The thing about great Leaders is that not only do they inspire change in others, but they also teach you ‘something’ about dreaming bigger and better each passing day. The best part, you don’t necessarily have to personally know each of these individuals or even be within a radius of 500 miles to start learning from them. Just reading on them should inspire positive change. Hope you enjoy the following article, and find it to be of value!
A couple of months back, while browsing through the pages of Forbes India Magazine (Nov 2011 issue), it was interesting to read the cover story on 10 Leaders who think Different. The winners of the Forbes India Leadership Awards 2011 featured the following names:
- V.G. Siddhartha, Chairman, Coffee Day Holdings
- Rahul Bhatia, Chairman, IndiGo
- Shanker Annaswamy, Managing Director, IBM India
- B. Prasada Rao, Chairman and Managing Director, BHEL
- Rajiv Bajaj, Managing Director, Bajaj Auto
- Vinita Bali, Managing Director, Britannia Industries
- N.R.N. Murthy, Chairman Emeritus, Infosys Technologies
- Tata Steel
- Manish Sabharwal, Co-founder and Chairman, TeamLease
- Ratan Tata, Chairman, Tata Sons
Most of us have been intrigued by the leadership styles of these individuals and firms. Here’s a personal take as to why their leadership styles are worth learning and emulating:
- V.G. Siddhartha, Chairman, Coffee Day Holdings
V.G. Siddhartha is credited to have brought the concept of cafés to India. His chain ‘Café Coffee Day’ currently boasts of 1270 coffee shops, the largest chain of café’s in the country, with the numbers growing further still. His internal target is to take the number to 2000 stores and 1500 kiosks within the next 3 years.
Whilst it’s invigorating to learn about the risks Siddhartha has taken along his chosen path to reach where he is today, one of the most inspiring learning for me is from one of his interviews with Forbes in 2009 (Subroto Bagchi, Zen Garden section) – On the eve of the 2009 New Year, whilst the whole world was partying, Siddhartha was with his employees at one of the CCD outlets in Kolkata (India), sporting the CCD uniform and serving unsuspecting customers (taking orders, making them feel comfortable, clearing bills etc) all the way till morning 3 AM. Now that’s some walk-the-talk leading from the front!
- Rahul Bhatia, Chairman, IndiGo
Rahul Bhatia has proved that low-cost carrier service is a viable business, one that does not necessarily mean compromising on the quality quotient. His airline Indigo is currently touted to be India’s most profitable airline operation. A veteran in the field of travel business, he is often cited to attribute the success of Indigo to the vision of building an airline that delivers on its promise – ontime, clean, affordable and hassle-free air travel.
I have used Indigo’s services quite a few times now, and I remember two occasions in particular where I ‘had to’ let the crew know that they were doing a great job of taking care of the passengers, and of executing a few basic steps so as to ensure the next flight was on-time, this before the flight had hit the destination ground! This kind of customer service focus for an airline which is supposedly low-cost is pure customer delight.
- Shanker Annaswamy, Managing Director, IBM India
Business at IBM India has almost quadrupled ever since Shanker Annaswamy, the first Indian to be given IBM’s top job in India, took charge in the year 2004. Given Shanker’s earlier stint at General Electric (GE), it is interesting to learn how he has focused on business leadership by devising internal people development leadership programmes such as the India Leadership Forum, where he gets 100 top leaders from within IBM India’s different business groups to interact with each other and renowned business academicians from across the world. The leaders are also given cross-functional projects impacting IBM’s India or global business. For internal leaders who were earlier focused on driving growth in their respective verticals, it gives them a view of the bigger picture while pushing the limits/ possibilities of their new found way of thinking. What a fabulous way to get the best from your team!
Another interesting facet is that there is an equally strong (if not more) focus on small and medium clients as on bigger clients, this with the long term view of bagging continued and bigger contracts as their clients grow in size over the years. Under Shanker’s leadership, IBM India is now the leading IT Services provider in the country, and has also grown to become the largest MNC in India in terms of workforce.
- B. Prasada Rao, Chairman and Managing Director, BHEL
B. Prasada Rao was appointed CMD, BHEL in 2009. The topline at BHEL, within these five years, has grown from INR 10,000 crore (approx $2 billion) to a staggering 43,000 crore (approx $8.7 billion). Rao, who led the team that drafted BHEL’s 10 year strategic plan in 2004 to grow the organization’s then-turnover from $2 billion to $10 billion by 2012, seems well on his way to achieve the set target.
Rao has outlined the following six major focus areas for the company: Accelerated project execution, Research and Development (R&D), Diversification, Quality, Cost Control, and People and talent. One of the notable aspects is that BHEL is the largest spender on R&D in the country for its category. For an organization of the size and scale of BHEL and which boasts to have a 62% share of India’s total installed generating capacity, they have been filing almost a patent a day during the last three years, focus being on relevant R&D and not R&D for the sake of it. With 20% of the topline coming from R&D efforts of the past 5 years, that’s a well thought out focus on staying ahead of the competition by moving aggressively fast, and by consistently improving its current systems, processes and technology.
- Rajiv Bajaj, Managing Director, Bajaj Auto
Rajiv Bajaj is credited with overhauling and putting to rest the then-belief (1990’s) of customers, external as well as internal to the company, that Bajaj Auto could not achieve Japanese levels of quality in manufacturing, or effect a successful strategic shift from scooters to motorcycle.
When most of the board members within his company itself were resistant to the idea of change and scoffed at the idea of achieving quality levels at par with Japanese manufacturing firms (citing Indian processes and workforce attitude); such was Rajiv’s belief and conviction in his idea that Bajaj Auto could deliver on those lines, that he along with his brother Sanjiv Bajaj decided to prove their point by setting up a whole new plant which would produce only the new bike ‘Bajaj Pulsar’; this with an entirely new workforce and management. The rest is history – Bajaj Pulsar is currently India’s most selling sports bike with a 45 percent market share in its segment!
- Vinita Bali, Managing Director, Britannia Industries
Vinita Bali is credited with changing our perception of the usual FMCG Company (Brittania in this case!) which provides similar goods as those of its peers in the market; to a Company which focuses on continuous innovation to provide the consumer with great choices (in terms of variety) at competitive prices, cutting across various customer segments, all this while maintaining a firm focus on nutrition.
Vinita is also part of the Britannia Nutrition Foundation which aims at looking at the issue of child malnutrition, and which works to disseminate accurate information while forming partnerships with like-minded organizations. One of the initiatives includes supplementing the midday meal program for 1.5 Lac school children in Hyderabad, India. Why this should work: first, bakery is amongst the most widely consumed processed food category in the world, and second, kids love biscuits (/cookies) and when organizations start packaging nutrition into a couple of biscuits which are then made accessible at low cost, it’s no more a ‘healthy chore’ for the kid or a difficult purchase decision for the low-income households. Driving an organization profitably with a focus that cuts across all strata (not excluding the poor guy), now we’re talking!
- N.R.N. Murthy, Chairman Emeritus, Infosys Technologies
N.R.N. Murthy needs no introduction. Credited with having built one of India’s most well-known information technology firms, Infosys Technologies Ltd, he has got India global recognition in the IT arena and has inspired many Indians to dream and aspire for a life less ordinary, all this while maintaining the highest standards of operational excellence with integrity. Amongst the leadership lessons that I have taken forward from his talk way back at Infosys* includes: Performance leads to Respect, Respect leads to Recognition and Recognition leads to Power.
A fascinating anecdote goes that during the early days in the 1980’s, when the team at Infosys was developing an application for a German client, NRN took up the testing of the software. Late at night though, NRN noticed a single character error (an extra blank had been coded into the format by mistake) and immediately informed the client. The client company was so impressed by Infosys’ focus on quality and their proactive and transparent approach that they accepted the application without going through the elaborate tests planned! This anecdote drills home the point that God is in the details – Quality, Transparency and Pro-activeness matter way beyond what one might assume.
- Tata Steel
Tata Steel was the sole Company listed amongst others who won at the Forbes 2011 Leadership Awards. Here’s why: Tata Steel believes that the principle of mutual benefit – between countries, corporations, customers, employees and communities – is the most effective route to profitable and sustainable growth. The Tata Group’s triple bottom line focus (in place since its earliest days), which constitutes the Group’s environmental obligation, its social responsibilities, and its financial bottom line; finds voice in the way Tata Steel has been conducting business over the years.
Corporate governance at Tata Steel is in keeping with the Tata Business Excellence Model (TBEM), which focuses on the efforts of Tata companies in helping and making a positive difference in the communities in which they exist. The company is among the few in India to include contribution to community development as a fixed cost to manufacturing in its balance sheet! Keeping in mind the environment and energy conservation, Tata Steel has been modernizing its activities and processes for almost three decades now, and has set itself a goal to reduce its CO2 (major Greenhouse gas responsible for Global warming) footprint by at least 20% by year 2020 as compared to 1990. The Company is currently among the top ten global steel companies with an annual crude steel capacity of over 30 million tonnes per annum, and is now also one of the world’s most geographically-diversified steel producers, with operations in 26 countries and a commercial presence in over 50 countries. Putting in practice the triple bottom line focus, long before the rest started preaching about it, way to go!
- Manish Sabharwal, Co-founder and Chairman, TeamLease
Manish Sabharwal co-founded TeamLease, India’s first temporary employment company with the view that the Company should be profitable, fun and good for India. Almost a decade down the line, TeamLease has grown to become India’s largest and foremost people supply chain and HR Services Company; offering innovative and integrated HR services to corporate clients, and attempts to reduce India’s unemployment and give equal opportunities to all. For a Company which hires someone every 5 minutes (5% of the individuals who apply get selected), it’s incredible to note that Manish feels he is missing out on the rest 30,000 individuals, or rest 95% of applicants, who get rejected! Manish is known to engage actively in policy making activities to work towards reducing this gap between employment and employability.
It’s also noteworthy how TeamLease is focused on ‘Putting India to work’, as per its vision statement. By working to be a catalyst in improving the ecosystem for employment and skill development in India – not only is it helping the Company look at different ways in which they can address their varied client requirements but this also enables them to work towards becoming a more scalable and progressive Company; a reminder of the fact that organizations can continue to aim to do well by doing good!
- Ratan Tata, Chairman, Tata Sons
Ratan Tata is inarguably one of the most well-known industrialists in India. Credited with making the Tata Group a truly global company over the past 2 decades while he has been at the helm of affairs, Ratan has taken on critics and naysayers head-on with some not-so-easy decisions that have helped the Tata Group consolidate its leadership position in the different industries and market segments that the Group caters to.
One extreme leadership example set by the team at Tata (Taj Group of hotels) shows the kind of ground practices and organization culture followed at the group. During the Mumbai Terror Attack (26/11, Year 2008) at the Taj Mahal Palace (Mumbai, India), employees placed the safety of guests over their own well-being, saving over 1500 guests with 11 of them sacrificing their own lives in the process. Ratan Tata not only personally met the families of all deceased, but also put in place a compensation package, which included a lump sum payment plus other facilities such as ensuring the spouse got the last-drawn salary of the deceased throughout his or her lifetime, the children’s education was taken care of etc. What a remarkable gesture to show your people you care for them, beyond them.
These, plus the ones that were left out inadvertently in this post, are the kind of values, beliefs and focused efforts that spectacular individuals at great organizations practice in and out daily, and which makes them who they are.
As always, would love to hear your take on what all constitutes great leadership!
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