Fear in Freedom

Views and Words - Dr K S Radhakrishnan 

Freedom is one of the necessary preconditions for creativity. A society can be creative, only if it enjoys freedom; same is the case with individuals too. A free person and a free society should be able to actualize whatever remains in potential form. So, the best form of management is exploring the creativity of one and all in that organization. Here, both the organization and all the members of that organization should be free. An organization consisting of free members alone is a free organization; only such an organization turns creative in management, in political affairs, in social affairs and even in industrial development. A developed society in its real form is a society that enjoys freedom, in the sense that it is able to exercise self-regulation.
A self-regulated society alone will be able to effect changes in a creative form in the context in which it exists. Take for example the case of management: we want to get the best product, the best result etc. but the best can be produced only if all the members of that organization, right from the last grade to the Managing Director are exercising their free will. The exercise of free will means that a person in that organization must be able to concentrate, must be able to organize and focus his attention on the goals directed by that organization. Then only an individual can be creative and only a creative individual is able to contribute something effective and valuable to that organization. What happens now days is that we are fixing targets to be achieved. In the process of achieving a target, the individual is bound by issues other than the target because if he is not able to achieve the target, he will be thrown away from that organization. This naturally generates fear. A person who is overpowered by fear can never be a free man. Man must necessarily be free from all sorts of fears including fear of God. The very concept of fear of God has been the contribution of the Jewish tradition. When Jesus introduced His Gospel, He really changed this position and He identified with those persons, who were then treated inferior. Such an identification give those persons, a sense of freedom because they get rid of the fear that has already been created by a philosophical position which says that God is something different from man and man cannot attain the position of God. ¬¬Jesus has made it clear that if a person is able to experience God he should also be able to establish His kingdom on earth. Jesus explains that when one experiences heaven on earth he gets freedom from all the fears that have been created by distinct forces.
This philosophy is never different from right management principles. A management expert must be able to guide others to exercise their free will in tune with the objectives of the organization. When an individual gets tuned to this style, he really turns a contribution to the whole organization. This is what effective management means. But now-a-days what happens is that we are separating the management tactics from the employees; such a separation creates fear in the minds of employees. A person who is afraid of his superiors may not be able to extract the good aspects of his own potentiality. So, in every sense, the management has to make everyone in that organization, free.  If a teacher can make a student free from fear of a subject, quite sure that such student must be able to produce the maximum to the subject as well as to the society. (Contd.)

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