Business Leadership

Session 1
Agenda
• Course Outline
• Structure of Course
• Evaluation components
• Importance/ Objectives of Course
• Who is a leader?/ Definition
– Some Leadership theories
• Understanding Leadership
• Why studying Leadership matters
• Jai Kumar case
• Next session preparation
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Structure of course
• Focus is on competency building through experiential
learning and practice
• Case studies
• Harvard simulation- Everest
• Discussion based on Full length feature Film
• Student presentation- Contemporary Leadership
Practices and Succession Planning in Organizations
• Coaching Practice session
• Discussions/ Slides
• No text book prescribed

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Evaluation
• End term- 40% weightage (No Mid- term)
– Based on case
– Open book no internet
– Duration: 180 minutes
• Group Presentation- Contemporary leadership practices and
succession planning in companies (Hardcopy to be submitted
before Session 7)- 20%
• Group Simulation- 15% weightage
• CP (Individual) - 10% (includes 5% for vision exercise)
• Quiz (Individual)- 10%
• Journal to be submitted within 48 hours of end term
examination (Individual)- 5%
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Schedule
• Jan 11 to 13- Sessions 1 to 3- Foundation- bulk
of the reading
• Feb 1 to 3- Sessions 4 to 8
• Feb 18 to 21- Sessions 9 to 14

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Some Requirements
• Mobile phones- please follow the institute rules
• Attendance and punctuality- please follow the
institute rules
• Keep laptops closed unless it is absolutely
necessary
• Important to come prepared for classes-
readings, cases…
• Plenty of scope for discussion and constructive
participation

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Requirements…
• Please be seated in groups as per the seating
plan circulated by the Academic Assistant
• CR
• My contact details:
– Mail: [email protected]
– Landline: +91 80 22684121
– Mobile: +91 9916185500

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Importance of the course
• Leading people is what all of us want to?

• As leaders, it is our duty to lead people to create

prosperity and progress.

• Companies hire you for your leadership skills.

– If you do not demonstrate it, they have little time to groom

you.

• You will lose the competitive advantage if you do not

exhibit exceptional leadership skills.
Objective of the course
Develop the competencies for leadership roles of
1. Setting direction,
2. Creating Alignment, and
3. Creating Engagement
Some Questions
• Is this course relevant?
• What is leadership?
• Are leadership skills required at all levels?
• Are leadership skills required for all roles?
• How many of you think you are not good
leaders?

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Some Definitions of leadership
John Maxwell:
• The only definition of a leader is some one who has
followers
• Leadership is influence, nothing more nothing less
Warren Bennis
• Leadership is a function of knowing yourself,
having a vision that is well communicated, building
trust among employees and taking effective action
to realize your own leadership potential

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Another simple definition
• Art of motivating a group of people to act
towards a common goal
• The leader inspires his team and channelizes
their action in a certain pre-defined direction
• Those who improve the company’s top-line
and bottom-line are seen as effective leaders

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Were/ are they leaders?

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Were they leaders?

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Leaders?

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Leaders?

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Leaders

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Leaders?

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Thought leader is defined as someone who had ideas “that
merited attention.”

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Peter Drucker
Leadership is about
• Contribution to mission of organization
• Focus on key tasks
• Commitment to professional standards of
performance

Called it executive effectiveness

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What is the difference between a
manager and a leader?

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Leader v/s Manager
• Innovates • Administers
• An original • A copy
• Develops • Maintains
• Focuses on people • Focuses on systems and
• Inspires trust structures
• Long range perspective • Relies on control
• Asks what and why • Short- range view
• Eye on horizon • Asks how and when
• Originates • Eye on bottom line
• Challenges the status quo • Imitates
• Own person • Accepts the status quo
• Does the right thing • Classic good soldiers
• Does things right
Which of the two is more important?
Can a bad manager be a good leader?

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Leader vs. Manager
Alan Lind observed:
• Both are necessary
• If you have just management it is boring
• If you have just leadership, it is exciting but scary
• If you have both together, people feel excited and
safe at the same time
Said Lester Levy, "In each individual you need to
have a mind of a manager and a soul of a leader”

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Pre- requisites to leadership
• Self awareness
• Honesty/ Integrity
• Values system
• Passion
• Commitment
• Interest
• Not having a perverse agenda

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Revisit some Leadership Theories
• Trait theory- Visible characteristics- started
with Hippocrates- emphasis on personality.
• Emergent Leadership and Servant Leadership-
Like Gandhi, Mandela: Emerge for a reason,
serve the followers through leadership
• Leadership style- Task and People orientation-
Taylor to Elton Mayo
– Authoritarian, democratic and laissez faire,
– Blake and Mouton managerial grid

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Country Club Leadership – Team Leadership – High
High People/Low Production Production/High People (9,9)
High

(1,9)
Concern for people

Middle-of-the-Road Leadership
– Medium Production/Medium
I People (5,5)

impoverished Leadership –
Low Production/Low People
(1,1) Produce or Perish Leadership
– High Production/Low People
Low

(9,1)

Low Concern for Task/Production High

Bass Model
• Directive Style or Telling. Tell the subordinates what to do, what is
expected of them, lay down standards and ensure that they deliver

• Negotiating or Selling . Here you negotiate with the subordinates, give

them incentives, create alliances, release information that suits your
interests, maintain distance, encourages subordinates to compete and in
general sells the decision to them.

• Consultative . Telling after discussing.

• Participative. Here you discuss and analyze the problems with them and
reach a consensus. The decision/ responsibility is collective.

• Delegating. You describe the problem or need and the conditions that
have to be met and you make suggestions but you leave it to them to
decide what to do and how to do.
Action Centered Leadership (ACL)

Team
Task
Effective leaders
address needs at
three levels i.e.
task, team and
individual.
Greater the
congruence
among these,
Individual greater will be
the effectiveness
Shortcomings of style theories
• Situation or contingencies ignored.

• Does not account for the behavior of the middle level

leaders (those who communicate to the lower level
the vision created by the top echelons).

• Does not address the issue of values.

• Informal relation and its impact ignored.

• Despite the shortcomings, Style theory is an excellent

framework to understand leadership.
Contingency/ Situation factor
• The criticism of style theory gave rise to addition of a third
factor which is the context or the situation.
• Emphasize the need to change leadership styles to adapt to a
particular situation.
• Situation includes factors like employee morale, complexity of
task and level of management support, external threats, etc.
• Some well known contingency theories are:
– Fielder’s contingency model
– Reddin’s 3D Theory of managerial effectiveness- identified 4 styles-
Bureaucrat, Developer, Executive and Benevolent Autocrat
• Even these theories have their shortcomings:
– There are limitless contingencies which does not help the leader to
decide what to do and when
– It also does not explain how the style can be varied
• The alternative was the Full Range Model
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Full range model

Laissez faire Transactional Transformational

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Laissez faire
• Can hardly be called management
• Leaders and followers have complete freedom to take
decisions
• Tendency of not taking responsibility
• Excessive delegation
• Hands off approach
• Non interference
• Not considered effective, can work in exceptional cases
where team is highly skilled, outside experts are used, etc.
• Generally leads to insecurity among team and could lead to
chaos
• Calvin Coolidge, Louis XVI, Emperor Nero are examples

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Transactional Leadership
• Focus is on getting the task completed
• Management by exception- manage deviations from
norms
• Contingent rewards- set goals and reward for achieving
these
• Style is close to the definition of “Manager”
• Can also be termed as managing day- to- day operations

Tend to be directive, not consultative/ participative; more

closed approach. Get compliance but not commitment
from subordinates

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Transformational Leadership
• Goes beyond transactional leadership and ensure well being of group
• A transformational leader goes beyond managing day-to-day
operations and crafts strategies for taking his company, department or
work team to the next level of performance and success.
• Transformational leadership styles focus on team-building, motivation
and collaboration with employees at different levels of an
organization to accomplish change for the better.
• Transformational leaders set goals and incentives to push their
subordinates to higher performance levels, while providing
opportunities for personal and professional growth for each
employee.
How many of the competencies of Engagement are seen in this?

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Approach of Transformational Leaders
• Idealized influence- building confidence and trust and
being a role model- Lee Iacocca of Ford/ Chrysler, Anna
Hazare are examples
• Inspirational motivation- based on idealized influence
extends to entire organization to follow a new idea-
public display of optimism and enthusiasm- Gandhi,
King are examples
• Intellectual stimulation-question assumptions,
encourage team to be creative, new approaches to
problem solving
• Individualized consideration- Catering to individual
needs, customization

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Some characteristics of
Transformational Leaders
• Sense of purpose
• Value driven
• Role model
• High expectations
• Persistent
• Self knowing
• Desire to learn
• Emotional maturity
• Courageous- Risk taking/ risk sharing
• Visionary
• Listens to view points and develops a spirit of cooperation
• Sense of public need

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Characteristics…
• Love work- also leads to commitment
• Identify as change agents
• Enthusiasm
• Ability to attract and inspire
• Strategic approach
• Effective communication
• Ability to deal with complexity, uncertainty and
ambiguity
• Mentoring
• Willing to look at individual employee needs
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Critique of full range leadership model
• Applicable across hierarchies
• Applicable across cultures though specifics may vary
• Concept has rejuvenated research
• Contingent reward is relevant in this model also
• Talks about communicating vision but does not speak
much about vision itself
• No reference to mission and strategy
• Does not articulate the role of values
• Emphasis on individual rather than organization as a
whole
• Transformational leadership cannot exist without
transactional leadership
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Characteristics
Examples
• Transformational Leadership
– Idealized influence (attributed and behavioral) I talk about my most important
beliefs and values.
– Inspirational Motivation- I talk optimistically about the future.
– Intellectual Stimulation- I seek differing perspectives when solving problems.
– Individualized Consideration- I spend time teaching and coaching.
• Transactional Leadership
– Contingent Reward
• I discuss in specific terms who is responsible for what
– achieving team goals
• Passive Management-by-Exception I wait for things to go wrong before taking action.
• Laissez-Faire Leadership
– I am absent when needed.

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Understanding Leadership

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Some concepts
• The person who successfully marshals his/ her human
collaborators to achieve a particular end is a leader
• A great leader is one who can do this day after day…in a
wide variety of circumstances
• He may not:
– Display or possess power
– Be popular
– Be charismatic
• Unique achievement stems from understanding of fellow
workers and and the relationship of their individual goals
that she must channelize towards the group goal

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Concepts- authoritarian leadership
• Crude and outdated leadership style relies on
monetary rewards and emphasis on the “carrot
and stick”
• Human beings are not bots, they have complex
responses to love, prestige, independence,
achievement and group membership
• Ironic that what comes to our mind when think
leadership is that of a military leader-
importance of chain of command and need to
treat them equally as the soldiers could face
death any moment

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Concepts- importance of perception
• Some of the difficulties in relationships arise
from misinterpreting reality
– The frame of reference is important, as is an
understanding of the context
– Example: Playing a scenario where there is an ugly
spat between employee and supervisor. The same
version with two prefixes:
• one in which he has a bitter fight with his wife before
leaving for work, and
• another in which he has a warm relationship with his
family before he leaves for work
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How close should a leader be with his
team?
• Get too close emotionally, or
• Maintain a psychological distance
Which one would help to accept his authority
without resentment from the team member?

• How much freedom should the team be given?

– Is it a good idea to set the ground rules?

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Decision making- how democratic
should the leader be?

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Team
Boss
member

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Why studying Leadership matters-
Some concepts from the article

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Broad ways of studying Leadership
1. Attempt to lead
2. Observe leadership in action
3. Talk about leadership- this perhaps is the
easiest of the lot
4. Read about leadership
5. Write about leadership- a lot has already
been written, just Google and see the number
of articles- over 200 million
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Studying leadership
• Further, leadership development is a multi-billion
dollar industry- nearly 50 billion in the US alone
• Study of leadership is inter-disciplinary in nature
dominated by sociology followed by psychology. Ethics
and morals also play a significant part
• Neither scholars nor practitioners have been able to
define leadership with precision. There are many
simple to complex definitions with Tom Peters in his
book passion for excellence said it means: vision,
cheerleading, enthusiasm, trust, love, verve, passion,
obsession, consistency, coaching and more….

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Keith Grint on leadership
Leadership can be understood in four ways:
1. Person- Is it about “who” make leaders?
2. Results- Is it “what” that one achieves that makes
them leaders?
3. Position: Where do people operate from?
4. Process: Is it about how leaders get things done?

The fact that we look at leadership from so many

different perspectives is perhaps why we have
difficulty in understanding and explaining leadership
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Case Study- Jaikumar
1. Is Jaikumar a leader?
2. What leadership qualities did Jaikumar
exhibit?
3. Can the shepherd woman be considered a
leader?
4. Why do you think the shepherd woman act
the way she did?
5. What are the learnings for Jaikumar from this
incident?
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Questions?

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