Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar speaks at the inaugural session of the Global Leadership Forum 2017.
Collaboration, intuition, sustainability and mind management explored at 2-day leadership forum
Bengaluru: “While one type of leader wants to climb up the ladder because he wants to achieve something, the second type inspires others to achieve. Today, we need the second kind of leaders who have a willingness to share and work together. When two people come together with a spirit of offering and collaboration, only then is progress possible,” said Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar in his keynote address, at the two-day Global Leadership Forum which kicked off at the Art of Living International Center, Bengaluru.
The forum brought together eminent leaders from the field of business, governments, sports, and culture to discuss leadership needed in the increasingly complex world. The post-truth era; The time in which man and machine will become one; Leadership in an interdependent world; Irreversible Globalization; Brexit and other walls were some of the innovative and out-of-box topics deliberated during the Global Leadership Forum.
The forum saw speakers such as Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Founder of the Art of Living, Mr. Grandhi Mallikarjuna Rao, Chairman, GMR Group; Mr. Alojz Peterle, Member of the European Parliament and Former Prime Minister, Republic of Slovenia; Ms. Arundhati Bhattacharya, Former Chairperson, State Bank of India, Himanshu Gulati, Member of Parliament, Norway; Aroon Purie, Chief Executive and Editor-in-Chief, India Today.
Speaking of the need to radically transform the education system and enable citizens to be unafraid in questioning existing systems, Dr. Subramanian Swamy said, “What determines the leadership of a democracy is the mindset of its people. Our education system needs to inculcate not just cognitive intelligence, but also moral, social and emotional intelligence.”
The Art of Living, the World Forum for Ethics in Business and the International Association for Human Values jointly hosted the GLF.
Prominent leaders such as Mr. Hemant Bhargava, Managing Director, LIC; Mr. Gerd Hoefner, Managing Director and President, Siemens Healthcare; Mr. Deepak Hota, Chairman and Managing Director, BEML; RV Deshpande, Hon. Minister for Medium and Heavy Industries, Government of Karnataka along with Mr. Santosh Jayaram, Partner and Head- Sustainability and CSR Advisory; Mr. Ajay Nanavati, Chairman, Syndicate Bank; Dr. Vandana Shiva, Scholar and activist; Dr. Subramanian Swamy, Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha among others led delegates through captivating discussions around ethics, environmental sustainability, collaboration and the art of managing startups.
“Political leaders should initiate actions at three levels of sustainability- interpersonal, industrial and environmental sustainability,” said RV Deshpande, Karnataka Minister for Medium and Heavy Industries and added that a good leader should ask himself how he can make the people around him do good things.
The delegates learned how to lead with intuition straight from Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, and the art of managing startups from successful entrepreneur Alok Kejriwal. Through experiential yoga and meditation sessions, they learned secrets to managing their mind in times of stress.
About The Art of Living
Founded in 1981 by Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, The Art of Living is an educational and humanitarian movement engaged in stress-management and service initiatives. The organization operates globally in 155 countries and has touched the lives of over 370 million people.
The programs are guided by Gurudev’s philosophy of peace: “Unless we have a stress-free mind and a violence-free society, we cannot achieve world peace.” To help individuals get rid of stress and experience inner peace, The Art of Living offers stress-elimination programs which include breathing techniques, meditation, and yoga. These programs have helped millions around the world to overcome stress, depression and violent tendencies. The movement has spread peace across communities through diverse humanitarian projects, including conflict resolution, disaster relief, sustainable rural development, empowerment of women, prisoner rehabilitation, education for all, and environmental sustainability.
About World Forum for Ethics in Business
The World Forum for Ethics in Business (WFEB) is a registered public interest foundation based in Belgium and holds a special consultative status with the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) of the United Nations.
The WFEB, for the past decades, has been advocating and acting towards ethics, sustainability, governance and sustainable values. Over 70,000 leaders from 70 countries joined in global conferences and innumerable stories of transformation at a personal, as well as at a corporate level. Nobel laureates, heads of states and senior executives from global companies have participated in WFEB events, including Microsoft, Coca Cola, Infosys, ING Bank, GMR Group, the World Bank Group, International Monetary Fund, Daimler, IKEA, Novartis, the United Nations, Unilever, Robert Bosch GmbH, Siemens, Johnson & Johnson, American Express, Citibank, Tata Group and others.
About International Association for Human Values
The International Association for Human Values was created in Geneva in 1997 by Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar as a global platform for humanitarian initiatives that solve problems by uplifting human values. IAHV fosters the daily practice of human values – a sense of connectedness and respect for all people and the natural environment, an attitude of non-violence, and an ethic of social service.
Through its country organizations and partners, IAHV conducts service projects and raises funds for humanitarian and disaster relief initiatives throughout the world.
