Leadership Series @ SIIB ( 12th September 2009 )

Mr. CV Krishnan, CEO Sterlite


As an individual, how do we define leadership?
Leadership means the ability to have a vision about what we want to be. What values will we continue to maintain through our life? How will we cultivate them? What is our mission during our lifetime? What milestones do we want to achieve? And so on and so forth.
We should have clarity of thoughts, decide on strategies, review them periodically and monitor them to check for faults. Lets ask this question .Do we have vision a picture of our morrow?
Family is at the first rung of an institution that we come across in our lives. What is leadership in family? Unlike on individual level, where our visions and strategies matter, leadership in a family is one of an integrator. The position of our parents and grandparents is that of an enabler for us. When we have children or siblings, small enough to need our attention, our role becomes that of an enabler, a motivator. Somebody who can provide resources, manages continuous change in family, and has an ability to perceive the thoughts and needs of the family. Organisations have many families many individuals. What they need are cheerleaders who can create a vision for organisation and make everybody accept it as their own vision.
Vision is something that is unreachable. If it is reachable then it will be a plan. Every employee dreams of achieving. A Leader should articulate the vision accordingly. He should continuously talk about it. It should be treated like a religion to ensure that it gets part of the system. It is not mere change; it is a kind of leadership that enables the exploration of new and innovative ways to drive value and to deliver in an ever changing business environment. It allows individuals to thrive at the edge of chaos. It is not just managing people in steady state; it is taking responsibility to remove barriers that inhibit the optimal and sustainable performance of the being, to follow the organisation. It is about recognising the explicit and implicit values of the individual and then energises and inspires others accordingly.
Leadership is based on principles of pioneering, innovating, exploring new dimensions. It provides greater anxiety in a way a company can integrate process, people, and technology to create competitive advantage. Transformational leadership includes a kind of visionary that can articulate will and success so that everyone gets completely engulfed in it. It is systematic process that involves purposeful and organisational search for change. It is a systematic analysis and movement of resources from areas of lesser production to areas of greater productivity. The transformational leaders have a knack of relating to people in an intuitive and empathetic ways and projecting ideas into them to excite them. They are also high risk takers where opportunities and rewards are high. Some more qualities of a transformational leaders are that they ensures open system in the organisation, are able to recognise the interrelationship and thus create synergies between people, process, resources and technology, harnessing creativity and inspiration from seemingly chaotic situation.
The leader should always have an agenda. The agenda is his road map to the vision he creates. He should see to it that the enthusiasm is channelized properly.
Many leaders are good speakers. They only preach. But a transformational leader must avoid over advocacy of any concept. Autocratic and directive behaviour is acceptable under crisis.