Misplaced Sense of Empowerment in Corporate World: Inspiration from Mirzapur

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Corporate World thrives on documentations for matters big or small, with very crisp communication and understanding.

Having said that there are few aspects in this world, which are untold, unwritten and only felt or sensed. Like the sense of Entitlement and Empowerment earned through the company’s appetite/culture, job position, years of experience in the system, equation with the manager/stakeholders. 

And Any individual whether a team player or a leader, his or her success and sustainability largely depends on his/her own judgement of their empowerment within the heirarchy, all the while walking through the tight-rope of expectations, deliverance, competition and relationship manoeuvres. The sense of empowerment is not only limited to the employees alone, it also encompasses the entrepreneurs/promoters/ founders too, given their interdependencies with various stake-holders internal and external. 

Any misplaced sense of empowerment, whether an overestimation or underestimation of one’s own position can lead to a pitfall. 

The above conclusion struck me while I was watching the Web-series Mirzapur and subconsciously married it to the corporate observations. 

Besides the Blood shed, Lust, Drugs, Money, Power, Layers of jealousies, Hidden secrets, vengeance, closet desires, Mafiaism, the labyrinth of Mirzapur with its intertwining stories, intercross-relationships, exhibits many aspects relatable to a corporate scenario and more specifically to the sense of entitlement and empowerment. 

This was depicted by THE brothers  Guddu, Bablu and their journey through the season1. Distinctively different from each other, these brothers were Instinctively  always there for each other.

One the Brawn and the other Brain, but perfect partners in crime.

Guddu the Brawn: is impulsive, whimsical, self-obsessed

Bablu the Brain: is pragmatic, intuitive, tactful, restrained

From the beginning they are seen together, brainstorming and making decisions. 

Like to join or not to join the town’s Mafia-Kaleen Bhaiya.

Bablu’s mind says No, analysing all the perils attached with it and reaching a point of no return.

But Guddu’s impulsive whim says Yes, for the comfort and security it would provide to the family. 

Finally the impulse wins over the mind.

Once they join in and get trained, Bablu’s strategic mind and Guddu’s muscle execution start showing signs of success in Mafia’s illegal business.

Impressed with the brothers, Mafia opened up to their new ideas for business expansion, even though the decision making was centralised within his family. And gave them their family entitlement of “Kings of Mirzapur” and adequate empowerment commanding only a sound-off for permission. At the same time he insulated them from all the troubles. 

Brother’s collective enthusiasm speeds up their rise to create enough wealth, fear and respect for themselves. Together they started gaining everything except their legal-loving father’s respect. Mind felt guilty but whimsical heart was too busy romancing the new-found power. Life was good, life was balanced.

But not for long..

Foddered by the sudden success, Guddu gets more and more mindless and impulsive with his gun-shots, even when the situation did not warrant to. Besides, his passion for body building was becoming an eerie-obsession. It was irking his restrained brother but given the The power, the name, the fame coming their way, he chooses to ignore it.

Within a short span of time, Guddu who was more pre-disposed to greed and power, starts going beyond anyone's control in shedding blood, breaking protocols, disregarding permissions.  So much so that brothers shed away their Job-Providers entitlement of ‘Kings of Mirzapur’ and self-proclaimed themselves as the ‘Lions of Mirzpapur.

While Bablu maintained  confident assertiveness in his dealings with the mafia but Guddu was becoming arrogant. Arrogance that knew no bounds. Arrogance that dazed him to believe that he and his brother were indispensable to the business and could take any decision on behalf of the Mafia. Arrogance that instigated him to be rude and back-answer, Offending both the Mafia and his Son. However much Bablu tried to fill some sense into Guddu’s head and salvage the damage, but in vain. Bablu gets introspective about their decision of joining the don, but realised as he had anticipated earlier, that they had indeed reached a point of no return. Neither could he leave the job, nor could he leave the brother.

Finally, with addition of some more complexities and mis-communication, came a time when the don, the Mafia, Akhananda Tripathi or Kaleen Bhaiya orders them to be killed. Not Guddu, the Brawn alone, but both the brothers, the brain and the brawn together. Coz the lone survivor would be far more dangerous without the other.

Here, Overestimation of one’s own entitlement and Empowerment caused the downfall.

While Guddu may be an extreme character who developed a misplaced sense of his own position, but as we look around us, we would be able to identify milder examples in real life too.

This overestimated sense is developed due the following combined factors: 

1. Behavioural tendency of an individual to get heady/tipsy with the earned success. To prove the point from Mirzapur, both the brothers were given similar positions and empowerment, yet the older one, who was whimsical, over-confident, self- obsessed, took it to his head and the intuitive other took it judiciously with all its worth. Had only level-headed Bablu been there, with his brains and tactful approach he would have sustained through successfully with his earned position.  Another complementing example to Bablu was Maqbool, who was intuitive, asserted his opinions with all due humbleness, despite being a veteran and a proven employee with the Mafia. In other words he knew his position well and the sustenance game around System. Even though he appeared a Brawn...Having said that, a restrained behaviour is not the only way to sustain through. Bablu and Maqbool remained so coz they were intuitive and had realised that, that was the way to strike a balance with the Mafia. In real life, in a more open system, there are many unbridled, high-headed, empowered people who do well and  thrive. They do so, because while being heady they are also sensible enough to strike a balance with the management/stake-holders in correct decorum and draw the line. Therefore one ought to be intuitive to understand the organisation/ management culture to manoeuvre around. 
2. Generous bestowment by the manager: Each manager-subordinate relationship is different and many times a Manager Empowers one sub-ordinate more over the other given the merit, achievements and sometimes biases too. In such cases, the generously bestowed individual can develop a misplaced sense of his empowerment. 
3. Sudden Success: Mirzapur explores this facet brilliantly and real life too throws up many such cases. Mostly it happens at the beginning of the career and resonates with employees and some entrepreneurs too. . 

While Mirzapur only relates the overestimation of empowerment but, in real world, it is also the underestimation of ones own position, which can cause one’s own downfall. 

Though not as common, it may develop due to the following factors

1. Behavioural tendency: Imagine a reverse character of Guddu. Timid, indecisive, under-confident. Such individuals are predisposed to undervaluing their own worth even when they own the position of empowerment. their body-language is droopy and may not carry the aura vis-a-vis their position. Not only do they non-act on their own power for themselves, but for the team too, causing disrespect and unworthiness for themselves. Thus, at times it is important to throw an attitude so as not to be taken for granted.
2. Non-exhibition by the manager. As mentioned earlier, empowerment depends a lot on the sub-ordinate- manager equation. Sometimes the manager does not exhibits / assures adequately of the empowerment granted to the sub-ordinate. And this mis-communication can lead to a subdued sense of empowerment by the sub-ordinate.

Thereby having a correct sense of one’s own entitlement and empowerment is critical to sustenance in the long run.

And this was best exemplified by the character of Mafia, Kaleen Bhaiya himself in the capacity of running his business and dealing with stake-holders.

   He had a very measured application of calmness and throw of arrogance, while dealing with people around. He was a good listener, observant, alert towards the situations/ enemies, someone who could kill without a noise, raid with immense poise. The scene which best describes him in this aspect was the holi-party scene when his immature son was slapped by the stake-holding politician. Given to his son’s humiliation and his own power, Kaleen bhaiya could have easily blown off the handle against the politician but restricted to only a warning well aware of the vested interests with him. He balanced off the situation using his position correctly.

  

  

It requires a fine balance of play between achievements, relationships and attitude to ascertain the correct sense of empowerment. And using it judiciously has the following benefits

1. Building a solid character within oneself/team/ organisation for long term sustenance..
2. Enabling empowerment within the team, encouraging them to make mistakes and grow from it. Since adequately empowered leader will have lesser insecurities...

If only the Brawn would have listened to the Brain in Mirzapur... 

Awaiting the season2, hopefully which is as insightful as the previous one.