Analyzing the Dalai Lama's Leadership: A Comprehensive Case Study

This case study delves into the leadership style of the Dalai Lama, examining his traits, motives, and personal characteristics, particularly his democratic leadership and commitment to peace. It identifies him as a principle-centered, proactive, compassionate, and empowering leader. The study further assesses his alignment with Level 5 leadership, highlighting his 'fierce will' and 'compelling personality.' Potential conflicts between his various leadership roles, including charismatic, democratic, and visionary aspects, are also explored. The analysis considers his pursuit of Tibetan autonomy and his influence as a spiritual leader, referencing various sources to support its claims. Desklib provides a platform for students to access similar case studies and solved assignments for academic support.

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table of contents
Table Of Contents.......................................................................................................................2
Question 1....................................................................................................................................3
Question 2....................................................................................................................................5
Question 3....................................................................................................................................6
References....................................................................................................................................8

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QUESTION 1
Question 1 what characteristics (traits, motives, and personal characteristics) does the
Dalai Lama appear to have?
Let us now look at the particular characteristics of the Dalai Lama predicted from the article.
These characteristics are derived from the several incidents mentioned in the case.
Based on the article, it can be said that Dalai Lama is a democratic personality and leadership
for his home region called Tibet. Democratic leadership referred to the kind of leadership
where members of the group shares equal right to take decision. He is considered as the famous
spiritual guru of the world and known for his peace mantra. He is committed to the tasks to
solve the tension prevailing between citizen of Tibet and government of Chinese, for letting
Tibet be an individual democratic country (Chhaya, 2005) .
1. Principle centered in life
As we can see that the Dalai Lama is a principle-centered personality and is teaching lessons of
self-enlightenment to the world population. Dalai lama Tenzin is responsible for serving the
humanity by spreading peace and happiness in life of people staying around them. When he
was sent out of Tibet, he din't fight back or adopted violent steps, rather he asked to solve the
fight with peace and wisdom. Dalai lama is living with the principle of peace. He is living with
three principles and commitment: promoting human ethics, boosting harmony amongst the
societal group and emphasizing on surviving individual identity of their religion and principles.
The principle of Dalai Lama and his society believes that the intention of life should be to be
happy and make others happy. Neither social rituals nor educational views advise human to
suffer, it says that every single person needs happiness and satisfaction in life. Even the stars of
galaxy proposed human to initiate such ideologies and practices which makes task easy to be
happy. It is important to find out what makes us happy and content.
2. Pro-active in actions and care

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It is observed that Dalai Lama is a proactive person as he is shown to act based on his
ideologies and principles and not on his feelings. As we can see that he was exiled from his
country Tibet; still he is handling this matter since decades with peace and love. Moreover, he
is pro actively taking care if his Tibetan people to be safe from Chinese government. Though
he is struggling to get independent state, Dalai Lama is trying his best to save the essentiality
of Tibetian heritage sites and cultural and religious institutions proactively. He has been
awarded as Nobel Peace guru in the year of 1989 as he is advocating all the peaceful solutions
to current problems and promotes happiness in society.
3. Compassionate about the people and things
Looking at the case, we can predict that Dalai Lama is compassionate about his mission in life
this is to promote peace and world and get independence from China. He is teaching in
Dharamshala in India that compassion drives happiness in life. He is an empathetic person and
empathizes with Tibet people and supports them politically as much as he can. The main intent
of Dalai Lama is to urge respect, compassion, and individual rights for everybody across the
provinces. Dalai Lama is not in favor of killing life in mother womb but empathize with those
families who cannot afford to have kids in life.
4. Empowering and forgiving thy fellowman
The Dalai Lama is considered as the leader of the Tibetan spiritual world and empowers power
of justice, peace and wisdom. Many of the individuals are looking Dalai Lama as their ideal
and spiritual guide after hearing his talks about happiness and peace. He has been encouraging
many individuals to be peaceful with thy fellow-man. He has been empowering Tibetan
citizens with his diplomacy and trying to free Tibet with his peaceful ways. In a way, it gives
great honour to the country. Furthermore, the Dalai Lama spreads the practice of forgiveness
across the world (Gannon, 2019).

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QUESTION 2
Question 2: What characteristics of level 5 leadership does Dalai Lama display?
The major two characteristics of level 5 leadership theories are “fierce will” and “compelling
personality”. Fierce will of individual initiates excellent results and drives from good to great.
On the other side, compelling reveals persuasive behaviour of modesty. These characteristics
and traits of leaders are explicitly shown through several actions of the case study on Dalai
Lama Exile.
In his several speeches, Dalai Lama teaches us to have self-enlightenment and fierce will in our
lives. He feels that if one lives his o her life with peace, happiness and compassion, he can
have great results in life. The person will be content in life and can aim for any great results in
back. Instead of fighting China, here the spiritual guru is following principle of positivity and
fierce will and aims to have good results. Means he carries fierce will characteristics which
drives excellent results and drives good to great outcome. Earlier nobody was aware about
Dalai Lama and his principles; today entire world is following him and respects his values and
virtues; this all became possible because of fierce will and positive efforts only.
Dalai Lama is a top monk of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism; he is not any politician or
CEO of any corporates. He is a spiritual leader who promotes peace across the world. He may
have requested Indian government to support him and win Tibet from China but he has been
following his own way of peace to win; not through war. He is rather focusing on what is best
for us. He has been proving himself as a great leader to follow in the 21stcentury. But one needs
patience to get results while following his path (bbc.com, 2011).
Furthermore, it is important to get all relevant information at your desk to arrive on appropriate
decisions. You need to be informed about emerging technologies, breakthroughs in science,
new competitors, laws, and the political landscape. If the information which you have is
favoring all your decision than you should try search whether it’s because of biased search or
positive effects of your existence in the community. A leader with strong will power meets

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each and every individual; across the border and conveys his opinion and principles to them to
convince them to take their side in future and support truth. Dalai Lama is following the similar
practices, which his ancestors have taken. He has just renovated few actions and thoughts to
make it more relevant to recent scenario. He is having characteristics of compelling society by
his side. Dalai Lama accepts new information and understands it thoroughly, then he discusses
it with all through his speeches, which helps to solve problems for his devotees and followers.
He has been an individual who carries influencing personality “According to Goleman, the
Dalai Lama does not discriminate when it comes to learning about casting a large net lets him
understand situations in a very deep way, and he can analyze them in many different ways and
come up with solutions that aren't confined by anyone."
The Dalai Lama doesn't have compassion just for his followers, or Tibetans. His compassion is
"unlimited--he seems to care about everybody, and the world at large," Goleman says. On the
same line, it is essential for a leader to carry compassion for all of the people, clients, and
competitors. There is no doubt in the fact that that Dalai Lama is a compelling personality, he
has a mind with peace and wisdom hence he is able to take wise decisions in life. On the other
side, as a lay man we used to get distracted by the anger and violent actions, he advised us to
be mindful and calm; then only we would be able to make decisions which are practical, real,
feasible and determinant. Hence, we can conclude that Dalai Lama truly falls in the list of level
five leaders. His action explicitly makes him Level five leader across the world (Hougaard,
2019).
QUESTION 3
Question 3 what potential conflicts might there be between his various leadership roles?
There are several kinds of leadership styles which he follows. He is a charismatic leader as he
is successfully pursuing the world to follow him independently. He is not any politician or
CEO of the corporate which makes him a leader. He is considered as the spiritual guru across

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the world and known for his principles because of his faith in himself and his ideologies.
Hence he is considered as a charismatic leader. On the other line, he is engaged in a peaceful
war with Chinese government to gain authority of Tibet. As such leader doesn’t work for
aiming any authority but he has been fighting with Chinese government to make Tibet an
independent province. In a way he wants to have full control over Tibet.
Furthermore, Dalai lama a.k.a Tenzin Gyatso is even following democratic leadership style and
is focusing on to build, support and share essential knowledge of peace and love across the
regions. In the year of 1963, the Dalai Lama was observed to promulgate the Charter of
Tibetans in Exile. In the year of nineteen ninety one, the Charter was observed to prepare the
rights and responsibilities of the Tibetan people.
Dalai Lama is a visionary leader and seeks to get independence from china. The Dalai Lama
has been serving his country to resolve the issue with China for the future of the culture and the
heritage of Tibet to become a self-governing democratic country. Usually leaders are not the
one who sits for years to get the work done by peace and love. Leaders are those who get their
way out and may adopt steps which hurt the relationships amongst government temporarily but
get their province back.
Tenzin Gyasto is source of power and at a very early age of 14, he was given the responsibility
and supremacy of Dalai Lama. The world has witnessed that he has been managing personal
power, expert power and referent power. Tensin Gyasto has been carrying several traits which
makes him the best leader for peace in the world. Traits include drive, self-assurance, cognitive
aptitude, inspiration, flexibility, compassion, & perseverance. He has been known as a
transformational leader in the society as he is appreciated by his followers. But he is not able to
get any good results for his Tibetans people since many years.

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References
bbc.com (2011) Profile: The Dalai Lama, [Online], Available: HYPERLINK
"https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-12700331" https://www.bbc.com/news/world-
asia-pacific-12700331 [27 May 2019].
Chhaya, M. (2005) Dalai Lama, the world's conscience keeper, [Online], Available:
HYPERLINK "https://www.buddhistchannel.tv/index.php?id=9,1402,0,0,1,0" \l
".XO0pVtIzZdg" https://www.buddhistchannel.tv/index.php?
id=9,1402,0,0,1,0#.XO0pVtIzZdg [May 2019].
Gannon, D. (2019) Leadership Lessons from the Dalai Lama, [Online], Available:
HYPERLINK "https://www.inc.com/leadership-lessons-from-the-dalai-lama.html"
https://www.inc.com/leadership-lessons-from-the-dalai-lama.html [27 May 2019].
Hougaard, T.D.L.w.R. (2019) The Dalai Lama on Why Leaders Should Be Mindful, Selfless,
and Compassionate, 20 February, [Online], Available: HYPERLINK
"https://hbr.org/2019/02/the-dalai-lama-on-why-leaders-should-be-mindful-selfless-and-
compassionate" https://hbr.org/2019/02/the-dalai-lama-on-why-leaders-should-be-mindful-
selfless-and-compassionate [27 May 2019].