Heroes or villains, historical characters provide deep insights into how leaders take crucial decisions that impact the course of history—albeit not always in ways that they had imagined. Pradeep's book, written in an easy approachable style, looks at how different leaders through Indian history dealt with difficult trade-offs, motivated subordinates and attempted to achieve their aims. Importantly, he includes the failures, such as the later Mughals, which as an understanding of leadership failure are just as important.

- Sanjeev Sanyal, economist & writer

History seldom reveals itself when it is happening. A clearer view emerges only in retrospect. Pradeep Chakravarthy has carefully chosen a few historical figures to show how individuals make history, and what we can learn from them. The lessons have a meaningful impact on the conduct of our actions and businesses. His erudition, his unbiased approach to history, his choice of the historical characters and their possible impact on our day-to-day actions make for very meaningful reading.

- Suresh Krishna, Chairman, TVS & Sons Limited

I’ve always loved history. But this book made me see history in a different light. Fascinating storytelling, engaging and insightful

-Anant Goenka, Managing Director, CEAT

If one is looking to learn from history, Pradeep connects the past to the present like no other author. Must read for everyone aspiring to be a leader!

Rohit Kapoor, CEO, OYO (India and Southeast Asia)

This is a three in one: interesting snippets of history, absorbing bio-sketches of historical figures and lessons in leadership.

R. Seshasayee, Vice Chairman, Hinduja Group

Connecting the present to the past in a novel and actionable fashion, Pradeep provides fresh insights for women and men leaders to live life to their fullest potential.

Priya Paul, Chairperson, Apeejay Surrendra Park Hotels Ltd.

Leadership Shastra should be required reading for everyone aspiring to be a better leader. Research-based accounts of leadership role models from Indian history are rare. Pradeep draws on his scholarship and passion to fill this critical gap and provides valuable and timely learnings for all students of leadership.

-Dr Pramath Raj Sinha, Founding Dean, ISB and Founder & Trustee, Ashoka University

Born in 1975, Pradeep Chakravarthy was educated in The School KFI, Madras Christian College, Jawaharlal Nehru University where he studied International Relations and the London School of Economics where he studied Human Resource Development. He is currently pursuing a PhD on the administration of the Pandya kingdom.

Pradeep began his career by working in the family business, the TVS Group. He later worked at Cognizant, Infosys and McKinsey. In all these organisations, he worked in HR and Learning and Development, with clients, to improve performance through behaviour change.

For the past few years, he has specialised in conducting workshops, one-to-one coaching sessions and heritage tours that seek to impart leadership and life lessons from Indian history and philosophy.

Leadership Shastra is his ninth book. His earlier books include ones on Thanjavur, Kodaikanal, the temples of Tamil Nadu and Ashok Leyland. His work on a children’s history of south India and a translation work are currently in press.

He lives in Madras with his twelve-year-old car- and cricket-crazy son, Raghavan, and his father.