Loknath Baba's fortress stood beside a cremation ground, and leaders should study its plan

Two villages, one boy and a very long apprenticeship

Loknath Baba, known to his devotees as Baba Loknath Brahmachari, was born, by tradition, in 1730 on Janmashtami. Two villages in what is now North 24 Parganas in West Bengal, Chakla and Kachua, each claim his birthplace, and both draw pilgrims today. Even his father's name is given differently in different sources. The Lokenath Divine Life Mission itself calls the birth year controversial.

The early outline is clearer. His parents, according to his Bengali biographer Dr Asimbaran De, hoped for a son who would become a renunciate. A Sanskrit scholar of Kachua, Acharya Bhagaban Ganguly, named the child Loknath, lord of the worlds, and gave him the sacred thread at eleven. That same year the boy left home as a brahmachari with his friend Benimadhab, under Ganguly's guidance.

What followed was an apprenticeship longer than most careers. He lived and practised in the jungles around Kalighat in Kolkata and later in forests west of the Ganga, and for over thirty years trained in ashtanga and hatha yoga, celibacy and fasting under his guru. Tradition holds that he reached nirvikalpa samadhi in the Himalayas at about ninety, and that he later travelled as far as Mecca, Afghanistan and Persia. These are devotees' accounts, and this chapter treats them as such.

Around 1863 or 1864 he arrived at Baradi, in Sonargaon near present-day Narayanganj in Bangladesh, and stayed about twenty-six years. On 2 June 1890 he left the body there, seated in meditation with his eyes open. He had asked to be cremated, and the rites were performed at the ashram by a devotee, Ramkumar Chakraborty. Devotees hold that he was 160 years old. No document can confirm it, and the claim adds nothing to what his sayings already teach.

Anger, the household and a call in danger

Loknath Baba wrote nothing. His teaching survives as short sayings remembered by devotees and gathered by biographers. They are plain to the point of bluntness, and four of them form the spine of this chapter.

The first is that household life is a fortress. The saying does not ask anyone to leave their family in order to be serious about the inner life. It says the home was the fort from which that battle is fought. A fort is a defensive structure, built in peacetime, provisioned in advance and staffed by people who know their posts. The image is military and domestic at once, and it suits leaders far better than the usual talk of balance.

The second is that anger is a person's greatest enemy. He also taught that ego keeps a person bound. Anger is also the inner enemy that moves fastest and does the most damage in the shortest time.

The third is the saying devotees hold most dear: wherever you face danger, in battle, forest, water or jungle, remember me. For believers this is a promise of protection, and this chapter does not test it. Read alongside his other sayings, it also describes a relationship in which help is easy to ask for and the asking carries no shame. The fourth fits with it: his grace, he said, lay scattered about, and people had only to gather it.

Come, come: the hut at Baradi

The story of how Loknath Baba reached Baradi begins with someone else's emergency. Devotees recount that a man named Dengu Karmakar was facing a false criminal charge, was acquitted after receiving the Baba's blessing, and brought him home. Dengu's family objected to having the ascetic in the house. A landlord, Nag Babu, solved the problem by giving uncultivated land beside the cremation ground and building a thatched hut on it.

That hut became the ashram. It was kept by Gowalini Ma, a widowed cowherd woman, and shared with an ox called Kalachand and, according to Dr De, with snakes. Devotees recount that the Baba would call "come, come" to birds, insects and animals and share his food with them equally, alongside the people who came.

গৃহাশ্রম হল কেল্লা। (Household life is a fortress.)

Loknath Baba, oral saying, as recorded in Dr Asimbaran De (Dey), Ajana Mahayogi Baba Loknath (Bengali), sayings chapter

Put the pieces together and Baradi looks very like the fortress of his saying. It was modest and steady, run by a small and dependable household. It was open to anyone in trouble, and its circle of care reached all the way down to the insects. People came there because it was secure. Devotees also recount that when he appeared as a witness in a Narayanganj court, he gave his age as over 150 and described red ants on a distant mango tree.

Alarms that travel faster than any board meeting

A modern crisis rarely announces itself in a board paper. It starts with a junior analyst noticing that a model is giving strange answers, or a contractor seeing a safety shortcut, or a customer post that starts to spread. Whether the organisation hears that first signal depends on whether the person who sees it feels safe to say so, and knows where to say it.

Stanford's AI Index 2026 reports that organisational AI adoption rose to 88% of surveyed organisations in 2025. Every new system is another place a problem can start, and some of those problems will move at machine speed. Amy Edmondson's 1999 study defined team psychological safety as "a shared belief held by members of a team that the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking". Loknath Baba's call-me-in-danger line, translated into an operating rule, is a promise that raising an alarm is safe and simple.

The fortress image also anticipates one of the better recent ideas in leadership research. George Kohlrieser at IMD describes a secure base as "a person, place, goal or object that provides a sense of protection, gives a sense of comfort, and offers a source of energy and inspiration to explore, take risks and seek change." The Baradi hut was exactly that for the people who came to it.

Then there is anger. Goleman lists self-regulation among the five components of emotional intelligence at work. In a fast crisis, the leader's first public sentence is often written in the first hour. If it is written in anger, no later correction fully undoes it.

The WCRC Fortress Model of Crisis Leadership

Created by Abhimanyu Ghosh · A proprietary model of Abhimanyu Ghosh and WCRC

WCRC calls this the Fortress Model of Crisis Leadership. Its diagram, shown above, is a set of concentric rings: the inner self at the centre, then the household and core team, then the organisation, then the storm outside. The model's instruction is to fight from the inside out. Secure the base, master anger, open a clear line for anyone to call in danger, extend care to everyone the organisation touches down to the smallest, and be calmly present when the storm arrives. It is a model for preparation as much as response, and it scores highest on people leadership and resilience.

The Fortress Model of Crisis Leadership holds that a leader fights the hard battle from a secure base: a steady inner self and a dependable household or core team. From there the leader masters anger first, makes it safe and simple for anyone to raise an alarm, and extends care to everyone the organisation touches, down to the smallest. Calm presence holds the rings together when the storm arrives.

The building blocks

1. 01Secure baseKella (the fortress)

   The inner self and the household or core team are the fort from which the battle is fought; if they are unstable, nothing outside holds.

   In practiceBefore any crisis, the CEO protects stability at home and in a small core team and names who holds which post.

2. 02Anger mastery

   Anger is the leader's greatest enemy; in a crisis it spreads faster than the crisis itself.

   In practiceThe leader makes no decision or public statement while angry, and one trusted colleague has the right to call a pause.

3. 03A clear 'call me in danger' line

   Make it safe and simple for anyone to raise an alarm and reach the top quickly.

   In practiceThe company publishes one direct escalation line to senior leadership that anyone can use without penalty, and answers it fast.

4. 04Care for all, including the smallest

   Everyone the organisation touches is inside the circle of care, down to the least visible.

   In practiceCrisis plans cover contractors, suppliers and nearby communities, with a named owner for each group.

5. 05Calm presence

   In trouble, turn to what is steady and stay calm; people take their cue from the leader's composure.

   In practiceDuring a crisis the leader is visibly present where it is happening and speaks slowly and plainly.

The CEO who will not decide while angry

Start at the centre of the rings. Before any crisis, the CEO should know who holds which post in the core team and should have made the home front as stable as it can be. That sounds soft. It is the opposite. A leader whose family and inner circle are in disarray enters a crisis already depleted.

The hardest habit the model asks for is a rule about anger: no decisions and no public statements while angry, and one trusted colleague with the explicit right to call a pause. Most senior people believe they hide their temper well. Their teams usually disagree. Giving someone the formal right to say "not now" is a small act of humility with a large return.

The blind spot is the bunker. A leader who builds a strong fortress can end up hiding in it, surrounded by a loyal core team and cut off from what is happening outside. The diagram's outer ring is there for a reason. The fortress exists so the leader can go out to the storm steadily, and staying inside it is a failure of the model.

A founder's phone as the danger line

In a start-up the rings are small and close together. The founder's household and two or three co-founders are the fortress. The danger line is simply the founder's own phone number, shared with every employee and every freelancer, with a promise that any call about a real problem will be welcome.

That promise has to be kept the first time it is tested. If the first person who rings with bad news is met with irritation, nobody rings again. Founders should treat early alarms the way Loknath Baba is said to have treated the creatures at Baradi: come, come, there is room.

The care ring matters early, too. A small company depends on freelancers, a handful of suppliers and perhaps one landlord or one key customer. In a crisis they are often forgotten until they become the next crisis. Writing down who they are and who will speak to each of them takes an hour.

And the anger rule applies with extra force, because in a small team there is no layer between the founder's temper and everyone else.

Rings around a large enterprise

At the scale of a multinational, the fortress has to be designed. The danger line cannot depend on one person, or the model's own warning comes true: every alarm must reach the CEO, and the CEO becomes a single point of failure. The line needs a staffed rota, a log and a promise that reports are answered fast and without penalty.

Large companies also have the widest outer ring. Contractors, suppliers and the communities near plants and offices are often the first to be hurt by a crisis and the last to be told. The model asks for a named owner for each of those groups in the crisis plan, and the KPIs below track how many have one.

Boards should ask for three numbers: how long it takes for an incident to reach senior leadership, how many reports come through the escalation line and from whom, and how many gaps found in drills are fixed by the next drill. A board risk committee that sees those figures each quarter knows more about crisis readiness than one that reads a long policy document.

The last risk is spread. Care for everyone can be stretched so thin that the core team itself gives way. A fortress that admits every refugee and feeds no garrison falls. Senior leaders need to protect the people at the centre so the outer rings can be served.

The business model

The operating model below starts with four inputs: a steady leader with anger in check, a dependable core team, one open danger line and a map of everyone the company affects. Regular practices keep those inputs ready: no decisions or statements in anger, an escalation line open to everyone, crisis drills with the core team and care plans that reach contractors and communities. What comes out is early warning that reaches leaders quickly, measured communication and an owner for every stakeholder group. Over time crises become smaller and shorter, people stay through them and regulators and neighbours learn to trust the company.

The benefit model

The leader benefits first, by entering a crisis from a stable base and making fewer decisions they later regret. Staff gain the assurance that an alarm will be answered and will not count against them. Customers see a company that responds calmly and keeps them informed, and investors see problems surface early, when they are cheaper to fix. The widest gain goes to people usually left outside: contractors, suppliers and nearby communities who are brought inside the company's care.

How to implement the WCRC Fortress Model of Crisis Leadership

If you are the founder or CEO

1. 1

   Secure your own base

   In the first week, look honestly at the stability of your home life and your small core team, and fix what is shaky before any storm. Name who holds which post if a crisis hits tomorrow.

2. 2

   Appoint a pause-caller

   Give one trusted colleague the standing right to stop you making a decision or statement while angry. Agree the signal now and honour it every time it is used.

3. 3

   Answer the danger line yourself

   Make sure alarms raised through the escalation line reach you or a named deputy fast, and reply in person to the first few so people see it works. In a large firm, rotate senior leaders on the line so you are not the single point of failure.

4. 4

   Be present and speak plainly

   When a crisis breaks, go to where it is happening and speak slowly and simply to the people there. Do this every day the crisis lasts.

5. 5

   Drill with the core team

   Run a crisis drill with your core team every quarter and personally check that the gaps from the last drill are closed. Keep the drills short and real.

Rolling it out across the company

The execution roadmap

Four phases, each closed by a gate. Do not move on until the gate is met.

1. Days 0–30

   Phase 1 · Diagnose and commit

   Secure the core team and find where alarms stall and who sits outside the crisis plan.

   • Name the core team in writing, give each person a crisis post and a deputy, so the secure base exists before it is needed.
   • Pull the past year's incident logs and record the time from first internal awareness to senior leadership being told.
   • List every stakeholder group, including contractors, suppliers and nearby communities, and mark which have a named owner in the current crisis plan.
   • Appoint the one colleague who holds the right to call a pause when the CEO is angry, and tell the core team who it is.

   Deliverable

   A fortress map: core team posts and deputies, the escalation baseline, the stakeholder coverage list and the named pause-holder.

   Gate to proceed

   Baseline recorded for every KPI, every core-team post has a named deputy, and the pause-holder is confirmed in writing.

2. Days 31–90

   Phase 2 · Pilot and prove

   Prove the danger line and calm presence at one high-risk site.

   • Open one direct escalation line from the pilot site to senior leadership and publish it to everyone there, contractors included.
   • Answer every call within an agreed time, log it, and tell the caller what happened as a result.
   • Run one crisis drill with the leader physically present, speaking slowly and plainly, and test the pause rule during it.
   • Check the drill against the stakeholder list: did contractors, suppliers and neighbours hear from their named owner?

   Deliverable

   A drill report listing every gap found, with an owner and a fix date for each, and the first quarter's danger-line log.

   Gate to proceed

   The line has received reports from junior staff or contractors, every report was answered and logged, and every drill gap has an owner before the next drill.

3. Days 91–180

   Phase 3 · Embed and scale

   Extend the fortress rules to every site without turning the leader into a single point of failure.

   • Publish the fortress rules: no decision or public statement while angry, the pause right, and a named owner for each stakeholder group.
   • Route the danger line to a rota of senior leaders so alarms reach the top quickly even when the CEO is away.
   • Train every manager to receive an alarm without penalty to the caller and pass it on the same day.
   • Rewrite the crisis plan so it covers contractors, suppliers and nearby communities at every site.

   Deliverable

   A company crisis plan with full stakeholder coverage, a staffed escalation rota and published fortress rules.

   Gate to proceed

   Stakeholder coverage is complete in the plan, the line is live at every site, and time to escalate is reported by site against the baseline.

4. Month 7 onwards

   Phase 4 · Sustain and renew

   Keep the fortress open to the outside and the core team strong enough to hold.

   • Run drills at rotating sites, some unannounced, and check that gaps found last time were closed.
   • Review once a year whether the core team has become a bunker, by checking how the CEO first heard of each incident.
   • Refresh core-team posts and deputies after any departure, and check the load on the core team before widening care further.
   • Thank the first people to use the line each year in public, so raising an alarm stays normal.

   Deliverable

   An annual crisis readiness review to the board covering drill gap closure, time to escalate and the safety pulse.

   Gate to proceed

   Drill gap closure is tracked from one drill to the next, and the psychological safety pulse holds at or above the baseline.

Implementation risks and how to handle them

By stage of company

Habits to start this quarter

1. 1

   Draw your own rings

   On a single page, write the names of the people in each of your rings: who steadies you at home, who is in your core team, who in the organisation would hear of a problem first, and who outside would be hurt by it. Look for the empty spaces.

2. 2

   Track your angry decisions

   For the next month, note every decision you made or message you sent while angry. At the end of the month, read the list and mark any you would now change.

3. 3

   Thank the bearer of bad news

   The next time someone brings you an early warning, thank them in front of others before you discuss the problem itself.

4. 4

   Ask the smallest stakeholder

   This quarter, spend an hour with a contractor, supplier or neighbour who would be affected by a crisis at your company, and ask what they would need from you if one happened.

5. 5

   Protect the garrison

   Block one evening a week this quarter that belongs to your household and nobody else. Treat it as maintenance of the fort.

What to measure

Where the model goes wrong

• !The fortress becomes a bunker that cuts the leader off from what is happening outside.
• !'Call me' turns the leader into a single point of failure when every alarm must reach one person.
• !Care for all is spread so thin that the core team itself gives way.

The fort is built before the siege

WCRC's view is that crisis leadership is mostly decided before the crisis. The calm presence people admire in a leader on a bad day was built on ordinary days: a steady home, a dependable core team, a habit of letting anger pass and a reputation for answering the phone. Loknath Baba's sayings say all of this in a handful of words.

His hut at Baradi was small, thatched and beside a cremation ground, yet people in trouble turned to it. Build the fortress small, keep its gates open, and they will come to you in the storm.