The Hindu Business Line : Spiritual Quotient

AT A conclave organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) on human resource development, the Vice-Chairman of Volvo India and former CMD of ABB, Mr K. N. Shenoy, is reported (Business Line, August 11) to have emphasised that Indian business leaders need to possess not just the ballyhooed IQ, but also a high degree of EQ (emotional quotient) and SQ (spiritual quotient) and pointed out that Western business houses were finding that SQ, especially, was adding value to leadership.

This column may be allowed to take legitimate pride in the fact that it brought to notice the emerging importance of EQ as early as on October 17, 1995 and elaborated in the piece (Spiritual infusion) published on June 11, 2003, on how spirituality was entering portals such as medicine and management "where it would be considered a stranger, if not an apparition"! (In between, DQ appearing on May 21, 1999, analysed the connotation of the just then budding Discipline Quotient and the Human Relations Quotient.)

All these efforts essentially make the point that the sign of a person's well-being is not his state of physical health alone, interpreted as the absence of disease or infirmity, but also his mental health signifying emotional stability, equanimity and eternal verities.

Only by constantly upgrading himself in these respects, can he realise his maximum potential in any field of endeavour, and lead a fulfilling life integrated and at peace with himself, and in harmonious relationship with others on the strength not of status or class, or titles and labels, but of a kind of spiritual effulgence.

Spirituality has nothing to do with religion or blind faith. Nor is it antithetical to science or rationality.

In a transcendental sense, it is the fount of all other values such as honesty, truthfulness, compassion, rectitude, modesty, morality and humanity.

The core of the core of spirituality is service to fellow humans from out of which springs all the other requirements for making an impact in quotidian life — be it in business, industry, government or civil society.

As the quintessence of spirituality, the spirit of service is what is at the heart of customer delight, accountability, transparency, sensitivity to right and wrong, empathy, responsiveness and dedication to public weal.

You might be tops in IQ and EQ, but if you are wanting in SQ, you might as well write yourself off as someone to look up to.

B. S. Raghavan