Science Leadership

The Ten 10 Leadership Lessons From The Galaxy

By Shahnawaz Qasim, IPS
On 02-Aug-2021


It Opens Up The Possibilities 

One of the greatest benefits of reading is that it opens up your mind to all the possibilities in the universe. You start conceiving ideas and imagining concepts that would not have happened before reading. Just a few days back one scientific news made me realise the unending possibilities that our developing knowledge is creating.

Every new knowledge is either reaffirming the older knowledge, improving on the earlier knowledge  or totally repudiating the previous knowledge. But there are rare occasions when a certain new knowledge does all the three 3 things.  



The News 

A news item appeared in a reputed science journal which claims the startling fact that light can escape the black hole. Scientists  have confirmed that they have detected light being ejected from behind a super massive Black Hole which is 800 million light years away. This is simply  amazing and totally repudiated our earlier known knowledge about the Black Hole.  



The Black Hole 

According to NASA,  a  Black Hole is a place in space where gravity pulls so much that even light can not get out and the gravity is so strong because matter has been squeezed into a tiny space. This can happen when a star is dying. Earlier we believed that nothing can come out of the black hole not even the light. But this discovery changes our concept of the blackhole forever. We must know that Knowledge is the dynamic truth of the universe. 

But this surprising aspect of the Black Hole was  long predicted by Albert Einstein in his General Theory of Relativity. He said that the gravitational pull of the Black Holes would be so strong that it would not only trap the light but also bend it and allow lights to come out of it.   Now this new knowledge affirms and also improves upon the  theory of Relativity. 



The 10 Ten Leadership Lessons 

Now the main question comes as to why I am giving examples from the field of Astrophysics and Cosmology and discussing it here. There are basically ten 10 reasons why I want the leaders to read  about Astrophysics and Cosmology if they want to grow in the field of Leadership. 

  1. It allows you to think big & infinite but also emphasises the fact that you are insignificant and negligible  in the whole scheme of things.  So think Big and do great things  but always be human, kind and grounded. 
  2. The study of Astrophysics and Cosmology  gives us the message that    knowledge is not static but is dynamic and  constantly changing. So keep updating yourself to be relevant and remember that you are not the permanent expert of any knowledge. 
  3. It tells us that there is no edge or the end of the universe. The universe is expanding and moving and there is no fixed location of any galaxy including ours. Similarly the Leadership has no fixed place to rest forever with its laurels  but it has to constantly move on and progress. 
  4. It philosophically postulates that even the most massive, big, bright and the shining stars also fade and die away one day. What remains is the legacy of those stars and nothing else. 
  5. Most of the time there  are no simple, direct and plain answers to many intriguing phenomena and problems  in the cosmos. To arrive at the answers we must connect the seemingly unrelated dots and then form our explanations. Hence the leaders who have the abilities to connect dots will certainly provide the solutions.  
  6. Everything is interconnected and every sign in the universe tells us something. Those who can interpret the signs better can understand the infinite universe much easier  than the others. Similarly those leaders who can interpret the human, technological and organizational signs better will excel in leadership. There is no doubt about it. 
  7. To study the cosmos is to study, analyse and interpret massive volumes of data. It gives us the big picture as well as the micro picture of the universe. There can be hardly any conclusion without data analytics in the field of Astrophysics. Hence in the present world there cannot be Good Decision Making by leaders without employing data analysis. 
  8. The study of the universe tells us that inherent in the scheme of creation is the programme of devastation itself. Creation and ruination are the ongoing processes in the universe. Whatever is created has to vanish including the sun which is the source giver of life. This means that leaders must realise that success and failures are the ongoing processes of Leadership. 
  9.  The more we explore the universe the more we are startled by its discoveries. The more we employ the latest techniques to study the universe the more secrets of it are revealed to us. Our mind  is like the infinite universe whose potential is still unknown. The leaders must utilise the power of the mind and  act only after deep thinking. The leadership must also utilise the collective thinking power of the organization for better results.   
  10. Finally our universe proclaims that there is light even at the end of the Black Hole and certainly there would be light at the end of the worldly tunnels. So never despair as a leader but search for that proverbial gravitational force to bend the problems for the solutions to come out of the circumstances. 



Just Do It 
The study of the universe seems a complicaticated science but at the same time it is not. As a leader you just need to read it from the point of view of an inquisitive human who wants to understand the universe and not try to force yourself to become a technical expert on it. If you want to become an expert on it there is no harm in doing so also. But as a leader my advice is to read it if you want your vision and mind to expand beyond the horizons. Obviously a leader is the one who sees farther than most of us.  

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