The book by a technocrat and management professional Awadhesh Mishra, who had served as the Managing Director of a Public Sector Consultancy organisation for over a decade and has over five decade’s rich experience, has penned down management principals drawing inspirations from Ancient Indian texts that are also practiced by modern-day management Gurus but are unaware about some of them.

The book names as Dharma of Management: Practical Principles from Shastras tells about the practical management techniques embedded in Indic wisdom with Dharma as its foundational framework. The book by Mishra outlines how contemporary management principal and its applications can be enriched by the strategic and operational guidance explained sometimes overtly and sometimes covertly in ancient Indian texts like the Dharma Sastras, Bhagavad Gītā, Upanisads, and many other classical books. These sources offer actionable insights into leadership, accountability, and human resource management are interestingly far from being abstract moral reflections. The teachings from these ancient Indian treasures cultivate inner discipline, clarity of purpose, thought and sustainable organizational effectiveness. 

No book has been written on this theme so far. There may be some book which may have a chapter of a few pages about lessons of Gita in management but not in totality. Many problems related to management remain unsolved by reading modern day management books but they have answer in ancient texts and they are a better guide. The author tried to guide that how to synthesise present day management problems with answers from various Indian tradition that he himself faced with while serving various organisations and got many of them solved by using ancient wisdom. How to become a successful management professional with the background of these shastras and modern-day readings, the book can satiate one’s quest. The modern-day principals are also discussed in the book but how traditional systems are more useful are discussed elaborately in it.

The book breaks the popular perception that management is a tough and boring subject. If management principals are derived from Dharma Shastras and Niti Shlokas, they become more interesting and can be applied everywhere not only in the area of management. Management decisions should be made with the considerations of their impact on employees is the bottom-line. A must-read book for students of management and for those in decision making.