Bhatnagar, P., S. Nigam, P. Prashant and R. Caprihan (2016).

“Desirable Traits of a Conscious Leader:

An Empirical Survey”. The Delhi University Journal of the Humanities and the Social Sciences 3: 71-91.

Desirable Traits of a Conscious Leader: An Empirical Survey

PURNIMA BHATNAGAR 1

Dayalbagh Educational Institute (Deemed University)

SHALINI NIGAM

Dayalbagh Educational Institute (Deemed University)

PREM PRASHANT

Radhasoami Satsang Sabha, Dayalbagh

AND

RAHUL CAPRIHAN

Dayalbagh Educational Institute (Deemed University)

ABSTRACT

The paper is aimed at studying the desirable qualities of conscious leaders by

leveraging the responses of business leaders in India. The respondents are drawn
from various sectors of the Indian economy. The study is empirical in nature and
uses principal component factor analysis and content analysis to understand the
qualities demonstrated by conscious leadership.

Keywords: Conscious Leadership, Emotional Intelligence, Transformational leadership,

Ethics, Corporate Social Responsibility

1. INTRODUCTION

Leaders, in the current age face numerous challenges. While they are responsible for
delivering on societal expectations, by and large, they face a keen scrutiny from shareholders
and other stakeholders (Fry and Matherly, 2006), deal with compliance on regulations

1
Department of Management, Faculty of Social Sciences, Dayalbagh Educational Institute (Deemed
University), Dayalbagh, Agra, India. Email: [email protected].
Acknowledgement: The authors are extremely grateful to Revered Prof. P. S. Satsangi for intuitive guidance
provided during this research. This paper was presented at Towards a Science of Consciousness Conference in
the East – West Forum, organized by the University of Arizona, USA in 2014.
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BHATNAGAR ET AL. Desirable Traits of a Conscious Leader

(Burch and Danley, 1980), confront economic uncertainty, and, need to cope with civil
society pressure for a more sustainable functioning (Brown, 2011). In a globally connected
and digital world, news about corporate failure travels fast. Financial repercussions aside,
impact on employees in terms of layoffs, and, natural disasters (French and Holden, 2012)
can lead to grave consequences. In many economies, there seems to be ‘a crisis of
confidence in those who are charged with leading wisely’ (Kellerman, 2012). It is with this
background that theorists, educationists and practitioners debate upon qualities which are
needed in future generations of business leaders.

Research into various aspects of organizational consciousness by theorists like

Pruzan (2001), has helped apply those competencies to organizations, which are usually
attributed to individuals e.g. ‘reflection’, ‘evaluation’, ‘learning’ and making measured
‘choices’. Taking decisions on the basis of one’s conscience which, in turn, guides moral
values is another area which has been applied to studies on organizations. Meaningful
examples are in the fields of business ethics, whereby, notions of organizational (shared)
values, code of ethics and corporate social responsibility find due attention.

Researchers are beginning to investigate the specific ways in which consciousness

impacts the functioning of human beings. It is expected that decisions taken by conscious
leaders would be for the benefit of both the natural and corporate environment. Anderson
and Anderson (2001), comment on qualities ascribed to a conscious change leader and this
includes ‘being authentic, one’s natural self, being fully present and being skilled in self
mastery, understanding the true dimensions of a problem faster, making better decisions,
being able to develop one’s intuition and being able to sense right action and right timing’.

The researchers were inspired from the term ‘Conscious Leadership,’ ideated by John
Renesch in 1997. According to Renesch (2003), conscious leaders ‘inspire and bring out the
best in those around them, foster transformation, and manage beyond conventional profits’.
Moreover, he enunciated that this leadership, is directed by an ‘inner moral compass’, and
does not arise from ‘policy, procedures, techniques and systems’. The question of what
influences the ‘inner moral compass’ is a separate one and is not the subject of research in
this paper. This paper tries to refine the key constituents of conscious leadership.

It aims to specifically study the key attributes of conscious leadership by leveraging

the views of profit and non – profit sectors in India.
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To the best of our knowledge, no other study has been carried out which encapsulates
the Indian view on Conscious Leadership.

The paper has been organized in the following manner. The present section
introduces the focus area followed by literature review related to studies on consciousness
and themes interfacing with management. The next section captures the research
methodology. Further, the findings from the quantitative and qualitative studies are
highlighted. In the last section, the findings are discussed and conclusions provided along
with areas of future research.

2. LITERATURE REVIEW AND RESEARCH GAPS

In the present section, we begin by summarizing research in the area of consciousness

studies. Secondly, the key themes interfacing consciousness and management literature are
examined from the lens of business and leadership studies. The research gaps are identified
henceforth.

2.1 Consciousness

The term consciousness has many different connotations. Zeman (2001, p. 1265)
referred to consciousness emerging initially, in the form of the three senses: “knowledge
shared with another, knowledge shared with oneself and, simply knowledge”.

An inquiry into the types of consciousness, has thrown up multiple typologies. Four
types of consciousness have been defined by Dr. A.K. Mukhopadhyay, All India Institute of
Medical Sciences, New Delhi. These include the brain – stem consciousness which enables
movements in the human body. The limbic – system which is responsible for human
emotions leads to the second type of consciousness and directs endeavors for the pursuit of
pleasure. The third and higher level of consciousness originates in the cerebral cortex leading
to creative imagination. The fourth type is referred to as supra-cortical consciousness where
man unites with the cosmic consciousness through meditation and other ‘mystical
experiences’ (Swami Jitatmananda, 2013, p.180 in Sriramamurti, Prashant and Mohan,
2013).

Studies into various types of consciousness have evolved over a period of time.
Though the studies are innumerable in number, it is not possible to list every single one in
this paper and only a few themes, relevant to this research have been included.
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BHATNAGAR ET AL. Desirable Traits of a Conscious Leader

The first set of literature reviewed related to brain consciousness. Certain themes
which have been studied in the realm of management studies include the implication for
managers arising from the functional differences between the left and right sides of the brain
(Hines, 1987); the neuroscience of leadership (Rock and Schwartz, 2006; Waldman,
Balthazard and Peterson, 2011); inferences for business ethics (Salvador and Folger, 2009);
organizational neuroscience (Becker and Cropanzano, 2010); the role of intuition in
management research (Akinci and Sadler‐Smith, 2012) and application of neurosciences in
consumer behavior and marketing (Touhami et al., 2011).

The second set of literature review is available in the domain of mind consciousness.
It was Harung, Heato and Alexander (1995), who proposed that consciousness, caused
changes in behaviours related with leadership. Schyuler (2010) investigated the relationship
between leadership integrity and mind training and also undertook studies in Lojong, a
concept in Tibetan Buddhism used as a method for training the mind to develop leaders.

The third important facet of consciousness is spiritual consciousness. Mayer (2000,

p.48) defined spiritual consciousness as ‘attending to the unity of the world and transcending
one’s existence, consciously entering into heightened awareness states, attending to the
sacred in everyday matters, structuring consciousness so that problems in living are always
seen in the context of life’s ultimate concerns and desire to act’. Reave (2005), has reviewed
over 150 studies which find a clear relationship between spiritual values and practices, and,
effective leadership. This aspect is especially important for management studies where
business leaders take decisions which impact the lives of all their stakeholders.
The relevance of spiritual consciousness has been emphasized by Prof. Prem Saran
Satsangi, Chairman, Advisory Committee on Education, Dayalbagh Educational Institute.
According to Satsangi (2013), “the order of the empirical world itself has an order, an
underlying order of second degree, which rests on the intuitive consciousness that guides and
prompts development of systems, with apparently purposive and telic behavior”. He also
states that “the fundamental axiom of macrocosmic / microcosmic spiritual consciousness is
that the origin of the macrocosm is an infinite spiritual energy source or reservoir known as
the Supreme Creator or Being or Super Positive source or reservoir known as the Supreme
Creator or Being or Super Positive Pole accompanied by the omni – quantum spiritual force –
field of consciousness ranging from the Super Positive Pole of full spirituality to the Nether
or Negative Pole of depleted spirituality; and each constituent fundamental element of this

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omni – quantum spiritual force field, known as the spirit force of consciousness (monopole),
is the one which possesses prime energy and that all other forces (mental or physical) of
creation or nature have been evolved by the association of this spirit force with media (mental
or physical) of different kinds” (Satsangi, 2013. p.37 in edited book by Sriramamurty,
Prashant and Mohan, 2013)
Hence, what may be interpreted here is the phenomenon of the spirit controlling the
mind, which in turn controls the physical body, hence binding all three aspects of brain, mind
and spiritual consciousness. This refers, hence to the relevance of all three in the development
of human beings, especially business leaders.

2.2 Studies on Themes Interfacing Management Studies and Consciousness

One of the key aspects of management studies is leadership. Leaders have been
defined as entities who guide others, due to possession of either superior traits (Barnard,
2003), or, people skills (Ward et al., 2007), along with the ability to ‘articulate visions and
create the environment in which to accomplish things’ (Russell and Stone, 2002). A key
aspect of leadership has been pointed out by Hersey and Blanchard (1972) as the capability to
respond to different situations.
In the sphere of educational institutions, Jones (2012) in her thesis on qualitative
study of post secondary educational leadership practices observed that the 8 respondents were
not familiar with conscious leadership practice as a term. However, the key leadership
practices of the respondents, related to, developing relationships with people on a personal
level and connecting with them. Moreover, faced with uncertainty, leaders developed a
shared consensus on how to approach the problem. They learnt to become reflective and use
collaboration and co-operation to meet organizational goals. Jones also observed that since
they were critical thinkers they did not conform to any one leadership style. While
interesting, the thesis is devoted to a study of educational leaders and it may not be
completely relevant in the context of corporate functioning.
The relevance of consciousness in the sphere of corporate functioning has been
examined by many researchers. Some of the following studies were presented in the Science
of Consciousness Conference, organized by the University of Arizona, USA over a period of
years and have been collected from the book of abstracts.

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BHATNAGAR ET AL. Desirable Traits of a Conscious Leader

Malhotra and Malhotra (2013), stated the relevance of generating a new mindset,
called new management consciousnesses by Joiner, 1994. This consciousness, according to
them is causal and impacts individual and organization functioning.
Entrepreneurial consciousness was modeled by Rajwanshi, Sri – Narain, Narain, Srivastava
and Swami (2013) using causal loop diagram methodology and included aspects related to
planning, organization, control, leadership, ethical, ecological and research and development
consciousness among others.
In a discussion on the methods involved in developing intuitive abilities amongst
managers, Das and Srivastava (2013) have pointed to the relevance of meditation. Amongst
the benefits, they observed that intuitive ability helped managers take quick, accurate and
confident decisions in scenarios of risk and uncertainty. Performance implications were
observed by Srivastava et al. (2013) in the area of new product design amongst long term
practitioners of meditation and those who practiced it instantaneously.
The studies show various aspects and nuances of consciousness in the area of
business, but fall short of addressing the qualities that are of importance in conscious leaders.
Most of the studies on consciousness have studied the phenomenon in isolation or with a key
focus area. Hence, an attempt is made through the present study to address this gap by taking
into account the views of practitioners regarding the desirable attributes of conscious
leadership, especially in the Indian setting. It is hoped that most of the aspects of
consciousness would be addressed in this study.
3. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

The present section first discusses the data sources, tool and sample selection, after which
the method of analysis is elaborated upon.

3.1 Data Sources, Tool and Sample selection

To understand the key qualities of conscious leaders a questionnaire was developed,

referencing traits from several studies on leadership. This is potentially one of the first
questionnaires deployed amongst business leaders, which directly references traits which may
be considered necessary amongst conscious leaders. It is due to the lack of availability of a
standard questionnaire referencing attributes of conscious leaders that the questionnaire used
in the present study was self developed by the researchers’ basis review of literature. It was
not expected that all traits used in the questionnaire would qualify as important from the

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perspective of conscious leadership. Hence, a five point likert scale question was used to get
respondent views on agreement or disagreement with the traits in question. To address the
missing components of conscious leadership, the respondents were also asked to provide their
opinion through an open ended section of the questionnaire. The responses to this section
constitute the qualitative analysis in section 4.5. The table 1 highlights the authors who have
referenced qualities of leaders and which have been used by the authors for the purpose of the
study.

The respondent base constituted several leaders from the business arena. A sampling
frame of top 500 firms basis turnover was procured from the Confederation of Indian
Industry (CII) in Gurgaon, India and others sources like details of business leaders from
industry associations like PHD Chambers of Commerce and FICCI, as well as social media
platforms like LinkedIn were leveraged to circulate the questionnaire tool.

The questionnaire was administered via Survey Monkey, an online tool for hosting
and conducting surveys. A confidentiality clause was incorporated to ensure respondent and
organization privacy.

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TABLE 1

LEADERSHIP QUALITIES AND AUTHORS

Qualities Readings
Self awareness Plato, Levy (2012), Jones (2012), Gosling (2003),
Bass and Steidlmeier, 1999
Conscious of effects on others Ketola (2009)
Ability to influence the organization Avolio, B. J., Zhu, W., Koh, W., and Bhatia, P.
(2004)
Sound understanding of global issues Cooper (2002)
Emotional Intelligence Goleman (1995), Anderson and Anderson (2001),
Brown (2011)
Holistic view of the organization Carter*
Systems orientation Carter*, Anderson and Anderson (2001)
Intellect Pienaar (2009)
Reflective Pruzan (2001)
Vision Renesch (2003)
Desire to learn Pruzan (2001), Renesch (2003)
Ability to share power Carter*, Raelin (2003) cited in Gosling (2003)
Ability to create an environment for team to Anderson and Anderson (2001)
succeed in
Ability to understand what the stakeholders Renesch (2003)
expect from the organization
Integrity Confucius, Bass and Steidlmeier, 1999, Welch
(2001)
Footnote: * Center for Conscious Leadership

3.2 Method of Analysis

Descriptive analysis, reliability test, principal component factor analysis, Anova and
content analysis have been used in the present study.

For quantitative analysis, before conducting factor analysis, Kaiser-Mayer-Olkin

(KMO) and Bartlett’s test were performed to understand whether Factor analysis may be
carried out for the data collected. If a KMO measure greater than 0.5 is achieved (Lee, 2006),
then this supports the use of factor analysis for the data in question. Bartlett’s test of
sphericity indicates that the factor analysis is significant if the p < 0.05. This was also
conducted.

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As per standard procedure, correlation analysis among the variables was first carried
out and two correlated variables out of 17 initial variables were removed from the analysis.
The retained factors were evaluated for reliability and cronbach alpha was executed in SPSS.

Principal component analysis, which is a ‘method for finding the initial factor
solution’ (Manly, 1994) was conducted, since the number of measures was large and it was
difficult to visually seek out correlations among them. This helped identify the number of
individual constructs required to account for the pattern of correlations observed (Fabrigar
and Wegener, 2011). Factors with eigenvalues greater than 1 were taken into account.
Varimax, which is often used as a choice of rotation method, was used whilst running the
factor analysis.

Next, ANOVA was executed to understand how significantly the variable in question
impacted each measure of the construct. This helped confirm the reliability of the factors on
various respondent segments.

For qualitative analysis, content analysis was used to create themes for the open ended
responses to the question of qualities of conscious leaders. These themes were further
categorized into qualities demonstrated in the organizational space, social space and personal
space of leaders. Further, the content was aligned as per categories to develop eight main
themes.

4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

As previously noted, a questionnaire was used to gather respondent views about the key
attributes of conscious leaders. The respondent demographic profile is listed below.

4.1 Demographic Profile of the Respondents

The demographic profile of the respondents is highlighted in Table 2 below.

In terms of age profile, 31.13% of the respondents (33) were in the 22 to 34 years age
group, 41.51% (44) were in the 35 to 44 years age group, and 27.36% of the respondents
(30) were above 45 years of age. With respect to diversity, 31.77% of the respondents (34)
were females, with 68.22% (73) being males. In terms of work experience, 29.9% of the
respondents (32) had less than 10 years of work experience, and the remaining 70.09% (75)
had greater than 10 years of work experience.
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BHATNAGAR ET AL. Desirable Traits of a Conscious Leader

TABLE 2

DEMOGRAPHIC REPRESENTATION OF THE RESPONDENTS

Number of Respondents Categories Respondents

(Number)
Age Group 22 to 34 33
35 to 44 44
45 to 54 21
55 to 64 8
Not Known 1
Gender Female 34
Male 73
Work Experience 0 to 5 years 11
6 to 10 years 21
11 to 15 24
16 to 20 23
21 and more years 28
Management Level Senior Management (Vice President and 57
Higher)
Others 50

4.2 Organizational Profile of the Respondents

The 107 respondents belonged to 79 organizations 2. However the organizations

spanned automotive, academia, IT enabled services, computer software, banking, chemicals
and fibres industries, consulting, diversified and infrastructure sector, FMCG sector,
insurance and financial services sector, non – profit sector, pharmaceuticals and electronics.

4.3 Quantitative Analysis: Results from Factor Analysis

As a first step, the correlation coefficient among various factors was calculated in
SPSS and two factors, viz. ‘Experience’ was observed as being correlated with ‘Reflective’
(r = 0.557) and ‘Experience’ was also observed to be correlated with ‘appreciation of
diversity’ (0.516). ‘Appreciation of diversity’ was in turn detected as being correlated with
‘reflective’ (0.528). It was, hence, decided to remove two variables from the overall list of

2
For ethical reasons stated during the data collection period, it has been decided to keep the organization names
confidential.
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factors. These were ‘appreciation of diversity’ and ‘experience’. However, ‘Reflective’ was
retained.

To test the reliability of the 15 item question, cronbach alpha was carried out in
SPSS, and it was observed as being reliable at 0.80.

As a precursor to factor analysis, KMO and Bartlett’s test were performed. Since,
KMO measure of sampling adequacy was observed as being greater than 0.5 at 0.673, the
test condition was adequately met. Bartlett’s test indicating the significance of the factor
analysis was also observed to be significant (p = 0.00). The results of the KMO and
Bartlett’s test are indicated in Table 3.

TABLE 3

KMO AND BARTLETT TEST RESULTS

Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy. .673

Approx. Chi-Square 369.990
Bartlett's Test of Sphericity df 105
Sig. .000

Since both test conditions were met in this case, factor analysis was carried out in
SPSS.

The descriptive statistics and rotated component matrix key variables are depicted in
Table 4.
It is observed from the descriptive statistics that all factors except one, have a mean
rating of greater than 4. The standard deviation is least for self awareness which leads one to
understand that most of the people felt that awareness of the self is an important attribute for
conscious leaders to possess.

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TABLE 4

DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS AND ROTATED COMPONENT MATRIX FROM

FACTOR ANALYSIS

Descriptive Statistics Rotated Component Matrix

Variable Mean Standard 1 2 3 4
Deviation
Self Awareness 4.63 0.506 0.777
Conscious of effects on others 4.37 .628
4.39 .616
Ability to influence the organization 0.738
4.13 .655
Sound understanding of global issues 0.751
Emotional Intelligence 4.40 .601
0.737
4.37 .674
Holistic view of the organization
3.90 .873
Systems orientation
4.26 .659
Intellect 0.798
4.00 .758
Reflective
4.57 .697
Vision
4.45 .623
Desire to learn
4.17 .822
Ability to share power 0.742

Ability to create an environment for team to 4.61 .647 0.833

succeed

Ability to understand and deliver what the 4.53 .625

stakeholders expect from the organization
4.77 .612
Integrity
Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis
Rotation Method: Varimax with Kaiser Normalization.a
a Rotation converged in 6 iterations.

The factor analysis highlighted the presence of 4 key factors which are enumerated
below.

 Factor 1: Ability to create an environment for the team to succeed in, and Ability to
share power

 Factor 2: Sound understanding of global issues, and Ability to influence the

organization
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 Factor 3: Intellect

 Factor 4: Self Awareness, and Emotional Intelligence

The next section highlights the universal applicability of the factors which have been
derived from the analysis.

4.4 Universal Applicability of Factors

To test whether the factors were universally applicable across years of work
experience ANOVA was conducted and observations noted whether for any of the variables
the p – value < 0. The strata under work experience were as follows:

Work Experience: 0 to 5 years, 6 to 10 years, 11 to 15 years, 16 to 20 years, 21 and more

years.

Results on strata of ‘work experience’ show that for all factors, except ‘ability to influence
the organization’ (p = 0.045), the p-value was greater than 0.05, indicating no significant
difference across strata responses with respect to the factors.

4.5 Qualitative Analysis: Analysis of Verbatim Comments of Respondents

The qualitative analysis of verbatim comments was analysed using content analysis
and statements were arranged according to themes in three different spaces. The first one
referred to statements which related to qualities demonstrated by conscious leaders in the
organizational space, the second referred to qualities demonstrated in the social space and
the third one referred to qualities demonstrated in the personal space. The related themes
were then arranged together between various spaces. These are illustrated in Table 5 below.

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TABLE 5

FINDINGS FROM THE QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS ABOUT QUALITIES OF CONSCIOUS

LEADERS DEMONSTRATED IN VARIOUS SPACES

Organizational Space Social Space Personal Space

Theme 1
 Aware  Influential  Mental Maturity
 Understands the
environment
 Has Vision, Strategizes and
brings opportunities to the
organization, Able to plan
and predict the future
Theme 2
 Develops Leaders  Empowers others  No Ego
 Motivates  Good Interpersonal relations  Self Aware
 Develops Trust  Emotional Maturity
 Has Empathy  Self regulates emotions
 Knows and Guides  Sensitive
Theme 3
 Competent  Values Time
 Efficient  Disciplined
 Decisions as per need  Analytical
 High speed of decision
making
 Objective
Theme 4
 Ethical Conduct  Honest
Theme 5
 Presence of Mind  Mindful
Theme 6
 Transformational  Flexible
 Innovates and brings about
Impact
Theme 7
 Transparent
Theme 8
 Universal Brotherhood  Religious
 Compassion  Beyond Self
 Values

The eight themes which have been aligned from the verbatim comments of the
respondents may be explained thus.

Firstly, conscious leaders are aware; they understand the macro environment facing
the organizations and think and plan proactively about organizational responses to these

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factors and situations. In the social space they are influential and at a personal level they
have mental maturity to deal with the changes in the environment.

Secondly, they develop leaders and motivate their teams. They have excellent inter –
personal relations, and nurture trust within the teams. They exhibit empathy towards their
fellow colleagues. At a personal level, they are self aware, and have learnt to control their
ego as well as emotions.

Thirdly, conscious leaders take decisions as per need, are competent and efficient. At
a personal level, they value time, are disciplined and analytical.

Fourthly, conscious leaders demonstrate ethical conduct and live honestly in their
personal space.

Fifthly, they have the presence of mind to respond to different situations and they are
mindful, and practice being in the present at all times.

Sixthly, conscious leaders are transformational and try to bring about impact through
decisions.

Seventhly, after awareness and being self aware, most of the respondents have
alluded to the fact that conscious leaders are transparent and credible.

The last quality demonstrated is that of universal brotherhood towards others, and
being compassionate towards all beings. Conscious leaders are religious, and look beyond
their own self towards others.

5. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS

This section discusses the joint findings of both quantitative and qualitative analysis
and concludes the paper with areas of further research.

The quantitative and qualitative analysis highlights three primary factors which are of
significance in both the analysis.

The first key attribute is associated with leadership ability to foster an environment
which would help teams succeed and also be able to share power. In today’s complex times,
knowledge no longer resides in one person alone. Employees learn to co-exist in a shared

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power environment, with due respect for the knowledge each one has imbibed, continuously
learning from each other and evolving to find further meaning in work.

Further, this is associated with another important concept of diversity. Harrison

(2005, p. 206) wrote that leaders can “help unlock their DNA of success by providing a
work culture that is flexible, adaptable and respectful of diverse skills and personalities. It
will also be collaborative, itself entrepreneurial and conducive to innovation from anyone”.
This aids the organization integrate various skills in the form of corporate DNA which it
may require at different points of time.

An ability to share power is opposite to the autocratic leadership style and requires
leaders to practice humility without absolving themselves of the accountability for results.
They help others in the team perform to the best of their abilities, and reach higher pinnacles
of achievement, reaching win–win outcomes for people and organizations. Bolden, Gosling,
Marturano and Dennison (2003) discussed the concept of ‘servant leadership’ as a ‘practical
philosophy which supports those who choose to serve first and then lead as a way of
expanding service to individuals and institutions’. According to the Center for Servant
Leadership website, (April 2003), as cited in Bolden, Gosling and Dennison (2003), this
leadership encourages ‘collaboration, trust, foresight, listening and the ethical use of power
and empowerment’. The result is significant since it was observed to be an important
leadership quality by other researchers like Raelin (2003).

The second important factor highlights the importance of what we call “social”
(Researcher’s term) consciousness. This incorporates the ability to have a sound
understanding of global issues, and being able to influence the organization with integrity.
This result finds an echo in the work of Cooper (2002). With most multi-national companies
having footprints in various countries, leaders need to understand the macro – environmental
factors associated with their businesses. They also need to develop foresight of how these
factors would impact their business.

Psychological empowerment of employees helps leaders influence for better

outcomes (Avolio et al., 2004). Organization structure, culture and climate are also
important variables that have been observed by other researchers as helping the
organizations achieve goals (Koberg et al., 1999; Spreitzer, 1996; Spreitzer et al., 1999, as
cited in Avolio et al., 2004).
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Influencing ability is also associated with the leader’s ability to communicate his
vision and thoughts. What is meant here is not only the ability for personal communication
but also an intuitive ability to design effective communication channels which transmit
messages to the correct recipients at the right time, for intended consequences to transpire.
This is an infallible part of intellectual integrity – how it is used to influence an organization
– board, shareholders and employees to take appropriate decisions for the benefit not only of
the organization but the wider community. This result is similar to the observations of
Avolio et al.. (2004).

The third key factor is being self aware, which is a key part of emotional intelligence.
Many researchers like Levy (2012), Jones (2012), Gosline (2003) and, Bass and Steidlmeier
(1999) have also highlighted its importance.

Developing self awareness helps leaders understand themselves, appreciate their

fellow colleagues and their motivations. This helps channelize energies in the right direction
for organizational success. It is deeply associated with self regulation and controlling one’s
thoughts, emotions and feelings to lead to proactive actions which further helps build their
credibility in the organization.

Such awareness helps in fine tuning on the job performance of every kind –
managing feeling, keeping oneself motivated and developing good work – related social
skills, including those essential for leadership and team work. This gauge is related to our
inner core values, and, it guides our conscious or unconscious motivations in the work
sphere.

The quantitative analysis highlighted the importance of intellect in conscious

leadership.

Intellectual ability helps conscious leaders direct efforts towards understanding and
delivering on organizational commitments and key focus areas.

The qualitative analysis, on the other hand, also indicated the importance of ethical
conduct, refined decision making ability, displaying presence of mind and being
transformational in the organizational space. It also referred to them believing in universal
brotherhood in the social space and displaying qualities of compassion and selflessness in
the personal space. It was also pointed out that they may be religious.
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BHATNAGAR ET AL. Desirable Traits of a Conscious Leader

These constitute attributes, mindsets and values which the respondents observed as
being important and were not included in the questionnaire (except Integrity). A merger of
the attributes used in the questionnaire and the new attributes from qualitative analysis could
hence form the universe of characteristics of conscious leaders. This is the significance of
the present research. It extends the understanding of leader attributes, especially when
looked at from the lens of consciousness.

Whilst the study has provided insights into the key qualities of conscious leaders, it
has certain limitations. Due to time constraints it was not possible to extend the time span
beyond 107 respondent answers which form the basis of the study. More sections of society
can also be included namely government sector to provide a larger base of representative
society.

Further research in this area may be conducted by enhancing the questionnaire with
the findings from the qualitative analysis to provide a more comprehensive view on
conscious leadership.

It would be interesting to study various aspects of consciousness – related to the

brain, mind and spirituality and their linkages with conscious leadership. Some of the areas
of future research which may be potentially studied are the methods deployed by conscious
leaders in removing the ego and self in the organizational domain, the role of religion in
developing consciousness among business leaders, and, mindful work and consciousness. It
is hoped these areas would be of interest to researchers in the field of management.

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