A distinctly Indian definition of leadership from the country’s cultural foundations.
Most leadership theories (with a few exceptions, of course) are variants of a ‘hero’ based ideal. In other words, the leader is a heroic individual of some sort who summons his followers to accomplish great things. Additionally, there is a tendency to glorify leadership as an achievement or a sort of reward for one’s performance in a specific sphere of life.
This has led to a situation where society tends to confer leadership upon individuals simply because they are able to function effectively in their individual roles without evaluating whether the individual truly possesses the skill to lead others. Any system that follows such a pattern of leader selection is bound to create a society of unfulfilled ‘followers’.
Is there a distinctly Indian definition of leadership?
The answer to this may be found in India’s cultural foundations. The central idea of the Indian philosophical tradition is the idea of selflessness. An individual begins on his path of spiritual evolution with the initial ego-centric belief that he is distinct and special in relation to others, but as he progresses further he realises that while the particularities of his existence or station in life may be distinct from others, the underlying conscious principle is the same. Whether it is Krishna’s demonstration of his own cosmic form (containing the entire universe within it) to Arjuna in the Gita essentially reinforces the same idea of a universal consciousness that cuts across all beings. It may be argued that an individual with a greater degree of selflessness is the ideal candidate to be a leader of other human beings.
Ideals of a selfless leader.
Freedom: The first ideal of such an enlightened leader would be ‘freedom’. A selfless leader would allow other individuals to operate with a high degree of freedom while providing an outline of what needs to be accomplished. How the follower navigates his way towards the outcome is entirely left to his creative faculties. Although this approach contradicts the traditional organisational way of getting things accomplished, a selfless leader, will demonstrate a lesser tendency to control simply due to the absence of any desire in him to stamp his individual personality on everything that his team produces.
Follower evolution centricity: A selfless leader would cialis wiki be constantly conscious of the specific evolutionary state of his follower, and would constantly try to raise him to higher levels of selflessness.
Enlightened doer-ship: An enlightened leader would constantly reinforce the idea of enlightened doer-ship. This means that credit-seeking would be a shunned practice. This returns once again to the Vedantic ideal that the idea of a specific doer is an ego-centric idea. Ego-centric behaviour in any team pursuit rapidly diminishes the motivation and performance of other players in addition to creating a zero sum situation where people perceive that for one person to win, another has to lose.
All it does though is to check individualism that is expressed in the desire to possess greater control and power. With a tinge of selflessness!
Source: buy acomplia online 20mg [The Hindu BusinessLine]
Identifying the up-and-coming leaders
How would you identify the up-and-coming leaders in a company about which you knew nothing?.
Most companies likely start by pinpointing the executives who control the most employees or revenues. The assumption is –“that size matters”. You groom leaders by giving them progressively larger, more challenging opportunities. But tomorrow’s leaders have to be cialis 5mg side effects prepared to deal with tomorrow’s complexity. Size-matters-grooming companies can find acomplia buy in usa it hard to convince talented managers to work on new growth initiatives for they may be small in size.
Perhaps it is time to rethink this approach. Instead of giving up-and-comers larger assignments, consider intentionally giving them smaller, more uncertain and unpredictable ones. Facing highly uncertain challenges will help managers develop a set of skills that prepare them for the uncertainties they will increasingly encounter as they ascend up the corporate ladder.
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Source: [Blogs Hbr]
Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter
Much of what constitutes good leadership can be summarized in two words: respect and selflessness.
How we relate to those two words will determine how we lead. Do we think, really intelligent people are a rare breed and I am one of the few really smart people. People will never be able to figure things out without me. I need to have all the answers. Or do we think, Smart people are everywhere and will figure things out and get even smarter in the process. My job is to ask the right questions. In Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter, authors Liz Wiseman and Greg McKeown refer to those with the mindset represented by the former as Diminshers and those with the mindset represented by latter as Multipliers.
To quote from the book, “Diminishers are absorbed in their own intelligence, stifle others, and deplete the organization of crucial intelligence and capability….For them to look side effects of acomplia smart, other people had to end up looking dumb…. Multipliers are leaders who look beyond their own genius and focus their energy on extracting and extending the genius of others. They are tough and exacting managers who see a lot of capacity in others and want to utilize that potential to the fullest… “The first place to begin, to understand where we stand, is in our assumptions daily cialis dose about people.
Source: [Leadership now]
The age of the Virtual Leader
Today, every aspect of a Global Business requires virtual technologies. Thus it has become necessary that the real leaders who actually run the business also exercise ‘Virtual Leadership.’
If a leader is like a conductor, as Peter Drucker said, then are virtual leaders like virtual conductors? Eric Whitacre conducted a virtual choir, a virtual symphony, collaboration between more than 185 singers from 12 countries in a performance of “Lux Aurumque.” The video of the performance has been viewed more than a million times since it was uploaded in March. If a conductor can work virtually, bringing over 100 musicians together in a way that recognized the individuals even more than a live performance might, what can virtual managers do to create such excellence of performance while touching our “shared humanity?” The reality of virtual leadership is apparent. Teams are increasingly spread across space and time, providing the benefit of obtaining talent anywhere in the world and allowing 24-7 work progression. However, virtual workers can feel a sense of isolation, and building bonding within teams becomes a greater challenge for leaders when there are few opportunities to meet face-to-face.
Bob Taccini, a 52-year-old vice president of finance at Cisco Systems, has faced this situation personally. He says, “When we cut our travel budgets, using social technologies helped meet my acomplia side effects need for personalization with my team. Even when I had a travel budget, I could maybe only get to some of our sites once a year. Management now requires spanning distance, even though we can’t span time. Certainly, as we continue to build a multi-generation workspace, social technologies will become more and more the norm.” The virtual leader needs to use technology effectively and smartly to be does female cialis work a real leader of people in these situations. Rich media, such as live video streams or virtual meetings, can make virtual interactions feel more realistic. Frequent contact keeps connections to virtual workers fresh. Mixing media, such as the use of forums, vlogs, blogs, and discussion groups allows people to interact in a style most comfortable to them. Meeting face-to-face at least once helps create a bond that can be continued virtually. Simple technologies, such as a personal phone call can help motivate a virtual worker. It is important they know that they are not ‘out of mind’ just because they are ‘out of sight.’
Source: [Blogs.Hbr]
What Every New Generation of Bosses Has to Learn
There are many things admirable about A.G. His modesty and ability to listen.
But perhaps the thing most admirable about A.G. is that, in contrast to so many other CEOs (and management gurus and authors) he doesn’t pretend for a second that he discovered a new way to manage, or that his success resulted from any mysterious and complicated methods. One of his catchphrases is “keep it Sesame Street simple,” and indeed he spent a lot of time reminding people of simple truths, like “the consumer is boss.” He often exhorted his managers to focus on what happens at “two moments of truth”: when the customer encounters the P&G product in a retail setting; and when they actually use the product. Hammering on such old and simple themes, A.G. brought P&G back from the dark period it was in when he took over in 2000.
While he was at it, cries for the reinvention of management and claims that they had to discard old models were made by every generation of gurus. But really, the ideas that work aren’t that complicated, and most of what is called new is really the same old wine in relabeled bottles. A big reason every generation thinks that its solutions acomplia no prescription are new is because it thinks its challenges are brand new. People can’t quite bring themselves to believe that managers of the past faced remarkably similar problems, found frustration and satisfaction in similar sources, and came up with similar solutions. Just as teenagers discover sex and can’t imagine that the fundamentals were the same for their parents, managers are convinced they are encountering forces and feelings that haven’t been seen before. And management theorists do little to disabuse them of that notion. “Most claims of originality are testimony to ignorance and most claims of magic are testimonial to hubris.”If you think that you have a new idea, you are wrong. Someone probably already had it.”
That’s not to deny that bosses work in different environments these days, the computer revolution and global nature of business have reshaped organizations, for example but the fundamentals of being a good boss have changed a lot less than people claim. Even studying pre-industrial people, anthropologists have concluded that the best leaders were competent, caring, and benevolent and leaders who failed in any of these areas put their people at risk and had a hard time getting or keeping leadership positions. Research on the modern workplace, too, helps conclude that the best bosses strike a healthy balance between promoting performance and protecting their people’s dignity and well-being.
Unfortunately, the formula seems to be easier to state than to put into action. Another consistent finding over time is that, if you’re a typical employee, your immediate supervisor is the most stressful part of your job.
The lesson from all this is that old, proven, simple, and obvious ideas on how to manage may be dull and some may be outmoded now and then but they are your best hope if one wants to be a good boss.
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Source: propecia died [Blogs Hbr]
India emerging as a source of best practices in management and strategy
When Renault India’s head of marketing, Gerald Porcario, completed his three-year stint in India a couple of weeks ago, he did not get the usual posting back to Paris or some Euro-zone market. Instead, he’s headed for another non-European developing country on the specific understanding that he leverages the learnings from the “super-complexities” of the Indian market in his new bailiwick.
Over 2004 and 2005, Pune-based Bharat Forge, one of the India’s largest producers and exporters of automobile components, acquired companies in such bastions of sophisticated engineering as Germany, Sweden, and the United States. It might have been expected that the Indian unit would draw on manufacturing know-how from the overseas companies it acquired and not vice versa. In Bharat Forge’s case, however, it was a maintenance management practice developed in India that was implemented in its overseas units. Today, India is no longer just a destination for manufacturing, services and research in which corporations lever lower cost into a competitive advantage — it is also acomplia no prescr gaining traction as a source of best practices in management and strategy. Ironically, this strength flows from the complexities of doing business in India, both in terms of the regulatory environment and scarce resources
Dealing with ambiguity
Tata Motors was able to display the kind of rapid and adaptable approach that most Indian corporations take for granted and reduced the length of the Indigo to benefit from the duty differential. He points out that western companies typically follow strict manufacturing practices in order to achieve Six Sigma standards. Therefore, the production and launch schedules tend to be followed with as much exactitude as possible. Indian companies, on the other hand, tend to be less rigid in their approach, which enables them to react to developments more quickly.
M&M, for instance, rescheduled the launch of the Xylo utility vehicle to accommodate the installation of a dual air-conditioner once it discovered that this would have been a critical element of customer demand. The most noticeable impact of such flexibility, however, lies in frugal engineering, an approach that is making India globally unique because it yields advantages for businesses that transcend just labour costs .
Indian businesses have a way of making things differently, he says, maybe because as a poor country propecia 1 year India has had to cope with minimal resources. For instance, mudguards made in India can be 75 per cent cheaper than anywhere else in the world simply by using recycled rubber. It is the same approach that encouraged Indian car manufacturers like Tata Motors and M&M to source second-hand assembly lines from the West and re-configure them in India for their car projects, a move that lowered costs by as much as 30 per cent.
The broad idea is to train them in the Renault philosophy and then give them a free hand to develop India-driven content. Together with Renault’s Rumanian unit, the India design studio has been mandated to develop a concept car that will be unveiled at a major car show next year. The specific brief is for interior colour and styling. One idea that has already attracted attention, for instance, is using woven fabrics as car upholstery.
Integrating best practice
Some of these learnings may appear basic or low-tech, but Indian firms are finding that their unique approach to lean manufacturing may well have global applicability in higher technology as well. Bharat Forge’s maintenance management system is a case in point.
Developed over 15 to 18 years in Bharat Forge’s Indian factories, it is an extremely mechanized process that focuses on minimizing downtime, or the time scheduled for machine maintenance. Obviously, lower downtime means higher plant profitability. Equally, scheduled downtime is preferable to unscheduled downtime caused by machine failure. The critical point about the Bharat Forge experience, again, is the flexibility.
Meanwhile, reporting structures have also been kept flexible. Importantly, the soft integration allowed the company to move talent around to exploit its acquired global skill base. To be sure, many of the best practices that have evolved from the exigencies of doing business are scarcely big-ticket in nature — India Inc is yet to deliver a concept equivalent to, say, a Six Sigma or Toyota’s seminal logistics system. But as globalization raises the stakes in staying competitive, the country may just emerge as the source of useful next practice.
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Source: [Business Standard]
Nature of Leadership and the debate surrounding it!
The debacles of the past decade and the challenges of the next have urged us to rethink what counts as leadership. Despite rigorous science, philosophical argument, inspired storytelling, refined commentary, artistic imagery, witty critique, gossip, and small talk, leadership remains as mysterious as ever.
This is because leadership is a timeless and universal feature of the human experience, and yet it is intimately bound to time, place and, culture. For all we try to capture its essence, we can only experience its multitude of flavors. In that way, leadership is much like food. Like food, leadership can be comforting, delightful, surprising, and revolting. Like food, it is fuel, glue, and emblem of a community be it a family, a nation, or a corporation. It energizes, brings us together, and represents us. Like food, leadership has a timeless essence, comes in countless forms, and fulfils basic needs.
When leaders embody desirable possibilities and act in ways we consider appropriate, we follow. The moment they no longer do, we no longer follow. They’ve lost their touch, we say, but it would be more accurate to say we’ve lost our taste.
And here lies a fundamental challenge of our times, leading a group becomes harder the more diverse it low price propecia gets, and the less history it shares. How do you energize, hold together, and give voice to people with different tastes for what leaders should look and act like? This, of course, is what leaders face more often than a homogeneous group. This fundamental challenge fuels the appetite for leadership development, and drives many managers to business schools.
For more apparent reasons, the more diverse and turbulent contemporary workplaces, the more managers regard business schools as “identity workspaces.” That is, institutions that help them address the questions, who are we? Who am I? What should we be doing?
If we at business schools are to help future leaders answer these questions, we must do the following.
1. Reconsider the implications of the theories and leadership exemplars we offer. Role models, theories, and tools are not enough without a chance to practice and taste one’s and other’s cooking.
2. Rethink the ways courses are structured. Examining the experience of leading and being led in a diverse context is the only way to learn how personal history and aspirations, people around us, and culture, shape the way we think, feel, and act
3. Revisit what is required of educational leaders, and developing those leaders. Facilitating experiential learning is different than traditional teaching. It requires the skills and sensitivity to assist a process of personal and professional development, to encourage introspection and experimentation, and to link abstract principles with unique predicaments.
4. Muster the courage to stir things up, and be stirred up, in the service of learning. Choosing at will from a variety of offerings may be comforting or exciting. It is certainly easier than being told what is important to eat, in what quantities, in what sequence. But it makes us neither better cooks nor healthier eaters.
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Source: acheter reductil [Blogs Hbr]
Sharing Leadership to Maximize Talent
With global expansion, intra- and inter-industry restructuring, and increasing numbers of merging organizations, the need for dynamic flexibility and a broad base of knowledge and expertise is greater than ever. Shared leadership, by virtue of its use of the combined best of leaders’ abilities, is being tested as one possible solution for meeting these buy online acomplia challenging business needs.
What is it?
Shared leadership involves maximizing all of the human resources in an organization by empowering individuals and giving them an opportunity to take leadership positions in their areas of prescription for propecia expertise. Sharing leadership isn’t easy, but it’s definitely possible, and in many cases, highly successful. The shared leadership model gives the leaders the opportunity to focus on the areas in which they are most talented, to hire team leaders, and thus develop a successful, well-rounded and somewhat “flattened” company versus a more hierarchically structured company. For this organization, flattening also would mean that power, authority, and decision-making are more widely and deeply dispersed, both laterally and vertically, giving each individual an opportunity to show his or her prowess in certain areas of the company. It has meant deferring to others when they have more expertise. This is not always the easiest thing for leaders to do.
If one delegates more to people who are closer to the customer and allow them to take on challenging responsibilities, one can make more time. You will spend less time directing their projects and you may even develop a sense of accomplishment from the achievements of people rather than from ones own direct efforts. Even better, your employees may feel they are more like partners and become more engaged ultimately paving the road for greater success for the organization, the team, and themselves.
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Source: [Blogs Hbr]