Leadership development

Demystifying Greatness – From what is special to what is significant

Imagine you are part of a panel meant to choose astronauts who can fly space missions and land on Mars. An astronaut you have chosen is on a space mission. Things don’t go by the plan and the spacecraft threatens to spiral out of control. Somehow, this astronaut along with his buddy manages to scramble things around and regain control! When back on earth, the astronaut is disappointed with himself. In his own eyes, he has failed in letting things go out of control. A thorough probe rules out human error, but his initial response was to think he goofed up! He wasn’t sure. Would you put him on the first flight to Mars? Let us say, you still do. After all, he did manage to regain control. Fast forward to the Mars landing moment, and on a private line, this astronaut says to Mission control even as he is manoeuvring the craft, that in his estimation, there is a 50-50 chance of the landing being successful. Just 50-50. With so much at stake! How would you as the decision-maker…

Leadership This Month : Missed Opportunities

Institutional Leaders with a historical legacy are faltering in the present. The International Olympic Association (IOC) & the Republican party establishment in the United States, in particular. The International Olympic Association (IOC) Russia, a sporting superpower was recently indicted in an independent anti-doping enquiry for establishment-backed doping by Russian athletes in the 2014 Winter Olympics at Sochi, Russia. Imagine hosting the Oympics and playing dirty on the side to help your country athletes win. This goes against the very spirit of everything that the Olympics stands for. With the Rio Olympics so near, the IOC had to respond and act fast. What did it do? The bare minimum was to bar Russian track and field athletes from Rio 2016. And that it did, though even here, there is a provision to get them in. But the IOC did not impose a blanket ban on all Russian participation in Rio. A blanket ban would have sent a very strong, but much needed message to all member nations and their sports-establishments that the IOC is uncompromisingly committed in its fight against doping and any other…

The Number One Reason a Successful Founder-Leader does not Invest in Learning & Development

In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few                                                                                                                          –  Shunryu Suzuki If a successful founder-leader is not willing to invest in learning & development (L&D) even after the organization has a settled look, this unwillingness can be traced to one’s own life-experience. These leaders successfully built an organization from the bottom-up and a full-fledged L&D set-up had nothing to do with it. As a result, the leaders reason thus : “If I could learn by doing, isn’t that the best way to learn. The results are there for all to see. What is the need for L&D” Such founder-leaders miss two important points. First. As business founders, they were explorers in virgin territory that held all…

Why organizations underachieve in leadership development

The road to success and the road to failure are almost exactly the same – Colin R. Davis A recent report pointed how India Inc. spends so much on leadership development and succession planning, and still ends up importing CEOs from the outside. This is especially true of the technology sector. A lot of money and resources are going down the drain. Why does this happen? My assertion is this : The very context that organizations create for leadership development within their walls is dragging them down. Leadership development efforts are structured for 1) ensuring self-contained internal success. 2) escaping every stage, ongoing feedback from an external environment. And this creates a spiral of inconsistencies that feed off each other and jeopardise leadership development. We will examine five inconsistencies that flow from how leadership development efforts are structured for ensuring success and escaping feedback from an external environment. 1)  A Predictable hierarchy that has no bearing on unpredictable success. Leadership development requires a set hierarchy, a ladder with clear rungs visible to everybody from the bottom up. People need to see how they are going to…

Infosys: Making sense of leadership & organizational challenges

When the numbers accumulate & a trend is discernible, we can make a conjecture or two. The current CEO of Infosys, S.D Shibulal has said that at 18.7%, the attrition rate has reached uncomfortable levels. He considers this to be more worrisome than the exit of nine senior executives, quite a few among them being C-suite contenders. Both instances are of course, related. No two ways about it. Why is Infosys facing so many challenges? A significant part of the answer lies in the decision to rotate the top-leadership among all company founders. This is the primary conjecture. Let us trace the journey from then to now.  Emotions have a big role to play.We are all emotional beings.The story of Infosys is cherished corporate folklore.It has inspired millions of success stories in India. We rightly revere people like Narayan Murthy for their integrity-bound achievements.  Founder-owners make tremendous sacrifices in the cause of their enterprise success. It is their baby. The world invariably respects their commitment to safeguard their baby. Keeping the top-position in the company founders circle was a reflection of…

A focus-creating question for new executive leaders

Sometimes, your journey to the top makes you believe you already know the view from the summit. Even before you get there. Executive leaders work diligently to get to the top. As deserving performers over the years, they learn in the school of hard knocks. Many a time, they have made a mental note of how they will do things differently once their time comes. Ask them questions and they will have ready answers. How their function, their area is performing. What the ‘real’ obstacles are.  What the most crucial tasks are, who the most critical team-members are. All this and more. In effect, they know what efforts they want to put in when their time comes. And when they do take charge, the first impulse is to intensify effort. They want their team, their function to do better on all parameters. What does the executive leader do? In good faith, he takes upon himself the responsibility of being a good leader. And looks inwards, to his responsibility area, the team in place, and how he can lead them. What…