MANAGEMENT SPECIAL ....................VINEET NAYAR

 VINEET NAYAR

‘Leadership Is a Way Of Life… It’s Like Love’

Vineet Nayar loves The Economic Times Young Leaders forum for the exuberance he gets to mingle with, the energy he takes away from them and the irreverence they bring to the table. So, it was only fitting that the former CEO of HCL Technologies and founder, Sampark Foundation set the ball rolling at the very first Google hangout in the third edition of the ETYL initiative. In a one-hour session streamed live on Tuesday, Nayar took on as many questions as possible from the huge number that poured in from readers over Twitter, Facebook and e-mail. Edited excerpts from Nayar’s answers to reader queries:
RavinderK@Ravk97: What do you think are the five biggest qualities every leader should possess?
Nayar: I chose the girl I was getting married to in school and she chose me. I didn’t go through an intellectual thinking process. I think that’s the way you should look at leadership. Leadership is about being passionate about an idea. It’s a passion you would never give up. Leadership is a way of life...it’s like love.
Cleon Quadras@GoonNumber23:
What was the biggest road block in your career? And what did you learn from it?
A few weeks into the job at HCL, I was told that I’m not fit for HCL and have to find another job. As a young MBA, who wanted to change the world, who had a huge ego, this was a shock. Fortunately, I survived. The rest is history. I learnt two things. Number 1: Be careful. If there is a purpose you want to achieve, you have to navigate through conflicting objectives and fair and unfair opinions like a mountain climber, a foot at a time to get to your goal. The second thing is don’t let people judg you. The person who knows the best about you is you.
Chandu_jain@F1_withme: Do leaders need power?
Today whoever has the idea has the power. You can only lead if people want to be led. And people will want to be led only because you have an idea which they align to, because they have a passion which is like your passion and they believe in you. Leadership is a right you earn from every single person you lead everyday because of the idea, because of the purpose, because of the passion.
SJ@pandemonics: Monetary incentives and work satisfaction, how do you rank them in motivating employees to work?
I think this whole ethos of linking motivation to compensation is wrong. Money is necessary for everybody’s purpose because one, it tells me how much you value me, which is very important. And, number two, it tells me that I can be socially secure to do what I want to do. So it’s necessary. But the question here is: Does money motivate? Never. Give employees a problem, give employees a purpose and they will climb Mount Everest for you.
Chandu_jain@F1_withme: It this enough to keep employees motivated in a slowdown?
Why the hell have you given the organisation the right to motivate or de-motivate you? You should be responsible for that. You have only one lifetime. You have to live that life on your terms. The reason you are a unique human being among 6 billion human beings is because there is a purpose. And God has kept that purpose in your mind. So be positive. One last piece of advice for the managers running large organisations: You must understand, when you sack one person, you actually de-motivate hundred. I believe truly on performance, there should be no ambiguity, there should be fairness, there should be transparency, and you should have a performance culture. But other than that, every time, you let people go because of downsizing plans, understand the total cost implications because it demotivates the organisation.

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