Leadership Lessons from India

I got a bunch of papers from Barry Cioffi, President Cioffi Assoc. Inc, who is my best friend and management guru with tons of experience in the Industry. When I opened, I found the below article papers...
 Reference: Harvard Business Review - Article by Peter Cappelli, Harbir S, Jitendra and Michael U.

  I liked it ....most of the traits straight from the gut of authors.........I realized still SUN is setting in the east. India is only known to the western world as cheap labor, but not as a land of leaders.
 I thought, I add my bit of Curry to the Spicy Indian leadership food...to digest better.
 India is a largest democratic country, 7th largest in geography and 2nd largest in population with multi talented and multi cultured with 1.18 billion people and one of the ancient destinations for many countries for tourism, education, commercial and spiritual interests.
Indian leader's approaches often grew out of their long experience with surmounting obstructionist bureaucracies; crumbling, antiquated infrastructure; and inadequate education, health centers, and other social services. Growing up in hardship and uncertainty gave many leaders an ability to persistently improvise around obstacles.

They do not get disturbed by uncertain events, they keep an even keel….they also tend to be more innovative and creative as a result.

I thought I would line up some of the leaders, who pioneered a change in the industry not only In India, but also made an impact globally. These leaders are apolitical and more from corporate world.

Ratan TATA: A house hold name – back bone of Indian Industry, touches every corner and every life of an Indian. His one of IT division TCS among the TOP IT companies with a social mission with sight on a common man. (NANO car at $2000 is the recent revolution)

N.R. Narayan Murthy: Pioneer for the software industry, who is founder of Infosys – ; believed in building the talent and also with a social mission. Most of the Infosys offices house campuses with accommodation/ training facilities

Azeem Premji: Soaps to Computers – Founder of WIPRO, another revolution in software industry again with social mission (Currently he heads Wipro Foundation).

Shiv Nadar: A philanthropist and business man, founder of HCL technologies, NIIT, which transformed Indian industry by building the talent and creating a $4B IT services business from hardware. His CEO Vineet Nayar believes strongly "employee first and customer next"…a radical view.

Devang Mehta: Founder president of NASSCOM – a pioneer for bringing IT companies on to common platform for a cause  of revolutionizing IT Industry and contributing to policy making.

Pramod Bhasin: A founder of financial services business in India for GE and built a conglomerate of BPO business (Genpact).

Raman Roy: Fondly called the father of BPO industry, found GECIS, which is first call center business out of India, which has become now main stream earning of many middle class families.



What is common across all these leaders...they are charismatic, lead India way, focus their energies for an inclusive growth and pioneers in IT industry for a new concept or innovation, which also made social impact.When authors interviewed most of the India leaders, they termed themselves as and in order of priority.

1. Chief input for business strategy
2. Keeper of Organizational culture
3. Guide, teacher, or role model for employees.
4. Representative of owner and investor interests.

Interestingly share holders interest is the last priority contrary to most western leaders.The leaders of India's biggest and fastest growing companies take an internally focused, long term view and put motivating and developing employees higher on the priority list than short term share holder interests.
Some of the traits of the Indian leaders are

• A stark difference in focus –more strategic than spending time in understanding wall streets, media/investor relations.
• Motivating employees – The open, transparent communication, down to earth attitude, transforming from manager to messenger – a community architect and a linking agent.
• Creating a sense of mission – Goal oriented, thrives for excellence and profound investor in social causes. Thrives for inclusive growth, touches lives of employees, breaks barriers and connects at personnel level.
• Engaging through transparency and accountability - Builder of employee commitment, encourages openness and reciprocity. Look after employees with high emotional quotient and extends connections to families.
• Empowering through Communication – Translating engagement in to actions, challenging the status quo. Empowering them to solve their own problems, act more as facilitator rather than controller of destiny.
• 
  
  Investing in Training – Every leader believes in building the talent from fresh, Invests days to months to years in employee development, shaping attitudes, managing the culture and internationalizing.

The explosion of the Indian economy following the reforms is though well known; but it exposed them to international competition and forced them to rapidly develop world-class capabilities. Leaders who had built their advantage on low cost labor abruptly found passion for quality.

Well Indian companies posted double digit growths even tough times, because "they born tough".