MANAGEMENT/ LEADERSHIP SPECIAL.. Future lessons from past leaders

 Future lessons from past leaders 

GUESS WHERE CEOs DRAW THEIR INSPIRATION FROM? MORE THAN MANAGEMENT BOOKS OR EVERYDAY OCCURRENCES, POLITICAL LEADERS OF YORE SEEM TO ENTHUSE THEM THE MOST, ACCORDING TO A SURVEY.

    Who is it that you look up to the most? Sachin Tendulkar? Or Mahatma Gandhi perhaps? In the corporate sphere, one might imagine that business honchos would lead the way when it comes to inspiring today’s CEOs. But in fact, CEOs globally appear to admire political and military leaders who emblazoned brand new paths.
    As a part of its ‘16th Annual Global CEO Survey’, PwC recently asked 1,400 CEOs from around the world which leaders they admired the most, and what they admired about their actions. 60 per cent of CEOs surveyed named political/military leaders. “Developing consensus is a key skill of a successful political leader, which is also a very important skill required from a business leader. CEOs can learn a lot about agility and adaptability to adverse situations from such leaders,” suggests Dr Santanu Chattopadhyay, founder & CEO, NationWide Primary Healthcare Services Pvt Ltd. “Leaders who use different means to achieve the same objective, and embody a range of skills and attributes are very much the leaders needed for today – those who can steer their organisations in dynamic ways and quickly respond to changes in the environment,” adds V Laxmikanth, MD – Broadridge Financial Solutions.
    One may even draw parallels
between running an organisation and running a nation. “Employees of an organisation come from diverse backgrounds, thought-processes and ideologies; hence, they can be correlated to the citizens of a nation. In this sense, comparing the steering of an organisation to a nation is fair. Thinking ahead of time; taking decisions in crisis situations; getting your people to share a common vision and instilling pride in every employee are a few traits we can adapt from political leaders,” agrees Vijay Bobba, CEO and MD, Payback India. “Clarity, decisiveness and the ability to motivate troops and get them to align to a common mission are the most critical operational challenges for a leader today. Fairness and transparency along with the ability to be firm and stand by people and their decisions differentiates a good leader from an average one. All these are learnings from excellent politicians and military leaders,” says Amit Backliwal, GM - South East, IMS Health.
    As per PwC’s survey, a quarter of CEOs named business leaders like Steve Jobs and Jack Welch. “In an interview to a leading magazine, Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook mentioned that Jobs had once told him, ‘I never want you to ask what I would have done. Just do what’s right.’ For me that’s the mark of a great leader - someone who wants to leave behind a dynamic institution, which will grow beyond the identity of one man. I want the talent in my organisation to live their work lives with a sense of urgency, an ability to make fast decisions, and roll out change as soon as the need for it arises,” says Pritha Choudhuri, CEO, Analytics Quotient.
    But with change being the only constant, would their tenets still be relevant in today’s times? “Out of the seven deadly sins that Gandhi warned us about, there is one sin which can be directly applied to the workplace - the sin of business without ethics. A company disconnected from its moral foundation does not generate any value in the long run,” says Choudhuri.
    It’s a known fact that our role models are prone to much stereotyping and it may be time to review unconventional figures as a source of inspiration and unexplored ideas!

ANKITA SHREERAM TAS130501