India Inc wants participative, adaptable, global leaders, says experts

A good leadership style is to be inclusive and caring in a diverse culture with people from various backgrounds

The success or failure of any organisation depends largely on its leaders. Their style of handling complex business situations, people and managing the whole show can make the critical difference between losing and winning in the marketplace. With the social complexities and cultural diversity of India, a combination of leadership styles is essential to manage talent. However, which leadership style is most effective in the Indian context, remains a question for debate.
In a poll conducted by TimesJobs.com on leadership styles, 69% of employees feel that participative or democratic style of leadership works best in the Indian scenario. Whereas, 21% are of the opinion that an engaging style does the trick. Another 10% of voters believe that an autocratic style is the most suitable leadership style.
According to Kamal Karanth, MD, Kelly Services, the most effective leadership style in India is “the leader’s ability to adapt to various styles as per need” mostly guided by the situational leadership model. “The ability to lead change is a critical strength for an Indian leader. Another component of good leadership style in India is being inclusive and caring, in a diverse cultural country like ours where people from various financial, religious, socio – economic and demographic backgrounds come and work together leader should be able to handle the diverse functioning styles of the employees,” he added.
Sharing a similar perspective, Ashish Arora, Founder & MD, HR Anexi, said, “Indian leaders should have an adaptable, improvisational style of leadership. Given the country’s obvious challenges in infrastructure, regulations and labour relations, Indian CEOs have grown to rely on their judgment to circumvent recurrent hurdles and still deliver growth. Ironically, this has made their businesses even more nimble and stable in comparison to their western counterparts.”
Ichiro Iino, Managing Director, Hitachi India, supports a participative leadership style, where leaders inculcate team spirit and culture. “In this manner, employees feel more engaged and decisions can be implemented easily. With emotionally hooked team members, retention of talent is likely to be high”, he added.
Adding a different perspective to the debate, Prithvi Shergill, Chief Human Resources Officer, HCL Technologies Ltd commented, “In a global world today, countries and companies need to co-exist and are impacted by each other given the interdependence on global economic conditions.  The need of the hour is ‘global leaders’ rather than ‘geography specific leaders’ who can leverage these global macroeconomic dynamics. A Global Leader is one whose key competencies lie in the areas of – Vision, Risk Taking, Influence and Creativity.”