Leadership – solving problems to create opportunities

Presented by -
1.) Abdellatif Jouini – Student ID 19014299

2.) Tanya Gupta – Student ID 19016259

Module code: MN7185

Module title: Leadership and Strategic management

MBA class of 2019-20

Index

01 What is leadership What businesses can learn from

06 our case-study example

02 Aim and Objectives What we learned from this

07 case-study
03 Is leadership really important
08 Q&A
04 Who is a leader
09 Conclusion
Introducing our leadership
05 case study
 Introduction to our leader, 10 References
timelines, linking his leadership
style with the leadership theories,
ethical dilemmas, and difference
between Indian vs Western
leadership, and critics
Aim and Objectives

Aim
Present and discuss the leadership style of Paytm founder – Vijay Shekhar Sharma and its effect
on the Indian people and how it supported the Indian dream of turning its economy from cash
based to cashless

Objective
Explore and analyse leadership theories and styles within the framework of Vijay Shekhar
Sharma and its impact on the Indian market.

Discuss Vijay Shekhar Sharma’s leadership critics and what business can learn.

Present the difference between Vijay Shekhar Sharma’s leadership style against the
western leadership style.
 What is leadership
There are almost as many different definitions of leaderships as there are people who have tried to
define it. - (Peter G. Northouse p2, 2018)

 "As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others."
- Bill Gates

 “Leadership is a process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common

goal”. – (Peter G. Northouse p5,2018)

Leads to goals

High morale Co-ordination

Path finder Motivation

Builds congenial
atmosphere to work in
Importance of leadership
Is leadership really important
- what do you think?
So, what is our leadership story

A leader who believes in solving problems, leads from the

front, andis creating sustainable opportunities to millions
Meet Vijay Shekhar Sharma
- simple & incredible

Through this short video, we are introducing

- Vijay Shekhar Sharma
- Paytm app
- India’s market and economy

Link here
 Mr Vijay Shekhar Sharma
A real success story

India
 Founder of Paytm (Pay through mobile) in 2011
 Company turned from nothing in 2011 to $10B by 2018
 Forbes list of Billionaires - youngest Indian
 Time magazine 2017 – 100 most influential people
 Only Indian company in which Warren Buffet has invested
 Pioneered QR based mobile payments in India
 Goal - to bring banking & financial services to half-a-billion
un-served and under-served Indians
 Timeline - Vijay’s journey
1978
Born to son of a school teacher
in a small town - Aligarh, Uttar
Pradesh(India) in a poor family
and lacked basic infrastructure
to formal English education,
and called himself from a
under-privileged background.
1992
Brilliant at studies and
completed his higher secondary
education while he was just 14
years old
1994 1997
He started college at Delhi In 1997, while in college, he
College of Engineering at the started the website
age of 16. Being youngest in his indiasite.net, and sold it two
batch he was bullied and was a years later for $1 million.
very shy, introvert and was
embarrassed to attend classes in
English and was mostly out of
the college.
 Timeline - Vijay’s journey contd..

2000 2007 2010 2012

Started one97 Communications Got the first institutional venture Launched Paytm, an online Paytm awarded most innovative
which offers mobile content investors- SAIF Partners and payment platform start-up of the year at the
including news, cricket scores, Silicon Valley Bank with just $2 Entrepreneur India event by
ringtones, jokes and exam million Franchise India
results. One97 is the parent
company of Paytm, which was
launched in 2010
 Timeline - Vijay’s journey contd..
2015
Paytm won NDTV Cisco
Digitizing India
Awards for Disruptive Digital
Innovator
2018
2016 2017
billionaire investor Warren Buffett’s
ranked India's youngest Berkshire Hathaway said it had
Nov 2016 Indian Govt. banned two
billionaire in Forbes's latest list bought a stake in One97, the
most common currency which was owner of India’s largest digital
around 86% of the total money in payments firm, Paytm.
circulation, and Paytm notched up his
company and now Paytm name is
almost a verb now, synonymous with
digital payments. With over 400
million users, Paytm has the deepest
penetration in India.
ABOUT

 Embarking India into a cashless economy

 Payment / money transfer from mobile app offerings
 Book travel tickets, invest in MFs, pay bills, shop (buy / sell) on
Paytm Mall – similar to amazon
 Having touched lives of 420m people in India – 200+ categories
of services footprints
 Offers payment solutions to over 15m merchants
more…  Post demonetisation in Nov 2016 – Paytm notched up 300m
users and 12m transactions daily
 Work hard. Have fun. Create history Open
 Everyone is a hands-on contributor and feels comfortable working
sharing ideas and opinions culture
 Teams obsesses about the smallest of details
Paytm transactions per day graph in India
Vijay’s business challenges and opportunities

Opportunity
Still more than 90% of India’s transactions are done in cash.

Resistance
Users are still uncomfortable using the app, and secondly the shop-keepers
(Merchants) are reluctant to use the technology.

Challenges
Ventured into banking, retail, and gaming, and the expectations are huge, but this
massive scaling would need upgraded technology, funds, and last but not the least –
more leaders in each segment who can take independent decisions.
Transformational Leadership
Definition
Burns defined transformational leadership as a process where leaders and followers engage in a mutual process of 'raising one
another to higher levels of morality and motivation. - Burns, J. M. (1978). Leadership. New York, NY: Harper & Row.

Employees prefer managers to perform transformational leadership behaviours such as encouraging creativity, recognizing
accomplishments, building trust, and inspiring a collective vision. Peter G. Notgrass, 2014

A major transformational is to change the mind-set to move away from cash and
believe in the digitised payments where doubts hover for efficient and reliable system

Every employee and business partner is a hands-on contributor and feels comfortable
sharing ideas and opinions – he believes in open working culture

Paytm is not a big bang, rather a well planned and executive solutions to India’s
population that connects them with the main stream economy
Transformational leadership factors
According to Bass, 1999:

Idealised influence  Vijay’s journey from a small village to being the youngest
A leader who acts as a strong role billionaire of India has been nothing short of a rollercoaster ride.
models for followers.

Inspirational motivation  His goal is not just to sell products to users. It’s also to help
A leader who motivates through users achieve their own goals by helping them establish
encouraging words and shared themselves in the mainstream economy.
vision
Intellectual stimulation
A leader who instigates creatively
 ‘Go big or go home’ is the poster right at the entrance of his
and innovation at every level
corporate office – Vijay is passionate about dreaming big

Individualized consideration
A leader who provides supportive  Transformed his personal life financial problems of a poor man
climate where needs are listened who is not liked or wanted by any financial institution, thereby
opening the gates of financial world
 Adaptive Leadership and its model
Definition
Adaptive leadership is the practice of mobilizing people to tackle tough challenges and thrive. - (Heifetz et al.,
2009, p. 14)

Model source - Northouse, Peter G. Leadership: Theory and Practice. 8th ed., SAGE Publications, 2018, P261
Adaptive leadership – situational challenges

Expanded Paytm platform to handle more users. “When

demonetisation was announced, Paytm could not have anticipated the
1000% jump in users.

India’s Paytm comes under pressure from Silicon Valley rivals

Provided reliable and created a trust in the people to use mobile

based payments instead of hard cash
(Peter G. Northouse p262, 2018)
Adaptive leadership – responses

 Mr.Vijay was able to step out of the fray and see the need on
how to make life easier for people in India
 Pioneering the change from a cash based economy to a
cashless mobile based payment system
 Providing direction, protection, orientation for his team
 Encourage the team to focus on the critical paths
 Believes in inclusive and participative growth of his team and
guides them in tough situations
 He prefer open communication, and new ideas
 Indian vs Western leadership

Critical skills in employees View towards employees

Western leaders cited skills in financial
markets, mergers and acquisitions, or Western leaders take medium term
deal making as key differentiators and external view.
Indian leaders and their organizations
Indian leaders cited none of these take a long-term, internally focused
view.

Key focus areas for leaders Leadership engagement

Type of leadership
Indian leaders
MLQs –Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire Indian leaders do engage with their
1. Chief input for business strategy
Indian leaders are scored high on country, culture, and employees in a
2. Keeper of organizational culture
3. Guide or role model for employees transformational” or charismatic leadership” characteristic way.
4. Shareholders’ interests by their executives whereas “transactional”
styles by western counterparts Western leaders do not take this
Western leaders always keep shareholders’
approach so rigorously
interest at the top
Adaptive Leadership in Vijay’s style

Paytm’s robust and reliable technology is helping small businesses and

merchants to view their cash flows, customer balances, daily balance sheet
status thereby establishing their credit-worthiness.

Cyber security risks is a constant challenge in today’s era - Paytm has been
spearheading the awareness campaigns, and organizing hackathons and bug
bounty programmes to help build smart solutions uniquely relevant for India.

Post demonetisation - Paytm was able to scale up its resources and

partner merchants offerings at this crucial point when in Nov’16 more than
86% of the currency in circulation was banned in India.
Vijay’s leadership critics

Transformational leadership critics

 He is elitist and antidemocratic - some of his decisions such as planning an untimely
IPO, entering too risky sectors such as Paytm Mall (like Amazon) has raised
eyebrows and has given an impression that he is thinking too independently and
above his followers (Peter G. Northouse p182, 2018)
 His business has the potential to be abused - In a country of size and varied colour,
turning it into a cashless economy is a big leap, and therefore generates high
expectations, and every decision in this new territory could be
misused/misled/misunderstood, with leaving followers in a difficult situation (Peter G.
Northouse p183, 2018)

Adaptive leadership critics

Being too wide-ranging and abstract – At times the use of concepts such as ‘act
politically, anchor yourself, give back to the society’ – could infer in concepts from what
Heiftetz (researcher) intended (Peter G. Northouse p276, 2018)
Transformational leadership ethical dilemma: To comply or
not to comply with organization’s unethical practices

Burn’s theory of transformational leadership places a strong emphasis on

followers’ needs, values, and morals. (Peter. G Northouse p343,2008)

Paytm has unearthed an over 1 Billion USD fraud – nexus between Paytm’s
employees and merchants

Actions taken following a probe

- Merchants involved are de-listed
- Employees sacked

Being ethical is at the core of Vijay’s leadership and his steps sends out a
clear message that
- Supports high moral stage
- Believes in high levels of moral reasoning
- Ego strength - fell less pressure to conform those with low ego strength
What business can learn from his
leadership style

 Lead by Example
If you show your team that you are open to do every task out there and ready to get into tough
tasks by yourself, they follow. Setting an example of expectations is always good.
 Give Them a Chance
Every person doing something for the first time won’t do it in the best possible way. Best is to
work with them and give honest feedback of what you liked and what could have been done
better
 Celebrate
Always celebrate the performances of teams and their outliers. Be public. Be open and celebrate
success together
 Motivation is crucial
You can buy and gift this to your followers. It is a mindset and an attitude to keep the brains
working to remain competitive and sustainable. It is valued more than money
What we learned from this case study

Leaders are human who have been categorised through studies according to their traits,
behaviours, position, type of decisions they take, impacts on their followers – negative, positive, or
neutral.

Learned about Vijay Shakar Shekhar and his leadership style which we found to be
transformational and adaptive – and his heroic attempt to think big and bring a change that has
affected millions.

Working in group to bring something of this size does require a team spirit, research, division
and discussion of various sections, and ability to present this as one person versus individual
section presenter.

Importance of Harvard referencing that has made this presentation source rich and complete.
Conclusion

• Vijay’s leadership is charismatic and is an

inspiration to millions of Indians and also globally to
new entrepreneurs

• He believes that sincerity and commitment makes

things happen

• He believes in open culture and in each partner

(merchants and employees) that are absolute key
to his business

• He aim to touch many more lives in India where

access to financial institution is still a distant dream
What questions do you have?
 References

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Bass, B. M. (1999) ‘Two Decades of Research and Development in Transformational Leadership’, European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 8(1), pp. 9–32.

Began College at 15, Has Billion-Dollar Firm at 37. (no date) NDTV.com. Available at: https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/at-37-he-has-a-billion-dollar-firm-what-vijay-sharma-
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Cappelli, P. et al. (2010) ‘Leadership Lessons from India’, Harvard Business Review, 1 March. Available at: https://hbr.org/2010/03/leadership-lessons-from-india (Accessed: 21
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References contd..

Thank you
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References contd..

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