12 Things I Learnt From Visionary Business Leaders
Yateesh Sanjeeva Shetty (IIM Calcutta Batch of 2012, TAS Batch of 2012), Global Partnership Marketing Head, Thoughtworks, 0
The past couple of years has tested us all in ways we could not have imagined.It showed us all that each one of us has an inherent resilience that will help us get through the toughest of times. The pandemic also showcased true leadership around the world as people, organizations and leaders galvanized to overcome the challenges in their unique ways. As we slowly but surely come out of the pandemic, I could not help but notice the guiding role that the learnings, that I had picked up over the course of my career, had during those trying times. I thought it would be a good time to list some of those insights into an article. Post my MBA at IIM Calcutta, I have been fortunate to have had the opportunity to work closely with, interact with or be mentored by many business leaders through the Tata Administrative Services (TAS) program and recently at Thoughtworks.
These were visionaries delivering extraordinary impact in their field and also serving the broader communities they live in. It's been honour learning from these great leaders & organizations through my professional journey whether it's working with a leading CMO, mentorship from a leading CDO, supporting a transformational CEO, interacting with legends like Ratan Tata or working with some great business leaders driving operational and marketing excellence. But what is it that these leaders had that made them different from others? What could young professionals and aspiring leaders learn from them? While there are many character traits and insights you learn on a daily basis, below I have tried to summarize the top 10 things I learnt from these visionary business leaders.
1.The Bus-stop Question
As professionals we can find ourselves questioning our roles or impact throughout their professional career. Sometimes they don’t feel valued enough or sometimes they feel they have done enough and need a change or growth. In many of these situations, ‘the bus stop’ question are very helpful. Simply put do I like the bus? Do I like the direction the bus is heading? And finally, do I like the driver and the people on the bus? It’s simple to understand that the bus is a metaphor for your company. The golden rule of thumb is that if your answer is a ‘No’ to any one of these questions then it’s time for you to evaluate your position whether it’s time to change seats within the bus or changing the bus!
2. Actions Speak Louder than Words, Always!
We have forever learnt that actions speak louder than words but perhaps without really grasping the magnitude of the impact of actions vs. words. As leaders, our actions guide and inspire the people we work with. The below powerful picture, that has stayed with me and the rest of my TAS batch of 2012 to this date (this was his last six months as Chairman of the 100 billion Tata Group and he chose to have an interaction with the newest batch of TAS managers joining the Tata Group as potential future leaders). It would have been easy for Mr. Tata to give us his nuggets of wisdom on respect, humility and true leadership each of us would have remembered it for many years to come. But he chose to speak through actions he chose to kneel down with some of us for this group picture instead of using a chair while some of us knelt, at 74+ years of age!
3.The Best Strategies are the Simplest ones - Who, What & How?
As leaders and managers, we are often strategizing new ways to grow business, to be more profitable, to be more cost efficient, to launch new products or new markets, and so on. We can make this process very complicated. But the greatest strategies that inspire people and lead to best results are the ones that are simplest to grasp. Simply ask yourself three key questions of ‘Who’, ‘What’ and ‘How’ and build your plan around these three. ‘Who’ is for the audience/ people Who am I doing this for? Who is my target customer? ‘What’ is for the product or offering What is the product we want to sell, What is our best proposition? And finally, ‘How’ is for the approach How do we want to achieve this goal? How will we go about selling the ‘what’ to the ‘how’?
4.The One-third Rule to Managing Time as a Professional & a Leader
Time is the biggest resource available to each one of us. As often said, it is also the most equitably distributed resource of all – each one has the same number of hours per day. Then how do leaders make the best use of their time? What is their guiding principle? It was interesting to note that one of the foremost industry leaders of India had this rule of thumb to manage their time One third for self & family, one third for employees & colleagues and remaining one third for customers. This helped him make sure he was not missing out on the balance he needed in life to ensure he was performing well as leader and as a person.
5. Listen to your Customer
While this is an old adage, it was really enlightening to me that every successful professional and business leader who had achieved extra ordinary things had always stayed true to this statement. They followed it religiously. The idea was to stay close to the customer and learn the ground realities the truths that you need to know as a leader understanding your customer, understanding their pain-points and challenges, understanding your shortcomings and not getting blindsided by the ‘truths’ that you may assume or pick up through others that may not always be true.
6.Culture Eats Strategy for Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner!
Another common adage that every organization in the world of today is focusing on is to develop a culture that will help them build resilient foundations and drive success. Culture is what ensures people do the right thing for the customer, for the company and for their fellow colleagues. Building a culture is hard, even harder to keep that culture as you grow. But it’s still the most important investment that leaders can make to achieve success. Cultures that are inclusive, enabling, empathetic, agile and value sustainability are the cultures that will thrive through any pandemic, live through the biggest challenges to come back on top, stronger.
7. What are you Putting on the Table?
As leaders we often are building plans that needs the organizations resources and budgets. Often the same pool of resources and money is being vied for by multiple leaders and teams within the company. An important quality that top business leaders I worked with always did while asking for an additional budget was to put their stake in the ground meaning show your commitment to the project by declaring what will you contribute to the project. It might be some of your own department budget that you have carved out for this special project, your own time and team resources that you will dedicate to it and of course, what are the ambitious goals that you put forward with full accountability and ownership? These help you differentiate among the other projects looking for budget.
8. Leaders Instil a Sense of Purpose
Leaders and organizations that have been successful in the long-term or managed to turnaround things from dire situations almost always were able to define ambitious, inspiring goals that instilled a larger purpose into the minds of their teams that ensured everyone was behind it, together. This purpose was always more than just a three year business metric or goal. It was purposeful, it was motivating, it was impactful.
9.Part of the Problem or Part of the Solution?
It is needless to say that no one likes leaders or colleagues who are constantly moaning about the challenges and issues in their companies. But true leaders did not hide away from the issues. They would not accept lower standards. They did raise the issues they did point out the problems that made others uncomfortable. But what stood out with all of them was the fact that they always came with solutions to those problems too. They had ideas to address them, to improve things, to overcome those challenges. They were not waiting for someone else to solve the problem!
10.Being Human, Trusting People
While there are a myriad different leadership styles that can lead to success what I found with leaders I worked with, was that they never forgot the human element they were always humble, they always showed empathy for their people and their team. They never forgot the little things that mattered for their employees and colleagues. Most importantly, they always listened attentively more than they spoke. They also believed in their people trusted them with responsibility they knew people could pleasantly surprise them that each employee has something valuable to add, and their job was to inspire that person to understand their value, using it to bring their best to their work.
11.Balancing the Longterm & Shortterm
Most leaders had to work on new projects, go to unchartered territories, manage ambiguous frontiers. Often this meant those projects needed incubation time to succeed and deliver returns which could be significant time compared to short term priorities of quarterly or annual revenues and profits. However, people can be impatient and lose trust and interest soon on these projects. A key trait I noticed with true leaders was their ability to keep an eye on the long term vision and goal but demonstrate enough short term wins that kept other stakeholders interested in the project and maintained their trust in the process. They would define short terms goals that would help you guide if you are on the right track or if you need course corrections.
12.Stay Hungry Stay Foolish!
One thing that all these transformational leaders had in common, without exception, is their curiosity to learn new things. They never felt they knew everything they were always keen to learn new things, try out new approaches, new tools, and more.
There are no doubt other leadership traits and characteristics but these were some of the most important ones that I have seen from exceptional leaders so far.
While this is an old adage, it was really enlightening to me that every successful professional and business leader who had achieved extra ordinary things had always stayed true to this statement. They followed it religiously. The idea was to stay close to the customer and learn the ground realities the truths that you need to know as a leader understanding your customer, understanding their pain-points and challenges, understanding your shortcomings and not getting blindsided by the ‘truths’ that you may assume or pick up through others that may not always be true.
6.Culture Eats Strategy for Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner!
Another common adage that every organization in the world of today is focusing on is to develop a culture that will help them build resilient foundations and drive success. Culture is what ensures people do the right thing for the customer, for the company and for their fellow colleagues. Building a culture is hard, even harder to keep that culture as you grow. But it’s still the most important investment that leaders can make to achieve success. Cultures that are inclusive, enabling, empathetic, agile and value sustainability are the cultures that will thrive through any pandemic, live through the biggest challenges to come back on top, stronger.
7. What are you Putting on the Table?
As leaders we often are building plans that needs the organizations resources and budgets. Often the same pool of resources and money is being vied for by multiple leaders and teams within the company. An important quality that top business leaders I worked with always did while asking for an additional budget was to put their stake in the ground meaning show your commitment to the project by declaring what will you contribute to the project. It might be some of your own department budget that you have carved out for this special project, your own time and team resources that you will dedicate to it and of course, what are the ambitious goals that you put forward with full accountability and ownership? These help you differentiate among the other projects looking for budget.
Cultures That Are Inclusive, Enabling, Empathetic, Agile And Value Sustainability Are The Cultures That Will Thrive Through Any Pandemic, Live Through The Biggest Challenges To Come Back On Top, Stronger
8. Leaders Instil a Sense of Purpose
Leaders and organizations that have been successful in the long-term or managed to turnaround things from dire situations almost always were able to define ambitious, inspiring goals that instilled a larger purpose into the minds of their teams that ensured everyone was behind it, together. This purpose was always more than just a three year business metric or goal. It was purposeful, it was motivating, it was impactful.
9.Part of the Problem or Part of the Solution?
It is needless to say that no one likes leaders or colleagues who are constantly moaning about the challenges and issues in their companies. But true leaders did not hide away from the issues. They would not accept lower standards. They did raise the issues they did point out the problems that made others uncomfortable. But what stood out with all of them was the fact that they always came with solutions to those problems too. They had ideas to address them, to improve things, to overcome those challenges. They were not waiting for someone else to solve the problem!
10.Being Human, Trusting People
While there are a myriad different leadership styles that can lead to success what I found with leaders I worked with, was that they never forgot the human element they were always humble, they always showed empathy for their people and their team. They never forgot the little things that mattered for their employees and colleagues. Most importantly, they always listened attentively more than they spoke. They also believed in their people trusted them with responsibility they knew people could pleasantly surprise them that each employee has something valuable to add, and their job was to inspire that person to understand their value, using it to bring their best to their work.
11.Balancing the Longterm & Shortterm
Most leaders had to work on new projects, go to unchartered territories, manage ambiguous frontiers. Often this meant those projects needed incubation time to succeed and deliver returns which could be significant time compared to short term priorities of quarterly or annual revenues and profits. However, people can be impatient and lose trust and interest soon on these projects. A key trait I noticed with true leaders was their ability to keep an eye on the long term vision and goal but demonstrate enough short term wins that kept other stakeholders interested in the project and maintained their trust in the process. They would define short terms goals that would help you guide if you are on the right track or if you need course corrections.
12.Stay Hungry Stay Foolish!
One thing that all these transformational leaders had in common, without exception, is their curiosity to learn new things. They never felt they knew everything they were always keen to learn new things, try out new approaches, new tools, and more.
There are no doubt other leadership traits and characteristics but these were some of the most important ones that I have seen from exceptional leaders so far.