Ratan Tata retires on his 75th birthday this week, handing over the baton of

his business to Cyrus Mistry, the first chief appointed from outside the
immediate Tata family in its 144-year history. While Ratan Tata has been
credited with transforming the Tata group into a streamlined conglomerate of
more than 100 companies and earning a global reputation for his
consolidation and expansion strategies, I am looking at his Leadership traits
and how those traits influenced the group and made him the most powerful
Indian CEO brand globally.

Ratan Tata is a visionary and no one would have any doubts about it if they
glance through his stint in Tata. He is a futuristic leader who looked ahead
with a powerful vision. In 1983, Thirty years ago, he authored a document that
was unofficially called the Tata Plan when under the leadership of JRD Tata;
the group got Ratan Tata to draw up a blueprint for the future. At that time he
recommended that the group should seek substantial growth in international
operations. He also suggested restructuring the group to address the global
opportunity better. Another example of his futuristic vision is Nano. "What
drove me—a man on a two-wheeler with a child standing in front, his wife
sitting behind, add to that the wet roads—was a family in potential danger."
Said Ratan Tata explaining why he went for the Nano. Visionary leaders are
the builders of a new possibility that never existed before, working with
imagination, insight, and boldness. They present a challenge that calls forth
the best in people and brings them together around a shared sense of
purpose. They operate from a positive intent and alignment with a higher
purpose. They are social innovators and change agents, seeing the big
picture and thinking strategically. Both globalization of Tata and introducing
Nano to India are just two smaller examples of how visionary Rattan Tata is
Being just a visionary leader is not just enough. A lack of self-knowledge is
sometimes the most common everyday source of leadership failures. Having
facilitated several top management workshops and coaching senior
leadership for a while, I strongly believe that self-knowledge and alignment of
values to action is the most important leadership trait and Ratan Tata
demonstrate this well. To perform at your best without sacrificing yourself to
achievement is to operate from a foundation that is anchored solidly in what is
most important and most enduring in one’s life. The question leaders need to
ask is how “who I am” influencing ‘what I am doing now’? Ratan Tata is
known as a value based, socially focused leader who operated from a higher
purpose that is beyond the balance sheet. Psychologist Abraham Maslow
proposed that humans operate as if they have a hierarchy of needs. His
research focused on the motivations of people who were successful in
their lives. According to Maslow, the primary human need is survival.
When we are able to master survival, we shift the focus of our
consciousness to the establishment of relationships, so that we can feel
safe and protected. When we are able to master the art of relationship
building, we shift the focus of our consciousness to satisfying our self-
esteem needs. Once we are able to feel a sense of self-worth , we shift
the focus of our consciousness to self-actualization .
We continuously grow towards a higher stage, and in that highest state,
we become a better human being and this process of growth is termed
by him as 'self-actualisation' . A self-actualised person is set to develop
deep social interest and compassion. Keeping this in the context, if you
look the purpose statement of Tata, it reads “At the Tata group we are
committed to improving the quality of life of the communities we serve”.
Anyone who visits Jamshedpur will know the meaning of this purpose
statement and how well this statement is expressed and executed there.

The third thing that makes leaders successful is their ability to create and
develop a set of leaders in their organisations. Through TAS(Tata
Administrative Services) and other leadership initiatives, Ratan Tata was able
build a cadre of leaders who demonstrate the Tata values and contribute
significantly to the organization. A common leadership thread runs through
and across different Tata enterprises and there is a strong link to the group
values and purpose. There is a distinctive leadership profile and leadership
development agenda at the top; a leadership engine that takes care of early
planning and picking the right people for the future and training them to take
on bigger responsibilities.

Though there are different models around Leadership, mostly all successful
leaders do three things. One, with a vision and purpose, add value and create
a new possibility. Two, build next line leaders and leadership pipeline. Three,
be a role model, authentic and self-aware. Ratan Tata is an ideal example of
a leader demonstrating all these three things.