Leadership insights are available to us on a daily basis from everywhere around us. We can learn leadership from our bosses in the way they make us perform better, from our colleagues in the way they handle situations, and even from children in the way they respond to situations. Let’s look at leadership insights from Mehr-un-nissa also known as Nur Jahan who was one of the most influential women of her day.
- A Symbol Of Beauty And Wisdom
As the favorite wife of the powerful Mughal emperor Jahangir, Nur Jahan uniquely positioned herself brilliantly utilizing her skills in administration, politics, economics, and culture. She used her beauty, charm, and intelligence to extract maximum juice out of every situation.
Her knowledge of working the system to her advantage helped position herself and turn every situation in her favor. One among her most admirable attributes is her distinct personality and pushing conventions to great limits.
- Corporate Social Responsibility
In a male-dominated society, she ruled from behind the scenes through trusted males. She had control over all the promotions and demotions within the royal government. All orders and grants of appointment were approved by her in Jahangir’s name. She also had a sense of Corporate Social Responsibility as we call it in today’s world, by taking a special interest in the affairs of women. She gave them hope, for example, some land and dowries for orphan girls elevating their livelihoods.
- A true businesswoman in all senses
Her power and influence were to the extent that coins were struck in her name, duties on goods from merchants who passed through the empire’s lands were collected by her, and Europeans who brought luxury goods from the continent traded with her. Her ability to obstruct or facilitate the opening up of both foreign and domestic trade ensured that her patronage was eagerly sought, and paid for.
She had ownership of ships that took pilgrims as well as cargo to Mecca. Her business connections and wealth grew. Her officers were everywhere building a network all across growing the cosmopolitan city of Agra, the Mughal capital at that time, creating a crossroad of commerce.
- Leadership Renewal and institutionalizing their liberal thought
The failure of the Mughal empire can be attributed to various reasons. I think it is majorly due to the fact that they failed to institutionalize their liberal thought. They were very liberal in their thinking at the top but it had to be passed on to the grass root levels as well. The primary learning from this is that it is not sufficient if the top management is liberal but their thoughts have to be passed down to the grass root levels. This can be done by creating institutional spaces for intellectual discourse.
- Stagnation of Science and Technology
Another failure on the part of the Mughals is that they never thought about spreading the knowledge they have. An entity as simple as a cell in our body does one thing to serve the purpose of life. As one cell procreates and becomes two cells it passes on the knowledge it has gathered so far. This is learning from the basic essence of life. The only purpose of life is to pass on what one knows so others can go beyond.
There was stagnation of science and technology due to lack of research and thought. There was no expansion of functional literacy. The pattern of labour unrest is ignored. They left us with many inadequacies.
Conclusion
In spite of everything, they have left us with several valuable learnings filled with courage and valor. Their approach to problem-solving and manipulation of situations in their favor for the betterment of society is applaudable. We need to learn from history the positives as well as from their mistakes and implement our learnings by adopting what works for us and correcting what doesn’t. I believe that the stories of history are woven for us not to repeat our mistakes and learn lessons from our ancestors .