this culture?

There are two aspects to this. One is creating a Feel of external significance and the other
Feel of internal significance. External significance is an experience that is expressed to and
received from people around an individual. A feeling of importance, meaningful identity in the
organisation, being attended, noticing ones absence, being accountable, recognition,
acknowledgement and making a difference in the organisation. This aspect does not necessarily
mean that one must like the person always but showcasing significance which has a direct
connectivity towards shaping ones self concept must be taken into account. To ensure that the
fear associated with feeling of being ignored is driven out. When a person feels that he is
significant, he knows that he can make a difference and accepts himself as a meaningful and
worthwhile person. This human element is very important to setup in an organisation because
the way one feels about himself and others and the way he behaves are all connected to this.
Internal significance is an experience of ones own significance as a human being (his inner
thoughts, feelings and sensations). An experience where one feels happy about using his
potential fully and at the same time avoiding painful experiences. When one suppresses his
feelings, thoughts and sensations, he is only limiting his experience by only existing in the
organisation and not living. When an individual feel that he is been restricted, feelings of
rejection, humiliation, anger and unpleasant sensations will arise Therefore, it is very important
that organisations focus upon this dimension very carefully and build an atmosphere of
enlivened experience into their culture. Very few organisations focus on building this enlivened
experience into their culture. Why is it that many organisations do not support this enlivened
experience? Leaders believe that it is very difficult to maintain discipline in the midst of
creating an enlivened experience. They believe that organisational methods for maintaining
stability and order will be disturbed. A caring culture must strive towards achieving a balance
between creating an enlivened experience and harnessing it with proper set of procedures and
policies in an organisation. This kind of culture will have a significant impact on the morale
and performance where every individual feels like coming forward to work, excited and knows
that he is using the best of his abilities to the fullest extent possible.

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5.3 Open-mindedness
This indicates the extent to which an individual is willing to be open to others. This aspect
varies according to time and from person to person. The respondents are classified into two
categories. Over-personalization and Under-personalization. The latter relations relate to a
person who does not want to reveal himself to others. He maintains one to one relationships on
a distant level and feels comfortable to be open enough only when the other person is willing
to do so. A feeling of no one likes me, dont want to be too emotionally attached, do not
trust their feelings toward me, do not want to get rejected by being open, want to safeguard
myself at a distance will be driving behaviour and relationships towards being too rigid and
defensive. This is resulted from the fear of being too open. The former relations relate to a
person who is willing to share his feelings to everyone and expects others to do the same. Their
actions are driven by the fact of being liked by everyone. Sometimes this may lead to
inappropriate behaviour and manipulations in an attempt to be liked by everyone.

5.3.1 Caring perspective

A caring cultural perspective emphasizes on the need to be balanced depending upon the
situation and the person. An individual must feel comfortable in close relationships as well as
being at a distance when a situation presents itself. He must feel comfortable enough of being
liked as well as disliked by others. One must not jump to conclusions and judge others by
reacting to that particular situation and think that he is being disliked. A caring culture
emphasizes on the need to be flexible and adaptable to any given situation depending on how
one feels about himself.

5.3.2 How to build this culture?

Self-Acceptance: When one accepts and embraces himself the way he is, he likes himself and
enjoys his own company. He feels good about himself and feels that the organisation knows
everything about him. When one feels unacceptable, he feels that the entire atmosphere is
revolting against him and feels rejected. This is directly connected to the level of openmindedness that has been discussed before. When one feels unacceptable, he suppresses and
restricts certain feelings, thoughts, events and desires and bottles them up into his unconscious
44

mind. This leads to a painful experience and a feeling of being not wanted by the community.
A caring culture must recognize an individual for who he really is and his core competence.
Once the organisation recognises this aspect then the individual will be open and willing to
learn and understand what the organisation really expects from him.
Truth: A truthful environment is the most essential feature of a caring culture which has the
power to improve organisational effectiveness in terms of decision making, performance and
relationship building. It is simplest thing to make a quantum leap towards organisational
productivity and work place satisfaction. Conventional organisational wisdom goes along the
lines of being strategic and selective in terms of being truthful. They emphasize on a prescribed
behaviour whether one likes it or not for not hurting others feelings. People generally create an
atmosphere within which they like themselves and being liked by others. A caring culture
emphasizes on the fact that one must accept the truth about oneself which leads to openmindedness. One cannot have an open meaningful relationship with others if he is not open to
oneself which will put him in a situation where results to ineffective communication. A truthful
environment must be built where an individual allows himself to know and be conscious of
what is happening around in the organisation. An environment that sets an individual free and
makes him feel good without any kind of distortion or discomfort which further opens doors
for a healthier work place. Sometimes being truthful can also harm an individual and the
environment when it comes to being too bold and saying that I dont like my boss. One cannot
always oblige but must speak obligingly. One should move to deeper levels of truth by moving
away from the faults and focusing their attention upon what one experiences (Self-Awareness).
A truthful environment must encourage the connectivity amongst individuals in terms of
sharing their feelings at every level and this helps an individual to realize that he is not
completely right and his partner not completely wrong and further helps him to understand
what other factors are operating in the situation. When one accepts the truth about oneself, both
negatives as well as positives, he will not get into serious trouble because he realizes that
negative feeling has to do primarily with himself and not with others.
Self-Awareness: Self-Awareness is the degree to which one knows himself by his own
experience. When an individual is aware of his own experience, he consciously decides what
he wants to do. But if he is not aware of his experience, he feels that he is being controlled in
a manner that he does not understand. A caring culture must bring out the unconscious
experiences of individuals into their awareness and help them improve upon themselves.

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A leader must be aware of the fact how best to use oneself amidst the threats, competitive
feelings and attractions that may distort ones perception. A leader does not have to be someone
who must know how to do everything but must be aware of certain elements of an effective
organisation and be able to let them happen towards doing the right thing. He should ensure
that it satisfies the requirements of a successful organisation by
1. Knowing what it takes to achieve a task
2. Ensuring the task is accomplished to the best of their abilities
3. Ensuring that the task is given to the right person
4. Doing what he is best at
5. Treating everyone in the organisation equally (equal mindedness)
Moreover, a leader must encourage full feedback to help one another understand better.
Self-Disclosure: Self-Awareness without Self-Disclosure leads to what is called as whatever
it takes to win kind of mentality. An individual is quite aware of himself but chooses not to
disclose it to others for added advantage. This encourages mindful tactics within an individual
making him a politician. Self-Awareness and Self-Disclosure must go hand in hand with
another for a truthful and caring environment. That is why it is very important to have a culture
where individuals feel open with respect to sharing their experiences which leads to selfdisclosure.
Self-Esteem: Every individual works at his best when he feels good about himself. Therefore,
a leader must create a culture that enhances individuals positive self-concept. A culture where
members of the organisation feel enriched, significant and recognised for their competence. A
culture where everyone participates fully, is given attention, full expression is encouraged and
a feeling of I use myself well is reflected in their minds.
Self-Esteem explains ones ability to pursue greater self-knowledge towards becoming more
enriching, real, stronger, honest and genuine in terms of caring and helping others. It is the
feeling that one has towards oneself. It is the basic foundation for any human relationships and
vital for solving relational problems. Moreover, without self-awareness, there cannot be selfesteem. When one matches himself to what he perceives himself to be, then he has a positive
self-esteem which makes him more enlivened, self-aware, competent and self-confident. This
basically arises from what type of person he wants to be. Most of the people working in
organisations fall into the categories where they are aware and sometimes not aware of their

46

self-esteem. They are not aware of certain parts of their self-concept which leads to feelings
which are painful, arrogant, frustrating and restrictive.
Caring leadership emphasizes on the need to make individuals be conscious of their feelings
and reactions and to perceive themselves accurately. The culture must make them feel good
about who they are. It is all about dissolving the blockages and rigidities in an individual and
get him exposed to what he really is with absolute clarity. We can see the importance of selfawareness playing in these kind of situations because sometimes people are too tight and
determined on wanting certain things to be right the way they want it to be. Therefore, a caring
culture must encourage quality programs in building up ones self-esteem by handling their
personal agendas very effectively. The end result should make him feel good because that is
what determines his relationships with others in the organisation. Problems arise only when the
other person creates an atmosphere that sometimes it makes him doubtful about himself only.
When one feels good about himself and competent enough
When one has a positive self-esteem about oneself, then he uses the negative feedback that
others have on him as a valuable tool for learning about himself. The same is true when it
comes to performance appraisal which will be successful only when every individual accepts
and acknowledges his own strengths and weaknesses. A caring environment bust create a
platform where individuals improve upon their self-esteem by adopting a new behaviour which
leads to finding their unsatisfactory aspects and moving past them.

5.4 Relational Management

One of the major attributes of building a caring environment in organisations is to build good
relationships among individuals. Caring leadership addresses the need to clarify certain
misconceptions that organisations have towards relational management especially when it does
not produce proper results. Organisations must not encourage building relationships as a means
to achieve an end result. Moreover, they must take pride on creating a culture next to ones
own family where every individual experiences humanness. Caring leadership emphasizes on
the need to understand the dynamics that are associated in building relations which have to do
mainly with ones feelings and emotions and not with the situational parameters. Building good
relations in the work culture depends on the ability of a person to work together to create

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positive results. Organisations must spend a lot of time on this aspect which further affects the
productivity of an organisation.

5.4.1 How to build Relational Management

Caring leadership must imbibe a culture where individuals respect each other, dissolve their
differences & disagreements and make them focus on the larger good of the organisation. The
focus must be on the processes that an organisation adopts in identifying individuals based on
their core competencies to accomplish certain objectives and so leaders must build a culture
from the right mix of individuals which relates to ones own feelings and relations. They need
to create a culture with an open atmosphere where people realize that interferences and
disturbances in maintain good relations arise due to positions, differences of opinion and
personality. This kind of an open atmosphere ensures that all personal requirements for doing
a certain job are in the right place by having an open discussion of ones own fears and feelings.
An open atmosphere relies on a new level of consciousness to break through the interferences
by becoming more self-aware and taking into account of ones own feelings and fears and try
to identify their sources and be willing to share with others. This establishes greater
understanding and acceptance in the organisation resulting to a seamless flow of productivity
and humanity. When this kind of culture is adopted, people feel safe and express themselves to
others the way they are which becomes an honoured act. People will also have a full picture of
how their co-workers really are and creates a feeling of shared humanity. Leaders cannot solve
all problems but they can use this open atmosphere as a tool to solve many of them. They must
also ensure to reward people for their honesty and truthfulness. Generally, organisations do not
often consider this dimension but it acts as a great frame to build good relations.

5.5 Performance Appraisal

Despite spending so much of energy and time on the performance appraisal, it turns out to be
very unsatisfactory at times in most of the organisations. Many feel that this kind of a system
creates differences, conflicts and does not achieve its purpose. The reasons for these kind of
unsatisfactory comments are due to the assumptions lying behind the appraisal process. A
typical performance appraisal deals with rewarding excellence, defining job roles, supporting
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the development of each individual and motivation. This process allows an individual to
evaluate himself and choose goals accordingly to achieve them which will be the basis for
defining success. Performance appraisal must not take the form of an individual matter of
concern where it minimizes the level of interaction among people encouraging competition for
small-small rewards. Doing so, it lowers the value that an individual derives from listening and
reflecting upon himself and self-protection centres around the organisational culture where
identifying & developing skill sets would be a difficult task.
Organisations can perform much better if the appraisal process is divided into two functions.
One is related to performance and the other related to identifying and developing humanness.
Organisations must encourage an atmosphere where in every individual gets an opportunity to
open up and exchange their thoughts and feelings to improve the work culture.

5.5.1 Caring Perspective

1. Instead of motivating people with rewards and promises, organisations must setup a
culture and where they get motivated from their self-concept.
2. Organisations must create a culture where people work to satisfy themselves to expand
their limitations.
3. Organisations must setup certain conditions within which individuals choose to work
optimally.
4. Organisations must setup a culture where people will be open to receive an honest
feedback and realize that it is for their betterment.
5. Organisations must setup a culture where people get motivated for a healthy
competition.

5.5.2 How to build this?

1. Perception check: Organisations must ensure that everyone is seeing a certain task
from the same mind frame. This aspect is very important to have proper understanding
and clarity among individuals. They must device a process to ensure that these
interferences are removed for a caring culture.

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2. Shared goals: Organisations must ensure that people are driven by same objectives.
Different people want different things as individuals. Therefore, it is very necessary to
ensure that everyone views the companys objectives with the same mind frame. One
should have mutual feelings and admiration towards one another and feel good with
respect to doing that work. This is ensured when you have done a proper perception
check.
3. Honest feedback: Organisations must ensure that the feedback process is a two-way
process wherein an individual will be aware of what has been unsatisfactory about his
performance and also acknowledges his limitations. It must lead to a conversation
where an individual explores this full potential.
4. Relational aspects: Organisations must spend as much time as possible in dealing with
the relations by removing the differences. They must create a culture of being part of
the same community type of feeling and improve upon the work relationships, rather
than spotting the differences and pointing fingers towards others.

5.6 Decision Making

An effective decision making process depends on the type of atmosphere an organisation
creates. An open and a supportive environment enhances the quality of decision making
system. Many organisations implement a participative decision management process where all
individuals of the team are involved in making a decision. Caring leadership focuses on
creating a truthful atmosphere wherein people speak honestly to one another and symbolize
mutual agreement and harmony with respect to feelings, thoughts and emotions. A caring
culture must focus on identifying the full potential of an individual by removing blockages that
are obstructing them in reaching their true potential for making better individual decisions.
When an individual is fully aware of himself, he will know how to improve himself and how
to work on his limitations. That is why self-awareness is such an important element for
organisations. When we say potential, it includes his cognitive thinking, logical thinking,
problem solving ability and all other aspects that contribute to the successful achievements of
an individual as well as organisation. All these aspects have a direct relation to an individuals
self-awareness. What stops an individual upon reaching his full potential?
Fear: Individual learning gets restricted and confined due to fear. Fear of what happens if he
does not understand, fear of being humiliated and being restrictive because others may not
50

accept him for the position where he might become less competent compared to others. He
feels that others may not accept him for expressing his opinions and ideas and this makes him
confined to a certain set of behaviour that makes him to just follow orders and not open to new
levels of thinking.
Privacy: Individuals sometimes feel that its none of their business when it comes to being
aware of certain things in an organisation. They feel that it is not relevant to their personal
work. This kind of mentality keeps them restricted upon being aware of a wider phenomenon
that is happening around and makes them unconscious of knowing certain parts within
themselves towards reaching their full potential.
Lack of Self-Awareness: This happens when one does open enough to understand the
relationship between his actions and consequences which keeps him blind to explore wider
possible connections and makes him feel restricted and limited in terms of his creativity. When
an individual is not sure about himself, he will find it very tough to open up his ideas to others.
Therefore, once again this aspect highlights the importance of self-awareness.
Lack of long term vision: A leader must ensure that he identifies the problem, establish a
proper framework for problem solving approach, do proper planning and deployment of people
and resources accordingly to achieve the goal effectively. He must be competent enough to
address the future issues and threats that an organisation may face and be prepared.
Organisational goals: A leader must ensure that he clarifies on the organisational goals and
communicates them effectively with a proper discussion with everyone so that they will put
more effort to learn about them and achieve them without any restrictions and a narrow mindset.
Work-Pressure: A leader must ensure that individuals are not swayed away by fear of losing
their jobs if the work is not complied with requests that are against the human values. They
must free them of all the work force strings that are attached preventing them to work at their
best.
Incompetence: A leader must ensure to remove even a shadow of a doubt that exists in an
individuals mind that he is not competent enough to do a work efficiently. They must remove
the fear of taking risk, fear of getting defeated, fear of being humiliated and make them feel
comfortable in thinking clearly what has to be done and how it has to be done with their full
attention and energy directed towards the situation.
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Lack of self-confidence: A leader must ensure that individuals are confident enough to believe
in themselves and encourage them to act on the problem without fear. In a case where
people analyse a lot of information to solve a problem become too rigid, succumb to pressure
and feel that nothing is making any sense. Organisations must support to the extent where he
feels he is confident enough to take on the challenge and solve it with his full potential without
any fear of failure.
Deviation from the task: Sometimes it happens in organisations where individuals comply
with requests keeping in view of their relations with others and not focusing on the task at hand
that needs an effective means of solving it.
Safety: Individuals reside in a safer zone when it comes to choosing the best approach of
solving a problem by doing what they are comfortable with and not risking something that they
are not so sure of. Organisations must ensure that there is a proper understanding and clarity of
the problem for executing a proper problem solving methodology keeping in view of the goal
at hand. They must free them from their fears and support them in taking the right decision.
Narrow-mindedness: A leader must ensure that individuals have an organisational focus and
not get limited to his functional department. When this kind of mentality prevails in the
organisation, there is no learning and growth potential.
Exposed to weaknesses: Individuals fear that others might discover their weaknesses and
inadequacies in sharing their new ideologies and so leaders must ensure to setup a culture where
people embrace each other for their strengths and weaknesses.

5.6.1 How to build it

1. Win-Win situation: A consensus decision making process must result in creating a
win-win situation to everyone. This is implemented by giving a feedback that is best
understood and highlighting on ones self-concept as to what others feel good about
him and pave way towards continuous improvement.
2. Enhancing creativity: A consensus decision making process enables individuals to
construct ideas from an open discussion and leads to a wide variety of problem solving
solutions.

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3. Empowerment: Fostering a culture wherein individuals use their full potential to solve
a problem allows an organisation to depend on someone who is inspired, motivated and
encouraged to express his ideas and opinions. This enhances effective style of
participatory management.
4. Agility: An open atmosphere amplifies the process of achieving a certain objective
through various means and options of problem solving approaches and not get restricted
to a particular set of pattern.
5. Mutual agreement: A consensus process allows an individual to express his opinions
when there is mutual respect for each others feelings and emotions.
6. Art of Responsibility over Authority: Every individual must take 100% responsibility
in what is happening in an organisation. This kind of culture inculcates the right spirit
among the people to focus on the problem at hand when it comes to problem solving
rather than just diverting the energy towards blaming and criticizing each other.

5.7 Redefining Caring Leadership

The dimension that is very critical and necessary for leaders who play a vital role in the
organisation is to create an open atmosphere that results to enhanced self-esteem. The caring
leadership approach emphasizes on the need to create a culture that opens up individual and
group processes that can free all of the people to focus on the work at hand rather than on fights,
complaints and turf wars. When the respondents were asked as to why leaders succeed in some
places and others do not, they centralised on the point of Leaders self-knowledge. Not only
that the leader must know about themselves but also about the people working in the
organisation. Relating these attributes to the Man Management, the following list details how
caring leadership is defined.

Leadership Style: It is very important to identify a leader for his or her individual strengths
and on the competence he or she contributes to the organisation. Every individual in the
organisation must be valued for their contribution to the organisation and must be viewed and
assessed for that role itself.
Decision Making: A leader must adopt the right decision making model that will highlight
upon the peoples skills and knowledge on each problem to achieve highest quality decisions.
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Self-Awareness: A leader must be aware of the fact how best to use oneself amidst the threats,
competitive feelings and attractions that may distort ones perception. A leader does not have
to be someone who must know how to do everything but must be aware of certain elements of
an effective organisation and be able to let them happen towards doing the right thing. He
should ensure that it satisfies the requirements of a successful organisation by
1. Knowing what it takes to achieve a task
2. Ensuring the task is accomplished to the best of their abilities
3. Ensuring that the task is given to the right person
4. Doing what he is best at
5. Treating everyone in the organisation equally (equal mindedness)
Moreover, a leader must encourage full feedback to help one another understand better.
Success: A caring culture defines success as the ability to function at the fullest potential.
Therefore, a leader must ensure that each and every individual operates at his/her full potential
both individually and as a group to achieve success. This is a continuous process.
Understand the Organisational Dynamics: It is very essential for a leader to understand how
things operate in an organisation so that he can be sensitive enough to understand as to why
things are not happening the way it should and fix the problem. Clear understanding on the
dynamics of the organisation helps a leader to integrate various cognitive thinking styles,
various methodologies of problem solving and diverse backgrounds towards a creative,
understandable and logical thinking. Also a leader must be aware of the internal relations of
the organisation well enough to help everyone reach an agreement as a single unit. He must
clarify the organisational vision, goals long-term plans and the values that they stand for.

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5.8 Caring Leadership process

ORGANISATION

GROWTH

SELF

INDIVIDUAL

WORK

PEOPLE

Figure 5-1Caring Leadership process

In a caring organisation, goals must be based on the aim of bringing greater self-esteem for all
the individuals for an effective, productive and successful organisation. These goals are linked
to individuals, relationships and organisation climate. All three go together and it starts from

ENERGETIC
HONESTY
RESPONSIBILITY
COOPERATION
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
FRIENDLY

Figure 5-2Caring Leadership: Linking Individual, Relationships and Organisation

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ORGANISATION

ENLIVENED
EXPERIENCE
SELF-AWARENESS
SELF-CONFIDENCE
COMPETENCE
IMPORTANCE
AFFECTION
OWNERSHIP

RELATIONSHIPS

INDIVIDUAL

the individual.

PARTICIPATION

OPENMINDEDNESS
FREEDOM
EMPOWERMENT
RECOGNITION
HUMANITY
ENGAGEMENT

Individual goals that enhances his self-esteem:

1. Enlivened experience: The individual must feel that he is being used well and feel
energetic.
2. Self-awareness: The individual must be truthful to himself and others and must not fall
to the trap of deception. He must be aware of his unconscious traits within himself and
continuously strive to improve.
3. Self-confidence: The individual must be willing to be committed and responsible for
his life. He must feel free and autonomous in taking a stand for his position in the
organisation.
4. Competence: The individual must feel competent that he can face any situations in life
or in the work force.
5. Importance: The individual must feel important and significant to make a difference in
the organisation.
6. Caring: The individual must feel enjoyable, comfortable and likeable to be in his own
company.

Relational goals that fosters an atmosphere of high self-esteem:

1. Energetic: The individual must be willing and committed to focus his attention and
energy on his relationships.
2. Honesty: The individual must make truthful statements and should not withhold except
in rare circumstances like maintaining companys secrets.
3. Responsibility: The individual must take responsibility for his actions and reactions he
gets from others.
4. Cooperation: The individual must be willing to assist in maximum cooperation and
minimum criticisms, blames and pointing fingers.
5. Acknowledgement: The individual must recognize the work of others.
6. Friendly: The individual must recognize others feelings and organisational
requirements and take action without hurting their feelings and compromising the
organisational values.

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Organisational goals that fosters an atmosphere of high self-esteem:

1. Participation: Whether the individual wants or does not want to participate in the
organisational workings, organisations must present that opportunity and invite every
individual for a healthy understanding of what is happening in the work culture.
2. Open-mindedness: The individual must be open within the organisation and be
completely truthful.
3. Freedom: Organisations must impart power within an individual to determine his best
course of action.
4. Empowerment: The individual must feel empowered and volunteered to participate in
the final decision making process.
5. Recognition: Organisations must recognize the individuals for his core competencies.
6. Humanity: Organisations must encourage and appreciate the presence of the individual.

5.8.1 Levels of truth

Level 1: The individual withholds any experience from himself and others. This unconscious
level of not choosing to know oneself leads to deceiving oneself.
Level 2: The individual is aware of certain things but tries to withhold them for specific
personal reasons like not hurting others feelings, others may not approve of me, it will
not work, waste of time in telling that may not have an impact. These kind of rationalised
feelings makes an individual not being completely truthful.
Level 3: The individual expresses his opinions very openly that he becomes a critic if he says
something like you are lazy, you are useless, you are very biased. These kind of people
fall into big trouble. They must explain clearly as to what circumstances depict that you were
lazy, biased with respect to what sense? useless when it comes to what? so that they will learn
to improve themselves.
Level 4: The individual is aware of the other person and expresses his feelings but loses focus
in between and gives attention to his feelings more than what the other person has done.
Level 5: The individual finds a proper reason for others actions and this brings them together
to start a dialogue. In this level both the persons do not feel discomfort as to why they should
not talk.
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Level 6: The individual is aware of his feelings and thoughts as well as others but, not fully
aware in the sense that he feels that others take him as incompetent and unimportant. The
individual can increase his awareness by having a healthy dialogue with the other person.
Level 7: The individual recognises his own strengths and weaknesses, his fears, his attributes,
which puts him in a position where he will not get into trouble with the other person because
he is aware of his negative feelings. In such cases, he need not even have a dialogue like in the
previous level. This is what is called being completely truthful to oneself.
1. Every individual must identify themselves on which level they are operating from and
to which level they want to reach.
2. Every individual must ponder upon whether these above levels are helping clarify their
work problems.
3. Every individual must internalize the work cultural settings from each level, how it
affects the work culture.
4. Every individual must analyse how the levels can solve their personal problems.
5. Every individual must analyse how the levels will be useful during arguments.
6. Every individual must be willing to implement the levels of truth.
7. Every individual must be able to see the relationship between the levels and understand
the situation.

5.8.2 Self-Esteem
The individual must start from assessing ones behavioural pattern which impacts his selfesteem. If he is aware of his behaviour, he can change his behaviour accordingly to enhance
his positive self-esteem. The individual must analyse and rate himself in terms of the following
aspects:
1. Telling the truth and letting others and himself know what the truth is
2. Improving his self-awareness of deeper feelings, personality traits and sensations by
internalizing, discussing and seeking advice from others.
3. Always taking responsibility for everything happening in his life.
4. Listening to his inner feelings, thoughts and sensations.
5. Listening, understanding and clarifying before blaming and pointing fingers to others.
6. Stop restricting himself by being silent and withholding from others.
58

7. Treating himself with respect and forgiveness instead of being irritated and
judgemental, thinking of the larger context.
8. Questioning his limitations.
9. Envisioning himself to choose what he wants to be in life.
The characteristics of feeling an enlivened experience, being able to accept pointing faults by
others to make a positive use of it, following and giving directions without fear, able to like
oneself whether others like or not, being competent to face any situation, opening oneself
trusting others will accept the way he is, asking for help when he does not something,
understanding the impact one has on the people of the organisation, not afraid to see oneself
clearly, feeling good realizing ones potential, controlling and influencing his life the way he
wants, lead to the enhancement of positive self-esteem.

5.8.3 Levels of open-mindedness and inclusiveness

Level 1: The individual is unaware of others actions because they do not want to deal with
them.
Level 2: The individual is aware of others doings but, consciously tries to avoid them because
of dislikes.
Level 3: The individual objects others criticisms, blames and defends himself by denying what
other people say about him.
Level 4: The individual does not like listening to others about his negative aspects and tries to
attack him.
Level 5: The individual interrupt others because they do not like to hear from them but, instead
want others to hear from him trying to prove they are wrong and he is right.
Level 6: The individual seeks to understand and clarify from others something he does not
understand.
Level 7: The individual wants to understand others are saying as well as how they are feeling.

Open-mindedness: The individual must be open-minded to understand others behaviour.

59

Self-Awareness: The individual must expand his awareness to understand his own behaviour.
Underlying relationship: The individual must express the feeling of caring towards oneself
and others.
Fear: The individual fears of being neglected, rejected, unlovable and avoided.
The individual must therefore assess himself from the levels of truth that will help him resolve
his current status. He must assess himself from the following viewpoints:
1. What is the organisations existing level of open-mindedness and how would the
individual see it changed.
2. Do others like him the first time they meet him or does it change over a period of time.
3. Identifying his level of truth by others observation and reflecting upon it.
4. What factors contribute in making others misidentify his level of truth.
5. The importance of being cared in an organisation and how does it affect the productivity
of the company.
6. What fears are obstructing him upon being loved by others in the organisation.

Inclusiveness: The individual must be inclusive enough to understand others behaviour.

Enlivened experience: The individual must be living and not merely existing in the
organisation to make his experience an enlivened one where his behaviour towards himself
shapes his positive self-concept.
Underlying relationship: The feeling of being unique, special and important to the
organisation.
Fears: The feeling of being rejected, ignored, avoided and unimportant.
The individual must assess and reflect upon the following aspects:
1. The importance of being special to his organisation.
2. Peoples reaction when they first met him and reflecting upon the characteristics of
their reactions.
3. How will others reactions contribute towards his effectiveness. Reflecting upon those
patterns and improving towards enhancing positive self-concept.
4. Merits and demerits of organisational approach towards inclusiveness.
60

5.8.4 Behaviour that enhances good relations

1. The individual feels open about his feelings and ideologies to himself and others.
2. The individual is aware of his motivational levels and feelings at all moments to be
connected to deeper levels of truth.
3. The individuals unity in thought, word and deed.
4. The individual feels that all the people belong to one family trying to produce best
results, giving their best.
5. The individual ensures that everyone gives in full attention, energy, feelings and heart
to the work and people around.
6. The individual listens to others thoughts and feelings, acknowledges and gives an
honest reply.
7. The individual understands others viewpoints, feelings and tries to find solutions that
integrates all their feelings and ideologies.
8. The individual stays connected to deeper levels of truth and is aware of the differences
present in the organisational atmosphere. Therefore, he reveals his feelings in a timely
fashion.
9. The individual is aligned to organisational vision, mission and goals. He keeps himself
flexible according to the changes necessary to achieve organisational goals.

Every individual must reflect upon whether it is realistic to be open and honest enough to one
another, fears that he would face by being honest, relationship between being truthful, open
and trust factor, obstacles that he would face by being honest, relationship between being open
and productivity of the organisation, his contribution in the organisation to achieve an open
atmosphere.
5.8.5 Caring Leader behaviour
1. A caring leader has confidence in others to get through tough times in the
organisation.
i.

Respects and values his people.

ii.

Does whatever it takes to do the right thing.

61

iii.

Maintains and communicates hope filled attitude.

iv.

Follow through on commitments.

2. A caring leader seeks to identify and understand the task as it has meaning to his people.
i.

Understanding others perspective.

ii.

Understanding others experience.

3. A caring leader is emotionally available for his people.

i.

Listening to others.

ii.

Stop being judgemental.

iii.

Aware of his own reactions.

iv.

Helps and offers support.

v.

Promotes healthy interactions.

vi.

Promotes healthy personal boundaries.

4. A caring leader helps and offers service to his people appropriately.

i.

Promotes desirable behaviour.

ii.

Achieving results.

iii.

Takes initiative to resolve problems.

5. A caring leader facilitates his peoples development and transition through the work.
i.

Seeks and supports opportunities for growth and development.

ii.

Leads his team with purpose and integrity.

iii.

Serves as a mentor, teacher, coach and role model.

5.8.6 Workforce relationship

The workforce relationships can be improved by finding the right match between the individual
and his work. The mismatch can result to an atmosphere of dullness, boring and dissatisfaction.
Typically, when people join the organisations, they face this mismatch problem where they
feel no clarity on the job requirements, not challenging enough, unable to use my core
competencies, lack of autonomy, lack of direction, no support. Caring leadership
emphasizes on specifying interpersonal and personal aspects of the work, behavioural aspects
62

and feelings for the right match. The individual must feel competent and important to do the
respective work and must exhibit the behaviour of being inclusive, truthful and open-minded.

5.8.7 Resolving issues

In any organisation, conflicts are bound to arise. Caring Leadership presents the following
guidelines to resolve any type of arguments:
1. State the issue that has to be resolved in a very clear manner. It is better if the issues are
documented.
2. The individual must be given the opportunity to let out all the reasons of blame and
criticism of the issue and the people involved in the issue. Even if he is not feeling
confident or uncertain upon a reason, he must be willing to express out his opinions on
the issue.
3. The individual must seek clarity and understanding behind the reason and this is done
by having a healthy dialogue with one another.
4. The individual must express his reactions and feelings towards the issue and the people
involved.
5. The individual must feel right and acknowledge his feelings are true enough to others
so that they can get their personal opinions in resolving the issue.
6. The individual must now take time to reflect upon his self after hearing from others and
explore the parts within himself which he is not feeling good about or restricting. What
fears are obstructing, what in-competencies are pulling him back.
7. The individual must explore answers to each of those questions and express them to
others.
8. The individual must reflect upon taking 100% responsibility to any given situation
where he is involved and go beyond blames, criticism and limitations to see the spirit
of solving the issue. He must be open and inclusive towards taking advice from others
as to how they would have sensed and handled the issue.
9. The individual must reflect upon what he said and what others said which is meaningful
and explore within himself something that he has obstructed. He should then express
his feelings to others and discuss.
10. The individual must be aware of what he has learned, felt and must use the levels of
truth to clarify and resolve the issue.
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5.8.8 Organisational atmosphere

1. Any organisational atmosphere is composed of different shared values, beliefs, settings
and it is difficult to say that one type of atmosphere is good or bad. Each one has its
own merits and demerits depending upon the people, their roles and tasks.
2. If the individuals are open to communicate, meet and interact with one another, it leads
to solving many problems.
3. If the individuals are relying on themselves to solve problems, it creates a divided
atmosphere of different mentalities. He feels alone and restricted within himself.
4. If the individuals are in an atmosphere where there are strict rules, structure, authority,
there is high level of control from the person who is in charge.
5. If the individual is given equal opportunity in decision making process, the power shifts
amongst all towards making the right thing happen.
6. In an atmosphere where the individual feelings are important creates a strong united
atmosphere.

64

CHAPTER SIX:
SUMMARY CONCLUSIONS AND
SUGGESTIONS

SUMMARY CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS

Although successful leadership depends to some extent on technical skills, professional

knowledge such as strategic planning and financial planning, the main focus of this study has
been on the processes that create a caring culture by producing high performing leaders.
Leaders create themselves, they are neither born nor made. A caring culture ensures that
individuals improve upon themselves, make them feel that the culture is here to help them
realize their true potential. Caring Leadership centres around self-esteem and openness with a
new way of functioning by offering all organisations the opportunity to shift to a new level of
consciousness by helping people to be more self-aware.
Caring Leadership presents several notions that are difficult for some people to accept,
especially ideas like truth, choices and explorations of the self. Powerful objections to these
aspects have come especially from those who did not want to be invaded by their privacy. But,
this is what caring leadership is supposed to do: Respecting every persons feelings and
determination which ensures that this process does what it is supposed to do. And when they
are ready, they will experience on their own and realize that there is so much to take from this.
Organisations must implement a training process that involves the aspects that have been
brought out from the analysis and highlight the importance of having such workshops. If people
feel they are uncomfortable participating in such training workshops, organisations can give
the freedom to drop out by not imposing any restrictions. In this way both business objectives
of quality training programs and individual capacity for solving difficult problems are
honoured.
Even if an effective training program is introduced into an organisational life to impart caring,
there is no guarantee that the change will happen immediately and even if change occurs there
is no certainty that it will lead to improvement and productivity. Why? Because the whole
organisation is not willing to receive training together. When a section of people turns away
from participating in this, the organisation has a divided atmosphere. Therefore, where is the
possibility of having a culture where everyone is connected to another?
Caring Leadership emphasizes on the need to be self-aware to see a change in organisations
with more productivity than ever before. To experience this culture, one must be truthful and
67

self-confident. Caring Leadership imparts an understanding of how a person can relate to others
with happiness or pleasure or in this case care. It brings in new insights as to how
organisations must structure around the people who work for them. When this happens, people
will experience the taste of their new self-awareness and feel empowered.
This study establishes some wonderful breakthroughs that may lead to a different kind of
organisation in the future. It invites organisations to explore on the results when the
organisational culture is embedded with the following aspects:
1. A truthful environment where people feel honest enough to communicate freely without
any interferences.
2. Enhance self-awareness which allows people to look inward and know themselves and
others well enough.
3. Devoid of criticisms, blames and pointing fingers where everyone feels responsible and
accountable.

68

CHAPTER SEVEN:

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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ANNEXURE

ANNEXURE
The questions were based on the objective of sharing the experiences and live examples of the
respondents. The questions were grouped into three parts focusing on:
1. What factors contribute to the evolution of caring leadership?

What behaviours are rewarded in your organisation?

Where and how do people spend their time, energy and resources?

How do feel about your contributions to the organisation?

2. Experiences and perceptions that characterize to a caring leader?

Do people feel supported to talk and share their feelings with others?

What blocks collective comfort in an organisation? (Learning, feedback,

receiving new things)

What role models do you rely to impact your leadership style in a positive way?

Tell about the person who has impacted on your life?

3. How do they experience care in their leadership practices?

How do you perceive the culture during uncertainties, stressful times and
emotional exposure? How do they show up?

How have you experienced care in your organisation? Examples? How to

facilitate caring leadership? How to nurture it? What values do they convey?

77