The inimitable brand of gentlemanly leadership
The ninth of October 2024, just over a month ago, marked the passing of one of the most iconic and beloved leaders of our time—the one and only Ratan Naval Tata.
There was no shortage of accolades that were conferred on him: the Padma Bhushan (2000), the Medal of the Oriental Republic of Uruguay (2004), the International Distinguished Achievement Award (2005), the Honorary Fellowship of The London School of Economics and Political Science (2007), the Padma Vibhushan (2008), the Award of ‘Grand Officer’ of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic (2009), the Title of Honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire, United Kingdom (2009), the Oslo Business for Peace Award (Business for Peace Foundation (2010), and the Honorary Knight Grand Cross of The Order of the British Empire (2014).
And yet he will be remembered, not as much for his formidable achievements, as for his inimitable brand of gentlemanly leadership.
A scion of the already immensely successful Tata family, one might assume that he had it easy. And nothing could be farther from the truth.
After completing his schooling at Campion School, Mumbai, he went to pursue a degree in architecture at Cornell. When he returned to join the family business in 1962, he didn’t “inherit” the corner office. Rather he started work on the shop floor, which was strenuous and difficult but gave him deep insights into the inner workings of the industry.
Nine years later, he was promoted to Director of NELCO—formerly National Radio & Electronics Company—when it was in the midst of a financial crisis. He worked hard to revive it but failed due to an economic recession further exacerbated by trade union issues.
Some years later, he was transferred to another ailing business unit, the Empress Mills. There too, he made elaborate plans to turn it around, but this time his plans were rejected by other senior management executives.
In 1991, JRD stepped down from the chairmanship of the Tata Group and decided to hand over the reins to Ratan. This move was met with vehement opposition from the management, who had doubts about his ability to lead. But Ratan had learned his lessons well, and JRD was confident he could do it.
And time proved JRD right, once again.
With Ratan Tata at the helm, the Tata Group?revenues rose from $4 billion in 1991 to $100 billion in 2012, when he retired.
No doubt, he was in the right place at the right time. India was globalizing, markets were opening up, and the Internet era had just begun. Nevertheless, the sheer audacity of his dreams was beyond imagination. His visionary leadership steered the group through innovation, divestments, and expansions. The acquisitions of Corus Steel, Jaguar Land Rover, Tetley are the stuff of legend. You can read about the group’s fascinating history here: https://www.tata.com/about-us/tata-group-our-heritage .
The key takeaway from Ratan Tata’s story is that leadership is not something you are born with, it is something you can learn, practice, and master.
More importantly, to create great leaders, you need seniors who trust them. Putting someone in charge is a leap of faith.
?The LEAP Leadership Development Program at Zuci
We started the LEAP Leadership Program journey exactly a year back and—how time seems to have flown by—completed it last week.
The program was a serious commitment shown by the senior management of Zuci Systems to groom promising talent for the next level of leadership in the company. It was a way of showing our commitment to invest in our people and in their personal growth as future leaders.??
We partnered with the Contraminds team comprising three mentors: RN Prasad, Rashmi Fernandes, and Sivaraman Swaminathan, who facilitated the program. It was a rigorous and demanding one, conducted over 13 months, and 25 out of 34 initially nominated participants completed the program, which was structured into 26 sessions, each lasting 2 hours. The program covered four core modules:
?It was a fantastic learning journey, both professionally and personally, and involved intense pre-work and post-work assignments that served as a roadmap of the participants’ leadership transformation journey. Learners committed a lot of time during the past year even in the midst of hectic work schedules to read, listen, watch, write, and submit assignments within stipulated timelines.
Each participant had to work and present a LEAP Catalyst initiative to synthesize their learning for the better and gain new leadership perspectives.?
Leadership is not something you are born with, but something you can learn. However, professional leadership transformation is a long, continuous learning and unlearning process. You will transform only if you put your learnings into practice every day. It also important to cascade these learnings to your teams and colleagues across the organization.
The LEAP Leadership Program was a great journey that helped us at Zuci identify and develop our next line of leadership. It is so vital for every organization to ensure that learnings from senior leaders is disseminated so as to enable the organization to preserve its wealth of tacit knowledge, build upon it, and continuously learn, evolve, and grow. What initiatives have you set up to build your company’s leaders? What results did you achieve?
Image credits:
By CII - Confederation of Indian Industry, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=153927667
References:
1.????????? From an article in the Times of India
Found Life’s Calling in teaching after working for corporates for 25 years. For about 15 years, taught at MKU, TSM and JSB. Blessed with an opportunity to teach again Strategic Management for MBA '25 Batch at TSM.
1 周Many new generation business leaders like you getting inspired by Ratan Tata augurs well for Indian business and future. Ratan Tata is perhaps the only leader (apart from Abdul Kalam) who is liked by everyone within and outside the corporate sector. I often wonder about the possibility of MBAs learning through Ratan Tata's case of leadership. A Real Role Model for Better India!