Panchgani, Maharashtra: The Public Service Commission organised a 6-day training program titled ‘Heart of Effective Leadership’ at Initiatives of Change (IofC) Panchgani from 8-13 October 2024. The participants of this training program were the Under Secretaries and Deputy Secretaries of different offices of the CTA.

The 6-day training program consisted of meaningful and profound topics like soul nurture, inner development, power of pause, character-based leadership, social styles, cycle of concern and cycle of influence, to name a few.

The core teaching of the IofC is that in order to bring a positive change in an individual’s life or a community or society at large, one should change oneself first. IofC focuses on the vital link between personal change and global change. It works to inspire and support people in taking responsibility to build a better society.

The highlight of IofC training is to observe a ‘quiet time’ and to reflect on and review one’s life so far. It has set four moral standards of honesty, unselfishness, love and purity. Participants are asked to think about where have they fallen short of these moralities. This establishes a connection with their inner self and seek inspiration to live a better and meaningful life.

Another unique session is forming a family group among participants. After dinner, small family groups would get together and share their personal stories. This session could get intense and emotional. Participants share their feelings, concerns, worries, and other private and personal realities of their lives. They learn from each other’s experiences and draw inspiration. As the session name indicates, participants find bonding and eventually begin to become like family members.

Participants were taken for a visit to Sunrise candle factory, which is owned by a man with visual disability. He employs people with visual disabilities to make all kinds of candles and wax statues. He had won at least three President’s National awards besides others. Participants also visited Grampari, which is an initiative to transform villages. This Initiatives involve educating village children and empowering women to help themselves and their communities. These visits have been highly inspirational and eye-opening to the participants.

One of the participant’s evaluations of the training program is: “The training program has been beneficial to me in identifying, recognizing, and strengthening positive qualities that are innately human and crucial for an effective leadership but are often overlooked, unrecognised and not nurtured”.

Through this training program, the participants got the opportunity to know each other better and have continued bonding.

As a closing remark, the Chairman of the Public Service Commission, Karma Yeshi, said that the training program reinforced our traditional value system and ethics in governance and that he would seek the help and guidance of training experts to design a similar program that can be conducted in our own language in the near future. He also thanked the IofC and all the resource persons for facilitating such meaningful training for the participants.

This training program is funded by the generous support of USAID through NDI.

-Report filed by Public Service Commission, CTA