Leadership of Mahatma Gandhi

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LEADERSHIP PROFILE OF MAHATMA GANDHI
OVERVIEW
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, or M.K. Gandhi, popularly known as Mahatma Gandhi was born on October 2, 1869 in Porbandar, in Gujarat, in North West India. He was fortunate to be born to privileged caste parents and received comprehensive education. He studied law at University College, London. He came back to India to establish his law practice in Bombay, but could not get success. After a period of two years, an Indian firm retained him as their legal advisor for their office in Durban, South Africa. Durban was an eye opener for Mahatma Gandhi. He was treated as a member of Indian immigrants to South Africa which was considered an inferior race. He could not accept that Indians were denied civil liberties and political rights in the country. It was this realization that he had to provide justice to his fellow Indians that he decided to fight for elementary rights for Indians. He remained in South Africa for around twenty years, opposing discrimination against Indians, for which he was imprisoned several times during his stay.
All throughout his fight for freedom and respect for Indians he was not associated with any government authority or international organization. He was given the term Mahatma, meaning great soul, by Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore. M.K. Gandhi was commonly known as Mahatma Gandhi because of his great ideals and contributions to the development of India as a nation (Barnabas & Clifford, 2012).

Personal and Unique Attributes
Mahatma Gandhi's main objective was to set India free and fight for the rights of oppressed. For this he used non-violent means.
 Humility: Humility means having modest view about oneself. Mahatma Gandhi never thought of himself as a great leader. He did not want high profile jobs, rather he had a different cause to work for. He was initially the leader of the Indian National Congress, but when other younger leaders came in he gave them way to lead the party. Even after India became independent he did not seek any post in the government office, rather he was a humble servant who would do anything for the cause of his country. Gandhi possessed strong character. It did not matter to him what people thought about his conduct.
 Integrity: Integrity is the quality of having high moral values and being honest. It is one's own choice to uphold his or her to consistently moral and ethical standards. Integrity comes from a congruence between thoughts, feelings, words, and actions-when all that you are and do spring from your core values (AKA, 2011). Gandhi has lived his whole life with a high degree of integrity and self-efficacy. Even while he was practicing as lawyer in South Africa he never resorted to lies and large part of his practice was in the interest of public work. He never charged anything extra while rendering his services, and sometimes he didn't even charge anything from those who couldn't afford.
 Accountability: Accountability means taking responsibility of one's actions. After fighting for rights of Indians in South Africa, Gandhi decided to return to India as he felt accountable to his fellow countrymen. When he was leaving from South Africa, Indians there gave him lot of costly ornaments as token of gratitude for what he did for them. However, he made a community trust out of those ornaments with the aim of using the funds to serve the needs of Indians in South Africa.
 Forgiveness: A very famous quote by Mahatma Gandhi is:
"The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong" ("Mahatma Gandhi Quotes", n.d).
While in South Africa, Gandhi used to walk past the President Kruger's house in Johannesburg every day. Once the guard at the gate was changed and he pushed and kicked Gandhi into the street. One of the influential friends of Gandhi who saw the incident asked him to go to court against the guard. However, Gandhi humbly forgave the guard and did not get hurt by the underestimation of his own self by ...