CHENNAI: In an age when classrooms are becoming increasingly bookish and stiffly structured, the Karma-Yoga Leadership Experiential Project (LEP) is definitely a welcome change. An integral part of the post-graduate programme in management curriculum at the Great Lakes Institute of Management, this initiative not only provides students an opportunity to become good leaders outside the classroom, but also extends help to villages around the college.Guided by professor Venkat R Krishnan, Director, Yale-Great Lakes Center for Management Research, students visit surrounding villages each week to provide them with a better quality of life and empower them.“Trying to learn leadership in a classroom is like trying to learn swimming in a classroom. Just as a swimming pool is required to learn swimming, a live setting with actual potential followers is needed to learn leadership,” says Venkat.When the institute moved into their Manamai campus in 2009, they made the decision to adopt 20 villages that surrounded the institute's campus. “While the villages get budding managers to lift themselves, the students acquire a first-hand understanding of what it means to create followers and transform them,” explains Venkat.Venkat admits that initially, the willingness of the students to participate in this programme was low, but once they got down to business, they began looking forward to the visits. Keeping the travel frequency in mind, Venkat ensured that each village was not more than 15-20 minutes away from the campus. But apart from travel time, he also put in a lot of thought regarding how much help each village required before taking it under their wings. “While some villages require heavy hand-holding, other villages take a lot of initiatives by themselves with minimal help from our side,” he informs.“Some individuals (in the villages) have been inspired by our efforts to take to organic farming and some self-help activities,” he says with pride.The benefits of the programme are not visible in just the villages. “Students have become extremely sensitised to others' needs, and addressing others' real needs is the hallmark of transformational leadership. We have made the students realise that they are human beings first and managers only after that,” says Venkat.The Karma-Yoga has come a long way from when they started three years ago and Venkat has plans for the future mapped out as well. “We wish to collaborate with the social responsibility initiatives of various business organisations so that our 20 villages can gain more,” he informs.
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