To stand up and voice the truth point blank isn’t always simple.

The truth can be hard to face and may cause mayhem.

I’m reminded of the story of Tadaka, the demon.

Tadaka was born to her parents after much prayer; her father was a yaksha and had prayed to Brahma for a son. He was granted a beautiful daughter whose strength was of a thousand elephants. Her father raised her as a son.

She was beautiful, got married and was blessed with a son. However, her husband died and she moved to Agastya’s ashram with her son.

She felt deeply attracted towards Agastya and made advances on him.

Agastya cursed her to become an ugly demon that would eat human flesh and would be despised by everyone, as she wasn’t behaving like a woman.

In leadership roles many times we are faced with Dharam-sankats or very difficult situations. Sometimes, this might require the leader to face the brutal facts and call people out. This decision needs to be taken from clarity.

In my experience, I have noticed that once a difficult decision is taken and announced, the reaction could be conflict, rage, anger and a power-packed blame game.

At this point, if the leader isn’t coming from a place of clarity, they could get involved in the drama and truly become Tadaka the demon, and start living the role someone else has prescribed, thereby getting off track completely.

This is the real turning point, in my opinion: To choose to stay away from the drama, and not fall into it and play roles others have written for you.

As a leader today, you have a choice to observe, listen and choose your own role.

You don’t need to become the demon others envisage you to be; that is their choice and opinion and has nothing to do with you. It takes Veeryam, or Courage, to take a stand.

A beautiful quote that I read comes to my mind: “Truth is the only authority and authority isn’t the truth!”

So this Diwali, let’s be ourselves and not what others envision for us!