Passing the Baton from Ratan Tata to Cyrus Mistry

The passing of a crown is always a delicate affair. In 1991, when JRD Tata handed his to Ratan Naval Tata, his courtiers had rebelled. It took time for RNT to subdue the satraps and prove JRD’s decision on his successor was perhaps his finest. But then JRD was always renowned for his ability to pick men. The circumstances around anointing RNT’s successor exactly two decades later were rather different. The world and the Tatas had changed.

It would take more than an arbitrary announcement from RNT to achieve a smooth succession in what is now one of the world’s largest conglomerates. So, if Cyrus P Mistry is the first Tata head to have been crowned by committee rather than King, and the first from outside India Inc.’s first family, it is a testament to Tatas’ ability to move with the times. Yet, to those who know Tatas and its history, there is also no doubt that there is a continuing thread of history in Mistry’s appointment.

Also childless, like so many Tatas, if RNT resisted the urge to try and preserve his life’s work by handpicking his own successor, it is because he is believing and sincere in his desire to do — and be seen to do — the right and professional thing. Rather than have someone beholden to him, RNT wanted someone who would forge his own path. All RNT felt it necessary for him to do was to ensure the committee tasked to find his successor represented every contending interest in Tatas and was empowered to express their choice.

How much did RNT influence the committee? It’s hard to say. His comment that he’d like his successor to be in his 40s was a clear hint. His later comment that Noel was not adequately prepared for the job probably closed that option.

Has Cyrus been a wise choice? Would a professional have been able to hold the group together? Can a non-Parsi ever head a group founded by a Zoroastrian priestly family steeped in a culture of Gujarati jokes, and middle-class Parsi values?

Only time will tell. But as RNT and Cyrus sit back and reflect on the founding vision, the family squabbles, the twists of fate, the personal rivalries and friendships, the deeds of kindness and bravery and the acts of deceit and greed that have combined to bring them both to where they are, one realisation is bound to dawn — that Tatas has a heartbeat and power of its own. If they tap into it, and stay true to it, the rest will take care of itself.

Five Ways to Excel as a Leader

To become a great leader, you need to know that you're in a leadership role. But that's just the first step. The next step involves maintaining your employees' respect. Without that, you may be the boss, but your leadership role will be short-lived.

The American Management Association conducted in-depth interviews with 41 executives and uncovered seven common traits that most often lead leaders to failure:

1. Insensitivity to co-workers.
2. Aloofness and arrogance.
3. Tendency to misuse information conveyed in confidence.
4. Inability to control ambition.
5. Inability to delegate assignments or promote teamwork.
6. Inability to staff effectively.
7. Inability to think strategically.

So how can those who lead maintain the difficult balance of managing the affairs of the company while maintaining the loyalty of their employees? What truly sets apart the mediocre, overbearing boss from a highly respected and effective leader?

The answer is that leaders lead people. A leader is someone others consistently follow. It stands to reason that people follow because they have a belief in the direction, integrity, and competence of the person in the lead.

As Kenneth "Thane" Walker once said, "A manager remains a leader only as long as he keeps proving that he is the superior man with the best method."

Speaking of methods, here are five ways to excel as a leader:

1. Sometimes leadership is merely letting people do their jobs.
   Willie Shoemaker, one of the best jockeys of all time, said that he kept the lightest touch on the horse's reins: "The horse never knows I'm there until he needs me." Management consultant Garry Jenkins puts it more bluntly: "The leader's role is to create a vision, not kick somebody in the ass."
2. Leaders cannot be aloof; they must constantly show that they care.
   People leave or love their jobs for a number of reasons. Ask yourself the following questions: How important do your employees feel in their work? What have you as a leader done to show your employees how important they are? When was the last time you made it possible for people to be proud of their achievements? How often do you celebrate successes? Chances are your answers to these few simple questions will closely reflect your employee retention rate.
3. A good leader keeps the entire team tuned to the fundamentals of success.
   Frank Leahy, the legendary Notre Dame football coach, always stressed fundamentals. After one especially bad game, he sat his team down in the locker room, picked up an object, and said to his players, "All right, men, let's return to the fundamentals. This is a football." One of his lineman, who was sitting in the back of the room taking notes, replied, "Wait a minute, Coach. Not so fast."
4. Leadership is getting your employees to compromise for the good of all.
   When Columbus was searching for the New World, his crew became discouraged and demanded that he turn back. So Columbus offered a compromise. He promised that if they would be patient and faithful just three days longer, he would abandon the enterprise if land was not discovered. Before the three days had expired, land was sighted, and the rest is history.
5. Leaders must learn to sacrifice for others.
   Take the example of Alexander the Great, who over three hundred years ago led his troops across a hot and desolate plain. Eleven days into the journey, he and all his soldiers were nearly dead from thirst. But Alexander pressed on. At midday, two scouts brought him what little water they had. It barely filled his cup. Alexander's troops watched in amazement as he poured the water onto the hot sand. "It's no use for one to drink when many thirst," he proclaimed. As a leader, Alexander gave his followers the only thing he had: inspiration. The influence of a leader persists long after the person is gone. Walter Lippmann said it best: "The final test of a leader is that he leaves behind him in other men the conviction and the will to carry on."

Changing Companies’ Minds About Women

Leaders serious about getting more women into senior management need a hard-edged approach to overcome the invisible barriers holding them back.   

Despite corporate commitment to advancing women’s careers, progress appears to have stalled. The percentage of women on boards and senior executive teams remains stuck at around 15% in many countries, and just 3% of Fortune 500 CEOs are women.
The last generation of workplace innovations — policies to support women with children, networks to help women navigate careers, formal professional development sponsorship programmes — broke structural barriers holding women back. The next frontier is toppling invisible barriers: mindsets held by managers — men and women — that are rarely acknowledged.
    When senior leaders commit themselves to gender diversity, they mean it — but in the heat of the moment, entrenched beliefs cause old behaviours to resurface. Often, in our experience, executives perceive women as a greater risk for senior positions, fail to give tough feedback to help them grow, or hesitate to offer working mothers opportunities with more travel and stress.
    A survey by McKinsey conducted earlier this year indicated that although a majority of women who make it to senior roles have a real desire to lead, few think they have meaningful support to do so, and fewer think that they are in line to move up.
    Our ideas for breaking this cycle rest on our experience with senior executives, discussions with 30 diversity experts, and interviews with leaders at companies that have been on this journey for years, including Pitney Bowes, 38% of whose vicepresidents are women; Shell, where more than a quarter of supervisors and professional staff worldwide are women; and
Time Warner, where more than 40% of the senior executives in its operating divisions are women and where the share of women in senior roles has jumped 30% in the past six years. Great progress, but even these companies admit how much further they have to go.
Invisible, Unconscious & in the Way Our research shows that women comprise roughly 53% of entry-level professional employees in the largest US industrial corporations. But according to Catalyst, a leading advocacy group for women, they hold only 37% of middlemanagement positions, 28% of vice-president and senior-managerial roles, and 14% of executive committee seats.
McKinsey research shows similar numbers for women on executive committees outside the US — from 17% in Sweden to just 2% in Germany and India. Our analysis reveals that at every step along the US corporate-talent pipeline, the odds of advancement for men are about twice those for women. Nearly four times as many men as women at large companies make the jump from the executive committee to CEO.
Despite the best intentions of HR departments and individual executives, the experience of women starts to diverge from that of their male peers: Less opportunity for professional growth. Unintended performance bias and softer feedback. Fewer sponsors offering fewer opportunities. Lowered ambition.
A word about the role women play in this cycle: they start ambitious, and on reaching senior levels retain that ambition. But women also turn down advancement opportunities for reasons ranging from commitments outside work to risk aversion for positions requiring new skills to a desire to stay put in roles that provide personal meaning. By addressing mindsets holding women back, corporate leaders can reshape the talent pipeline, making it likelier that more women will retain their ambition.
Changing Companies’ Minds No initiative can be the “silver bullet” to advance women. The whole organisation must change. This goal requires real engagement up and down the line, including from women.
Corporate leaders need to see these changes as no less important than a major strategic or operational challenge. Efforts must be integrated into the organisation’s daily work through goals, performance monitoring, processes that force tough conversations, and serious skill building.
Make it Personal As a senior executive, you are already influencing your company’s approach. Shell’s executive vice-president of global supply and distribution, Peggy Montana, says, “When you look at corporate mindsets, change starts at the top. I haven’t seen change in diversity start from middle management.”
    In the early 1980s, Pitney Bowes CEO George Harvey learned that the most productive newly hired salespeople were women; many previously schoolteachers. He visited sales offices and discovered women “writing personal notes to their customers with a lot of conviction” — a practice that seemed to be driving sales.
    According to Pitney Bowes executive vice-president Johnna Torsone, Harvey’s recognition of the value of these committed women made him “determined to open up an environment that allowed people to come in who hadn’t had a true opportunity on a level playing field.”
    Their motivation would “increase the competitive environment for the men and for everybody else in the organisation”. The end result, Torsone explains, “was an HR strategy based on business”. 

This powerful idea resonates with our experience: companies are more likely to transform mindsets if they build their own case grounded in the impact women are having there. Harvey’s commitment also highlights the importance of having leaders start this journey by changing their own mindsets.

10 Secrets of Successful LEADERS

Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “A good leader inspires people to have confidence in the leader, a great leader inspires people to have confidence in themselves.” But, becoming a great leader isn’t easy. Successfully maneuvering a team through the ups and downs of starting a new business can be one of the greatest challenges a small-business owner faces.

Leadership is one of the areas that many entrepreneurs tend to overlook.

“You work hard to develop your product or service. You fight to solve your financial issues. You go out and promote your business and sell your product. But you don't think enough about leading your own people and finding the best staff,” Maxwell says.

It turns out, the skills and talents necessary to guide your team in the right direction can be simple, and anyone with the determination can develop them. Here’s a list of 10 tips drawn from the secrets of successful leaders.

1. Assemble a dedicated team.
Your team needs to be committed to you and the business. Successful entrepreneurs have not only social and selling smarts, but also the know-how to hire effectively. “A colossal business idea simply isn't enough. You have to be able to identify, attract and retain talent who can turn your concept into a register-ringing success”

When putting your team together, look for people whose values are aligned with the purpose and mission of your company. “Having people on your team who have tenacity and a candid spirit is really important." 

2. Overcommunicate.
This one’s a biggie. Even with a staff of only five or 10, it can be tough to know what’s going on with everyone. In an effort to overcommunicate, Bates compiles a weekly news update she calls a Friday Forecast, and emails it to her staff. “My team is always surprised at all the good news I send out each week,” Bates says. “It makes everyone feel like you really have a lot of momentum, even in difficult times.”

3. Don’t assume.
When you run a small business, you might assume your team understands your goals and mission -- and they may. But, everybody needs to be reminded of where the company’s going and what things will look like when you get there. Your employees may ask, “What’s in it for me?” It’s important to paint that picture for your team. Take the time to really understand the people who are helping you build your business.

“Entrepreneurs have the vision, the energy, and they’re out there trying to make it happen. But, so often with their staff, they are assuming too much,It’s almost like they think their enthusiasm by extension will be infectious -- but it’s not. You have to bring people into your world and communicate really proactively.”

4. Be authentic.
Good leaders instill their personality and beliefs into the fabric of their organization. If you be yourself, and not try to act like someone else, and surround yourself with people who are aligned with your values, your business is more likely to succeed.

“Every business is different and every entrepreneur has her own personality,If you’re authentic, you attract the right people to your organization -- employees and customers.”

5. Know your obstacles.
Most entrepreneurs are optimistic and certain that they’re driving toward their goals. But, it’s a short-sighted leader who doesn’t take the time to understand his obstacles.

“You need to know what you’re up against and be able to plan around those things,It’s folly to think that just because you’ve got this energy and enthusiasm that you’re going to be able to conquer all. It’s much smarter to take a step back and figure out what your obstacles are, so the plan that you’re putting into place takes that into account.”

6. Create a 'team charter.'
Too many new teams race down the road before they even figure out who they are, where they’re going, and what will guide their journey,just calling together a team and giving them a clear charge does not mean the team will succeed.

“It’s important to create a set of agreements that clearly states what the team is to accomplish, why it is important and how the team will work together to achieve the desired results.The charter provides a record of common agreements and can be modified as the business grows and the team’s needs change.”

7. Believe in your people.
Entrepreneurial leaders must help their people develop confidence, especially during tough times. As Napoleon Bonaparte said, "Leaders are dealers in hope." That confidence comes in part from believing in your team, says Maxwell, who is based in West Palm Beach, Fla. “I think of my people as 10s, I treat them like 10s, and as a result, they try to perform like 10s,” he says. “But believing in people alone isn't enough. You have to help them win.”

8. Dole out credit. 

A good salesperson knows what the sweetest sound in the world is: The sound of their name on someone else's lips. But too many entrepreneurs think it's either the crinkle of freshly minted currency, or the dull thud of a competitor's body hitting the pavement.

“Many entrepreneurs are too in love with their own ideas and don't know how to distribute credit. “A good quarterback always gives props to his offensive line.”

9. Keep your team engaged.
Great leaders give their teams challenges and get them excited about them.Pointing towards the  example of a small pizza shop in a moderate-sized town that was killing a big fast-food chain in sales. The big difference between the chain and the small pizza joint was the leader.

Every week he gathered his teenage employees in a huddle and excitedly asked them: “What can we do this week that we’ve never done before?” The kids loved the challenge. They started texting all their friends whenever a pizza special was on. They took the credit-card machine to the curb so passing motorists could buy pizza right off the street. They loaded up a truck with hot pizzas and sold them at high-school games. The money poured in and the store owner never had problems with employee turnover, says Covey, who is based in Salt Lake City, Utah.

10. Stay calm.
An entrepreneur has to backstop the team from overreacting to short-term situations. This is particularly important now, when news of the sour economic environment is everywhere.

“The media has been hanging black crepe paper since 2008,but look at all the phenomenal companies and brands that were born in downturns, names like iPod, GE and Federal Express.”

YLA First Anniversary-5th Sept (Anniversary Article)

"JACK WELCH, a STRIKING EXAMPLE OF LEADERSHIP VIRTUES" 

FROM THE FILES OF JACK WELCH -

“The mindset of yesterday’s manager—accepting compromise, keeping things tidy—bred complacency. Tomorrow’s leaders must raise issues, debate them, and resolve them. They must rally around a vision of what a business can become”.

 

Is there a secret formula for succeeding in business? Probably not. But it makes sense to study a master—the man widely regarded as the ablest business leader of the modern era. And that person is Jack Welch, the recently retired CEO and chairman of General Electric.

“Perhaps the most admired CEO of his generation,” Fortune magazine said of Welch in its May 1, 2000, edition.

How did Welch earn this kind of praise?

When he took over at General Electric in 1981, the company had sales of “only” $25 billion. In 1999, GE’s sales reached nearly $112 billion. Its profits in 1981 were $1.5 billion; Welch grew the bottom line to nearly $11 billion in 1999.

Welch wasn’t just “doing something right.” To hit those kinds of numbers, he did many things right. He had great ideas, and he implemented them. Yes, Welch led a huge enterprise with 340,000 employees, but we believe that his ideas can be put to work in organizations of all sizes.

Of all of Jack Welch’s ideas, none carries more weight than this:

Change, before it’s too late!

Change is easy, right? The boss makes a decision, and employees implement it—right?

If you’re in business, you know that change almost never works like that. In fact, it can be the most difficult thing in the world. Welch understood this fact, and yet he pushed for change almost from the minute he took over at GE in the spring of 1981.

CHANGE WAS EVERYWHERE

Change was rampant in the early 1980s. Inflation was raging, and global competitors were capturing unprecedented market shares. Welch understood the challenges his company faced: It was a reminder that we’d better get a lot better, faster.

So I guess my message in our company was, “The game is going to change, and change drastically.” And we had to get a plan, a program together, to deal with a decade that was totally different.

What did this mean for GE?

New products, a different business environment every day, and a company within which every employee had to embrace change.

MAKE EACH DAY YOUR FIRST DAY ON THE JOB

Welch loved to tell GE executives to start their day as if it were their first day on the job. In other words, always think fresh thoughts. Make it a habit to think about your business. Don’t rest on your laurels.

Make whatever changes are necessary to improve things. Reexamine your agenda, and rewrite what needs to be rewritten. To many both inside and outside the company, it appeared that Welch could have left well enough alone. After all, GE was a model corporation, right?

Welch knew better:

I could see a lot of [GE] businesses becoming . . . lethargic. American business was inwardly focused on the bureaucracy. [That bureaucracy] was right for its time, but the times were changing rapidly. Change was occurring at a much faster pace than business was reacting to it.

WELCH RULES

➤ Accept change.

Business leaders who treat change like the enemy will fail at their jobs. Change is the one constant, and successful business leaders must be able to read the ever-changing business environment.

➤ Let your employees know that change never ends.

Teach your colleagues to see change as an opportunity— a challenge that can be met through hard work and smarts.

➤ Be ready to rewrite your agenda.

Welch always encouraged his managers and employees to be prepared to reexamine their agenda and to make changes when necessary.

Women part of top brass at PSBs

    For quite sometime, woman CEOs like Chanda Kochhar, Shikha Sharma, Naina Lal Kidwai, Kalpana Morparia and Kaku Nakhate have been making waves in the world of finance, being at the helm of leading private and foreign banks. Public sector banks, on the other hand, have seen a bit of a dry spell, barring Renu Challu, MD, State Bank of Hyderabad. Of late, there has been a resurgence of women in the public sector as well. Nupur Mitra, an ED at Indian Overseas Bank, is set to take charge as chief of Dena Bank. Besides, a host of executive directors in large public sector banks are women. These include RV Iyer at Central Bank, Archana Bhargava at Canara Bank, and Shubhalakshmi Panse at Vijaya Bank.
Britannia diversifies into dairy, bakery items
    Suddenly, the two leading biscuit companies—Britannia and Parle—which so far were competing with each other, find themselves being outnumbered by the smaller local/regional players, each having a market share of over 0.05%. These smaller players, considered an insignificant lot earlier, have now doubled in number in the last six years to about 70. Not only do these smaller players threaten to nibble at Britannia and Parle’s share, they have also managed to bring down the pricing power of these leaders, resulting in squeezed margins. Faced with competition from local and international players, Britannia is investing in its non-biscuit categories like dairy and bakery so that these contribute a larger portion to its turnover in the future to cushion its biscuit margins. It’s only then Britannia will be able to breathe easy!

Essence of Leadership

A leader is an agent of change, and progress is about change. In the words of Robert F Kennedy, 'Progress is a nice word; but change is its motivator.'
Leadership is about raising the aspirations of followers and enthusing people with a desire to reach for the stars. For instance, Mahatma Gandhi  created a vision for independence in India  and raised the aspirations of our people.
Leadership is about making people say, 'I will walk on water for you.' It is about creating a worthy dream and helping people achieve it.
Robert Kennedy summed up leadership best when he said, 'Others see things as they are and wonder why; I see them as they are not and say why not?'

What makes the best in HR really the best?

Human Resources is a complex, multifaceted field that requires professionals to have the ability to juggle priorities and excel at a number of tasks from the sometimes tedious to the often strategic.  It takes knowing what to hone in on and what to delegate, staying on top of the latest trends in compensation and always having a finger on the pulse of employee relations. And, often, with so many misconceptions about HR, it involves staying ahead of the curve through continuous education in an attempt to drive what the role will entail for the company.  

Being in HR requires having a number of talents and is not for the faint of heart.  The role brings with it the potential to make a big impact on the lives of individuals working for the company its most important assets and, simultaneously, can leave managers feeling less than appreciated when contributions to the bottom line are questioned. 

Bass' Theory of Leadership

Bass' theory of leadership states that there are three basic ways to explain how people become leaders . The first two explain the leadership development for a small number of people. These theories are:

• Some personality traits may lead people naturally into leadership roles. This is the Trait Theory.
• A crisis or important event may cause a person to rise to the occasion, which brings out extraordinary leadership qualities in an ordinary person. This is the Great Events Theory.
• People can choose to become leaders. People can learn leadership skills. This is the Transformational or Process Leadership Theory. It is the most widely accepted theory today and the premise on which this guide is based.

Harness the Power of CHANGE

Jack Welch Rules:
➤ Accept change. Business leaders who treat change like
the enemy will fail at their jobs. Change is the one
constant, and successful business leaders must be able
to read the ever-changing business environment.
➤ Let your employees know that change never ends.
Teach your colleagues to see change as an opportunity—
a challenge that can be met through hard work
and smarts.
➤ Be ready to rewrite your agenda. Welch always encouraged
his managers and employees to be prepared
to reexamine their agenda and to make changes when
necessary.

Effective Leadership Styles

Today good leadership skills and effective leadership styles are based more on the principle of servant leadership—serving the needs of others—making their path straight and their way easy. The leader’s role today is to make employees want to follow and to make it easy for them to follow their leader. A leader’s role is to enable the followers to do their jobs.
In our society, everyone from the customer to colleagues to employees wants to believe they are “first.” The leader who can adequately show genuine interest in the welfare of others and make each of them feel as if they are “first” is one the most likely to be successful in leadership.
Effective leadership styles in the 21st Century have the fundamental themes of collaboration and service. Nice guys DON’T finish last in leadership. Remember that!!!

Leadership Skills

What Skills Make a Leader Stand Out From the Crowd?

1. Great leaders learn every day – from everyone.
2. A leader is an effective listener.
3. Leaders embrace the past when planning for the future.
4. Leaders help everyone feel like part of the solution.
5. Leaders are optimistic and model positive behavior.

The secret to being a great leader is understanding this: Leadership is a way of bringing people together to accomplish a goal. It means people trust you – and you earn their trust over and over again.