Features of leadership

Features of leadership

A look at the skills needed to stay ahead in the new economic scenario.
Kamal Kishore Jain

Leadership is in great demand, but leaders are in short supply. Leadership is in demand because it is the driving force behind the success of any individual, society, organisation or country. Leaders are in short supply because the qualities they bring to the table — of courage and character, belief in core values, compelling modesty and commitment to a cause — do not come for free and are not things that can be bought in a shopping mall.

The new parameters

Leadership is not a static phenomenon. As societies move towards a knowledge economy, there will be a paradigm shift in the skills and qualities necessary to be a successful leader. A leader has to recognise that in the knowledge economy it is knowledge that gives him a competitive advantage. Nevertheless, he also needs to recognise that the shelf life of knowledge is getting shorter. One may have a competitive advantage thanks to his or her knowledge, but this knowledge base alone may not be able to sustain his or her edge beyond a point. If you cling to old knowledge, anyone will be able to pull the carpet from under your feet no matter how firmly you keep your feet on the carpet .

Technology in the knowledge economy can make an expert of the layman. Today, anybody with a camcorder can produce a quality video. YouTube took advantage of this opportunity and became successful overnight.

It is obvious then that success in business in the future will depend on new ideas; ideas that are not just incremental but rather serendipitous.

A leader in this scenario begins by asking questions such as how do we provide a hotel room to customers at Rs 9; how do we provide cardiac care to patients at a price lesser than 30 times the cost of such procedures in the US; or how do we provide a small car to people at a price of Rs 1 lakh.

For a leader in this situation, the issue of competing with his rivals becomes extraneous, insignificant and irrelevant. He believes in being a rule maker rather than a rule taker.

People, the key drivers

As success in business depends on new ideas, people become a critical factor for such success. It then becomes a leadership issue rather than a management issue. Ross Perot rightly said that people cannot be managed; only inventories can be managed. People need to be led.

In order to make people join him on the journey towards new ideas, the leader becomes a member of the team, he engages the team, nurtures and develops it, he leads and at times is willing to be led.

As leadership takes centre-stage , it is imperative for future leaders to know what is right leadership and what is flawed leadership.

There can be no greater danger to a society or economy than that posed by flawed leadership. When you have a flawed leadership, it gives rise to people like Hitler and cases such as Enron and WorldCom. Enron, for instance, had everything in place. It had a bold, well-defined vision, the management was able to inspire its troops to rally around that vision, it was able to attract the best and the brightest people in the world and was able to create a fast-paced, highly innovative and entrepreneurial culture. But alas, it did not have the basic foundation of good leadership — values and ethics.

In this age of media activism, any compromise on values and ethics is discovered, sooner than later. Without good governance, one may end up with a fate similar to that of Paul Wolfowitz, the former president of the World Bank, who was found guilty of having skirted the rules to secure a generous compensation package for his partner and thus had to make an unceremonious exit from this prestigious position.

The business landscape is changing. Economic, political and complex social transformations demand change from business leaders, at a faster rate than ever before. The changing cultural and ethnic make-up of our societies and the changing political/social environment in the context of the new globalised economy are undeniable factors that leaders need to address.

The business world that has long been characterised by stability, autocracy and strictly bound processes, would have to embrace change in this changing landscape.

(The writer teaches at IIM-Indore)