Impact of Gunas and Karma Yoga on Transformational Leadership

Abstract

This study examined whether transformational leadership would be affected by the predominance of a particular guna (sattva, rajas and tamas) in a leader and his or her belief in Karma Yoga. An experiment was conducted using a sample of 110 marketing executives working in a financial services firm in eastern India. A 2 × 2 + 1 factorial design was used to manipulate the three gunas (sattva, rajas and tamas) and Karma Yoga. Sattva and rajas were crossed with Karma Yoga (yes or no) to produce four cells, with tamas being the fifth cell. Transformational leadership was the measured variable. Results show that compared to rajas, sattva enhances transformational leadership, whereas tamas reduces it. Further, Karma Yoga enhances transformational leadership when the leader is sattvic, but does not enhance transformational leadership when the leader is rajasic. Results imply that organizations interested in enhancing transformational leadership should develop sattvic qualities in their managers and encourage them to be duty oriented.