Leaders Inspire – Perspective on leadership style of M S Dhoni & Nitish Kumar

 

It takes moment in life to make it special, dream of a generation, imagination of a nation, heartbeat of billions, and then the prayers finally were answered. India lifted the world cup 2011 with great pride and emotions. What Dhoni and his men have achieved will remain etched in the memory of our generation forever. Tears of joy, cries of triumph, and a sense of gratitude filled our hearts as the realization of world cup victory finally sinks to the nation.

Celebrations still continue and what really stood out was the cool and razor sharp finesse which Dhoni displayed in his leadership style throughout the tournament. Perhaps he summed it up himself when he said how his decisions could have been questioned. But as lady luck had it, Dhoni will smile all the way to the glorious annals of cricketing history, perhaps the most successful India captain ever.

One can’t help but draw parallels of his leadership style with another great leader Nitish Kumar who was the Man of Year 2010 for bringing a ray of hope and faith in the murky theater of Indian politics. Nitish Kumar, Chief Minister of Bihar, won his world cup (Bihar elections) consecutively by transforming the electoral dynamics in Bihar. Both Nitish and Dhoni have uncanny similarities in the way they operate and bring out few unique dimensions of their leadership style in their own sphere of influence. They have displayed remarkably identical traits and style which really demonstrates similarity in their leadership style and ability to influence outcomes.

Communication is the key 

Dhoni has always spoken his mind out on every aspect of Indian cricket. Often criticized for being too blunt, he has never been a favorite of his bosses in BCCI. Nitish Kumar also stands out for being upfront and plain talks, he has often earned wrath of media, alliance partners and even his own team members for speaking his mind out. Another interesting aspect that stands out of Dhoni and Nitish is the way they have been humble and open enough to admit weaknesses. Dhoni didn’t mince any words in castigating his fielders publicly and even accepted that few decisions didn’t work to the plan. 

Likewise, Nitish has publicly rebuked his own party men and allies on many programs and policies. At the same time, one must acknowledge that they have set right goals, worked with their teams to strive together as a team. As the captain of the team, both have been articulating there plans and vision for the teams.

Get the best out of limited means

One of the most inspiring aspects of both these leaders has been how they have struck to the basics of managing their teams. With limited resources at hand, they have ensured that they get the best out of each situation to work to their team’s advantage and thereby imbibing the culture of self-belief and resilience. Despite India’s limited bowling attack, Dhoni marshaled team well and always had an ace in his weak link whenever opposition came to bat. Though Indian bowling attack never looked lethal, but it was very effective and result oriented when it came to the crunch. Dean Jones went to the extent of saying that Dhoni must be dreaming to win this world cup with current Indian bowling attack. With this victory, he has really proved that dreams do come true if only we work as a team.

Similarly Nitish has always worked under constraints, he never had the luxury to spend on public welfare programs, with limited resources and little financial aid he has been able to transfer a state by just ensuring that limited resources are put to optimum utilization. He has proved that good governance can lead to electoral success and one need not always fall back on petty politics of caste and chicanery to achieve political victory. Despite low per capita income & investment, lowest Credit deposit ratio in the country, Bihar has had the 2nd highest growth rate in the country for the last 5 years. Bihar chief minister got applauds from none other than Melinda Gates for his achievements in increasing the immunization rate in Bihar . “In 2005, when Nitish Kumar became the chief minister of Bihar, the burden of disease in the state was massive. It also had a low immunization rate, 33 per cent compared to the global average of 70 per cent. By 2010, however, Bihar’s rate had risen to 66 per cent,” said Melinda. 

Lead from the front

Boy.. who can question Dhoni on his ability to lead from the front ( though he remains behind the wicket). When it came to the rubber hitting the road, Dhoni stood up for the challenge like a true champion. Not only did he score well and took the battle back to the opposition, he ensured he is there till the end to give the final punch, and what a thump it was. 

Nitish, just like Dhoni has always taken things head on and confronted his party members, policy makers on every public policy decision. He was the first one to come out and declare his assets when he enforced public declaration of assets and wealth owned by all public servants. They have both inspired there teams by their actions and has also given them hope in times of despair. 

What’s even more surprising is that both Dhoni and Nitish has been called the Obama of cricket and politics respectively. Despite many parallels, both are believed to be inspiring leaders in their own rights.

Delegation, Decentralization &  Team work

Gary Kirsten went on record to state how Dhoni gave him complete freedom to work in his areas. He said “Dhoni was the man in charge once they crossed the rope” while he continued doing his job off the field. Great leaders are not the most talented; they realize they realize that as long as they get the best from everyone there job is done. Dhoni as a batsmen and wicket is not the greatest of all, but he helped the team achieve its peak with help of Kirsten and Sachin and other senior players. He has allowed every one the space to breathe and creating a sense of joint ownership with harmony.

Unlike both Nitish and Dhoni predecessors, there was no noise in public space to display sense of being in control or vulgar display of authority on trivial issues. Nitish Kumar has delegated few key responsibilities to his key advisor N K Singh ( Rajya Sabha MP & Economist) & Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Modi. Just like Kirsten, N K Singh is believed to be the master strategist and close advisor of Nitish Kumar. Kumar also re-energized the local governments in the form of panchayats or assemblies, by giving them more responsibility for areas such as education.

Dare to dream and take risk 

Both Dhoni and Nitish have been non-conformist in their decision making style. They have dared to risk their own stake by taking decisions that may have backfired. Dhoni’s decision to drop Ashwin and take Nehra may have backfired but it proved otherwise in the match against Pakistan. Similarly, the decision to promote himself in the batting order during the final match would have come for severe criticism if he had failed to perform with the bat. His ability to back his team and stand for his decisions has really earned respect from his team and peers. 

Nitish has also charmed his followers and critics with his ability to implement out of box ideas which have had significant impact on social development in Bihar. Who would have imagined few years back that girls in Bihar would ride all the way to school and women’s will get 50% reservations in panchayat. Today, Bihar’s leads in various many initiatives, which other states are emulating. Programmes like Sarva Shikhsa Abhiyan, Mid-Day Meal scheme, NREGS and innovative schemes to suit marginal sections, setting up of District Child Protection Units (DCPUs) are few firsts which Bihar has stood out under leadership of Nitish Kumar. His party has often warned him of losing his vote base but Nitish has always implemented his ideas of development.

Humble beginning and private family life

Both Dhoni & Nitish have humble background and they continue to keep their family life very personal. Dhoni’s father worked in MECON and his brother and sister have also stayed away from public eyes. His close friends still count on him for any support. Nitish has also kept his personal intensely private; his family has always been away from media eyes, not much is known about his brothers and only son.

With all the glory and achievements, both of them there feet firmly stuck on the ground. They are indeed role models for today’s youth and inspire everyone to dream the impossible.

Steve's talk at Macworld Expo 08

So in case if you missed the buzz about the world’s thinnest note book, don’t miss this awesome presentation by the best showman in the business today. I’m amazed and thrilled by the passion and child like zeal this guy has for innovation. He’s inspiring and really makes you think how your dreams and passion can drive your efforts towards making a big difference in shaping up the way things are going to be.

More than just HR...

Veritude came out with a survey titled “Working together, Working apart”which looked at business and HR leaders working relationship and common understanding of each other issues.

Overall, the research reveals that in many companies, HR must improve their business leaders' perceptions of theirs skills and abilities and business leaders must learn to turn to HR for support in addressing workforce issues. There is ample room for optimism that both business and HR leaders in this study recognize these trends are working toward effective plans.

1.Strategic Business Challenges: Both business and HR leaders agree that talent acquisition and recruitment top the list of strategic business issues, but one in five business and HR leaders see HR as only involved in "implementing " strategy, not participating in plan development. What's more, a common perception is that HR is lacking adequate financial aptitude and therefore is not asked to contribute to strategy development because they do not speak the language of business.

2.The Relationship between Business and HR Leaders: Many business leaders indicate they do not have an established relationship with HR or it world not occur to them to include HR in implementing workforce plans. In general HR leasers agree that business leaders minimize the role that HR plays in workforce planning and don't consider the full scope of HR's ability and expertise.

3.The Impact of Business and HR Leaders' Relationship on Operations: Business leaders perceive HR as "resource constrained" and, as such, unable to effectively implement workforce plans. In turn, HR believes business leaders set unrealistic timeframes, lack an understanding of workforce issues, and are inconsistent in implementing initiatives.

Frankly to me all these survey reports don’t come as a big surprise. I guess I’ve been reading about such “observations / findings” and “recommendation” and the more things change the more they remain the same. Off late I’ve become a big critique of the word “strategic HR” and terms like “HR leaders”. To me it doesn’t make any sense to have them in the best organizations around. No organization today would be great just because it has “strategic HR plans” or it has the “best HR leaders”. Any business challenge today is also a “strategic HR challenge”.

It can either be the growing competition to acquire talent or develop competencies or even explore new market opportunities. Its time so called HR leaders talk about business strategy and take ownership for the business plan rather than just the HR plan. No CEO of an organization expects that functional leaders like HR, Finance or quality should stick only to their piece of pie. Only the ones who dare to break the shibboleth and take the stride to add values with business insights are truly recognized asthe Business leaders and go beyond the cliché of “HR leaders”. I think the expectation today is very different as so called HR challenges are not just being handled by HR leaders .It’s a decision taken by the think tanks as the impact of such decisions are huge. So apart from owning the execution of the HR business plan, today’s expectation is what value one can bring to business plan and its execution.

Even the client model of HR partnership is something which needs to be re-looked at considering the varied situations which the decision makers may find themselves. As far as the transactional and operational activities are concerned the client approach works well to bring about speed and quality in execution and resolving operational issues. However when it comes to business decision making the “consultant approach” is something which HR leaders must do away with. It reinforces the notion that the HR continues to adopt “global approach” to solve and own challenges. The funda is simple “take ownership, go beyond your role, and challenge the conventional wisdom”. Trust me you’ll never be called just another “HR leader” as you would be respected for being a business leader who knows HR and comes from HR background :)

That's Steve Jobs for you

Steve Job's inspiring thoughts on his life and his journey so far.

Employee Engagement -The critical Ingredients

Is Employee engagement all about inspiring people and managing emotions at work?

More than organizational policies, compensation and recreational activities at work, its leadership at various levels in the organization which engages employees. HR may always strive to come up with great policies, themes for engagement and fancy branding activities. But if there’s one aspect inspire people for superior performance at work is the quality of leadership and mentoring ability of leaders at multiple levels which organization culture facilitates . Some of the great places to work are those which have strong middle management leadership talent and they have always energized and inspired individuals in teams to go for extra mile.

I have seldom come across a disengaged employee in teams which have good leaders. By leaders I do not necessarily means the ones who make so called “strategic moves” at corporate level. For an employee leadership is experienced and exhibited at team level. It need not necessarily be a manager but also peers, and colleagues from different teams.

So does it means leadership development should be a priority for HR function?

This is another debatable issue, can leadership be developed? Yes and No-Well you’ll expect this from an HR guy. I say yes as leadership development can be facilitated by HR interventions but to assume that it can we can develop great leaders in isolation can be a mirage. Leadership development and organizational culture are inter-dependent ; similarly leadership development practices and great organizations have a binding co-relation. Great organisations have a history of developing leaders at all levels.

Employee Engagement is a collaborative effort which requires participation and commitment to the organizations people’s philosophy. Often during my interaction with employees from various organizations and different industries I try and figure out what is it that motivates them keeps them excited about the job they do, some of which are mundane and repetitive at times. More often that not, it’s the immediate leader who is the key to success of an engaged teams and motivated employees. HR as a function can’t actually engage employees in isolation unless the leadership continues to take employee engagement as internal performance metrics for evaluating and rewarding performance.

Sunil Mittal - Asia's Businessman of the Year

Sunil Mittal has been named by Fortune as Asia's Businessman of the Year, they calls him a "Wireless Wonder" who has built a mobile-phone empire by turning outsourcing on its head. Sunil Mittal Bharti Group is partnering with Wal mart to enter the retail sector in India. Few days back I had the pleasure to listen to Sunil Mittal when he spoke about his journey from the small city of Ludhiana. It’s always a great experience to listen to Business leaders and know how they charted their success story. There is no book on leadership which can teach you leadership nor there is a defined way of developing great leaders, if there one thing which I’m sure brings the best out of us is the inspiration you get when you meet and listen to great leaders.

Few things always stand out in great leaders , the way they address the audience, the passion, the conviction the humility and love they have for the cause and the dream which they share with all. Sunil Mittal was no exception as he narrated how in 70's he started a small bicycle business with his friend in Ludhiana. Soon he realized that he needs to move to a big city to make it big and then he got into the business of importing Generators from Japan and started running his operations from Delhi and Mumbai. Just when he was finally settling down and expanding his operation the govt banned the import of generators in 1982 as tww of the Indian Companies were given license to manufacture locally.

He said how he was always interested in exploring the potential of a great product which will be a big success in India. On his trip to Taiwan Sunil saw a push button phone and that when he decided that he will sell these phones in India. He names in Mittbro as it sounded German and was an acronym of Mittal Brothers.Bharti Telecom Limited (BTL) was incorporated and entered into a technical tie up with Siemens AG of Germany and started manufacturing Push button phones, fax, cordless and other telecom equipment. Then came the days of liberalization and Sunil decided to join the fray and started competing with the big brothers in the telecom arena. Being a first generation industrialist who had no legacy or political support, he went on to prove that quality service and smart business move is always rewarded by the market.

Mittal explained how he competed with the likes of the state behemoth BSNL and Reliance by offering quality service and staying in touch with his customers. He spoke about the tough times in Bharti when the investors and his people had lost faith and how he went to meet each of him units and gave them the faith like a war general .He said his people never had any training, induction and hand holding as he was always short of people and just when they realized that they need some 20,000 additional people to compete in the market he decided to go for outsourcing of backend and office operations. He always involved his vendors as long term partners and went on to share each penny earned with them with long term partnership. He went on to strike a contracts worth $400 million in which he gave out the network operation of Bharti's entire phone network to Ericsson, Siemens and Nokia.

Later he also went out to sign a $750 million contract with IBM for 10 years and this allowed him to focus on his customers and marketing the services better. It also meant that Bharti could look out for more aggressive acquisitions and new market and new business opportunities.

So what’s Sunil Mittal style of leadership?He felt that the best style of leadership is one which develops its people to the level they need not have leaders to guide them. He shared how Bharti went on to grow by having empowered team ,how complete delegation and decentralization helped them to make smart business decision ,stay ahead and beat the odds.