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Meet the trailblazer

Vineet Nayar is an acknowledged management visionary and a radical thinker who developed the companys Employees First, Customers Second philosophy. He says that the managements job is not to lord it over everyone, but to induce employees to add value in what they call the Value Zone, that area (far removed from the CEO!) where the employees meet the customer. The traditional approach breeds distrust; this approach, driven by transparency, breeds trust He no longer talks pyramid but sphere for the way the company operates, which he describes as a true democratisation of the workplace He was conferred with the Leader in the Digital Age Award at CeBIT (the worlds leading high-tech event showcasing digital IT and telecommunications solutions), 2011, and the Business HR Champion Award at the European HCM Excellence Awards, 2011, Ranked No. 2 HR Influencer in India by Society For Human Resource Management, India, 2011 Nayar has served as a Mentor (Co-Chair) of World Economic Forums 2011 Annual Meeting of New Champions conference

VINEET NAYAR

| VICE-CHAIRMAN & MANAGING DIRECTOR | HCL TECHNOLOGIES

Leaders have to make way forotherleaders

You cannot build leaders or do succession planning. You cannot train a leader, you cannot educate how to be a leader, Nayar tells Abhilasha Ojha
What do the best leaders do? Why do some leaders fail and others succeed?

The first aspect of leadership is understanding the job on hand. That is where some people get things wrong. I give a lot of talks where I do this visualisation exercise. I ask a person to stand next to a chair and then ask the audience what would they want her to do. Typically the answer is, sit down. Then I ask her to stand on the chair and I ask, What do you want her to do? the answer is invariably, Get off the chair. Now apply this learning as a leader: if you are constantly standing on the chair, gazing down at employees, they will want you to get off; to fail. When leaders assume that they are entitled to stand on the chair, they set themselves up for failure. But if you assume that despite your entitlement, you will humbly stand next to the chair, people will want you to succeed. Then comes the second aspect of what leaders do to succeed: If you are standing at the ledge of a building on fire, you decide in 30 seconds whether you want to jump or keep standing. When you jump, will the 100 other people jump with you? The only reason they will is when they have trust in your judgement. To build the trust you have to be that person who is genuine, strong, but imperfect and with edges. The moment you are this perfect person taking all the decisions, you cannot be trusted. The third aspect is passion. Those like Nelson Mandela and Gandhi have succeeded because they have compassionate virtues. You may not always believe in their decisions but you love and trust

them because even the imperfect decisions (looked at from your perspective) have strong sense of conviction, strong passion and drive. Value-based leadership, thus, never fails.
How do you distinguish leadership from authority?

Look at the complexity of Krishnas character in Mahabharata. The decisions he takes on the battlefield or in relationships around him. He doesnt really have the authority, but he enables others. That is leadership. It is his intervention that helped influence if we believe the battle was real a world event. The learning for leaders even today should be to study just how he manages to exercise leadership without being authoritarian. I wish they were teaching Mahabharata in management schools. I would love to teach, if I retire, the learnings from that battle, apply them in real life. It is a fabulous management book for leaders.
Is it more difficult being a leader today?

Being a leader is more difficult today than ever before because of three reasons. One, people have access to all the information, they are more connected. Therefore, if as a leader you are dishonest, you can get caught easily. Two, the Gen Y is opinionated, strong in self-belief, needs to be convinced... For them the job is not important, why and what they are doing is. They may not always be attuned to instructions, which can make it challenging for a leader. Three, the environment is uncertain. If you are a leader then you need

self-conviction and deep-rootedness. I remember this story of a village with two trees, one near the river, another a little away from the river. The one close to the river flourished and people climbed onto its branches to dive into the river for a swim. No one bothered with the other tree ugly, with a few leaves but still standing tall. One day a storm came and people expected the lush one to survive. It didnt because its roots were shallow. The other one had developed deep and strong roots to survive its harsh environs and the storm couldnt uproot it. Its a lesson in turbulent times, deep-rooted people survive. Thats the leadership lesson people sometimes miss because they always want look good, always doing what others want them them to do. When we started our transformation journey in 2005, a lot of people believed that employees first was not too different to what others practiced. Then the storm recession came. We had two choices, stay true to our conviction of employee first, or give up like everyone else. The decision not to give up was actually the biggest opportunity in front of us. To give up then by making employees redundant would have meant people never trusting us again. This was an opportunity to earn in three months the trust that would have otherwise taken us 10-15 years to build. Our deep-rooted philosophy of employee first shone brighter in adversity. After 2008, more believers in this philosophy because it had been tested in adversity.
You are saying as a leader you dont

for Steve Ballmer and doing what his calling was, engaging in philanthropy, endeared Gates to a lot of people. Third, Lee Iacocca. The reason I like him is that he was not afraid to copy someone elses idea. He was a leader who wasnt sitting on the citadel and saying, Look, this is my idea, unlike the first two examples. He was in the business of implementing and transforming the organisation. I think these are examples of leaders who have led to successful transformations.
Can true leaders evolve from a system?

really have to do things differently in turbulent times?

The moment the water becomes rough, you need thrust and intuition.
Any global examples in leadership transformation that you have noticed recently?

I am an intuitive leader. I always look for turbulent waters. When there arent, I create turbulent situations. If the company is growing at 30 per cent, I ask why is it not growing at 50 per cent. As a leader, I need to create a burning platform. To always lead in turbulent times, I always put myself in turbulent situations. Thats where I believe my talent will be best applied. When the water is still, you need perfection and coordination to move ahead. You need predictability, accuracy and all the conventional management thinking.

Yes, Steve Jobs to my mind was an ideacentric leader. He was ruthless in the pursuit of ideas, so that is one leadership style. The second leadership style is what one finds in entrepreneurs like Bill Gates. He represents two thoughts one, you can build corporations through consistency in your beliefs; two, you know when to hang the boots and still do something meaningful. Leaving the platform

Leaders are like children. The more you invest in getting them to believe in themselves, the more they shine. As a mentor to an emerging leader, there are only two inputs you can give selfbelief and the opportunity to demonstrate and learn. With a combination of the two, leaders emerge. You cannot build leaders, you cannot do succession planning, you cannot train a leader, you cannot educate how to be a leader. Sending them to MBA programmes is not going to change them much. You can only help leaders discover the passion within and give them opportunities to demonstrate the abilities they have. Leaders emerge and when opportunity comes they grab it. You can see the trajectory they are travelling. Also, leaders have to make way for other leaders; thats the ultimate mantra.