Huge Leadership Vacuum in Indian Industries

Bangalore: A good lead can always help you to build up a successful enterprise. In a country like India, though rich with human resources, people who have excelled playing the lead roles in various industries are considerably less in number. The companies that have showed consistent growth are also less when compared to other developing or developed countries.

This is where the question of effective leadership arises. In an interview with Hindustan Times Vinita Bali, in charge of Britannia, told that there is huge vacuum of leadership in India. And she laid down a number of tips related to the topic.

Leadership should be initiated from within                                                                                                                                                                                            Bali says that leadership qualities can be nurtured through one’s own initiative, one’s experience and the through the context of those experience. It may not be embedded in a person. It is all about chasing excellence that would eventually lead to success.

According to her, leadership is partly contextual and partly an innate desire to do something different and meaningful. It is about daring to take responsibility to change something for the better. All leaders, who have been the causes of enormous successes, have displayed great courage and responsibility.

Bali adds that leadership is an ideology, a product and a cause for the country or the environment.

Leadership should be consistent
India has witnessed great many leaders who have showcased excellent leading skills in different and difficult circumstances. But leadership is not like being opportunistic.

Bali observes that there should be consistency in maintaining leadership skills. It should be continuous process where one should be able to sustain his/her performance. It well reflects in some emerging industries in India such as software industry, biotechnology, even in Bollywood.

Skills should be redefined
As of now, in India, there is a huge leadership vacuum, Bali says. We are struggling to have an effective democracy in our country. We need to learn how to prioritize the needs.

In a country like ours, we will have to face multiple agendas to cater to while being a leader. The needs, here, are more complex and at times ambiguous too. Thus the skills one should possess for being a successful leader should be redefined.

Opportunity calls you
From her own experience Bali says that opportunities call you and you are supposed to go after them, if you find them good enough that they would make a difference.

In the 80s, she says, it was unusual for an Indian to go abroad, that too to Nigeria, and work in marketing. The challenge was to walk into an unfamiliar area and do justice to it. 

In unfamiliar situations your learning ability increases. You tend to adapt and establish credibility easily.

Leadership should be inspirational
For Bali, leadership is genderless but it should inpirational. Nelson Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyi, Steve Jobs and Richard Branson have stood exceptional through their ability to be different and confident.

Leadership is multi-dimensional and it is something that calls for ownership and accountability.