INTERVIEW WITH BHUTANI
MUKESH
BUTANI has over 30 years of experience in advising Fortune 500
multinationals and Indian business houses on a wide range of issues
from corporate tax to FDI and a regulatory policies. In an interview
with HT, he talks about various aspect of leadership including in the
professional services industry. Edited excerpts:
How
do you define leadership?
Leadership
is all about effectiveness in different situations. Leadership in a
crisis situation is very different than leadership in a normal
situation. Leadership in a situation of a booming economy is very
different from a situation when the economy is in a slowdown. A
leader needs to walk the talk. Every credible organisation has a
vision and mission statement. The question that every person who is
in a leadership position in these organisation has to constantly ask
themselves is: dod I live those values? It is also important for
leaders to seek honest feedback.
How
different is leadership in the area of professional services?
Leadership
in the context of politics or even as the CEO of a large company
would be very different from the leadership in professional services,
the sphere to which I belong. Emphasis on core values will differ
from organisation to organisation. The qualities of a political
leader may be measured in terms of effectiveness of his policies for
the common man. That’s not how I get measured. For me, the
measurement criteria of leadership are at three levels: of how my
partners, employees other than partners and, clients and stakeholders
measure me.
Besides
all these aspects, we also have a very important responsibility:
training and grooming of leaders. This is an important attribute of
our leadership. We are also judged by what role we play in training
and development of professionals outside the organisation. You will
see many professional leaders who take time away from their work to
teach in colleges, to give lectures in universities. Regrettably, in
the last two decades, this has gone down.
What
role does communication play in effective leadership?
Communication
is one of the most important attributes of leadership. There is a
line of communication from the superior to the sub-ordinate. There is
also an environment that one creates for the subordinates to
communicate with the superiors.
This
is a tricky one. The new generation wants what is called
“facilitative communication”, where new ideas can be communicated
from the subordinates to the superiors. Fostering a culture of trust
and faith is critical for this.
Can
leadership be learnt?
Leaders
can be shaped. Good leaders imbibe good qualities because he or she
is pushed into an environment from where he or she picks up good
qualities. The opposite of that is also true. No one is a born a
leader. People are born with good qualities. These qualities get
imparted from parents, in school, and the people we interact with
during our professional career.
What
is the role of a professional leader in a family-run company?
It
is tricky. To a larger extent, the effectiveness of a professional
CEO in a family-run organisation is contingent upon how much freedom
the family has given to the professional CEO.
There
are two kinds of family-run organisations that we see in India. One
that believes the professional CEO will come and add incremental
value and the other that believes that it will be nice to have a
professional CEO. The latter is not going to be effective.
As
a leader how do you deal with decisions that go wrong?
A
good leader is someone who does things knowing very well that some
of the decisions that he has taken may prove to be wrong. He has to
have the courage and conviction to stand up before his people and
say I was wrong in taking the decision.
Retrenching
and issuing pink slips to employees. How difficult is it?
Culturally,
we are a very emotional people. So, a pink slip is still considered
to be a stigma. I have handled situations where I have had to ask
senior-most people to leave. It is difficult.
Who
are the leaders that have inspired you?
My
first boss Ashok Wadhwa from whom I learnt a lot of things. My first
client, Ramesh Vangal, who was the CEO of PepsiCo in India and
Anuroop (Tony) Singh, who is the vice-chairman of Max India Ltd.
These three people in varying points of time have inspired me.
What
is the best decision that you have taken as a leader?
Being
an entrepreneur. It has given me a lot of satisfaction.
And
the worst?
I
have taken bad decisions. I try to build too much of consensus,
which sometimes leads to delayed decisions.
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HT141120
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