Leading in Political Governance

This is an excerpt of my talk at the Leadership Summit at SriSIIM, New Delhi on 18th Feb, 2017.

There are 3 key terms used in this title - politics, governance and leadership. I shall share my perspective about each of them, without getting 'political' in the process. Whenever we refer to politics, we have a picture of 'party' politics in mind. This is a narrow perspective. Politics in my view, is about manipulating things, manipulating opinions and resources to achieve 'desired goals'. I also believe that all human interactions are about politics, politics of getting to desired end points. For example, how does a young child behave at home, when he is going to demand something from parents. Often he behaves in a manner that will please the parents and then he places his demand. Similarly, if you view human interactions in any field it is driven primarily by politics. All human interactions are therefore reflections of 'politics in action' - at an individual level. This could be enacted at various social levels also. I shall therefore consider this perspective of politics and stay away from party politics.

Next term to understand is Governance. It is primarily about a framework for any organisational unit - family, organisational, societal, government et al. The primary purpose of this framework is to facilitate functioning through guidance and empowering its different role holders. Some of the other key elements of governance framework are - create transparency and trust, shift focus from output to outcome, build equity in its delivery system and foster inclusiveness. Depending upon what elements are actioned and how much, governance could be qualified as good or not so good.

Leadership could be spoken about/ viewed as attributes or as a process. I see it more as a process because then it enables us to observe behaviour of an individual playing this role. Some of the key behavioural elements that I consider important are - putting organisational interest before self interest. This is a very critical element and influences governance framework also. Leadership is also about promoting an organisational culture where 'values' are considered a 'rent' and deviations are neither encouraged nor ignored. This makes organisation ethical both in its process and outcome.

Leadership is also about enabling focus on important issues. One of the way to identify and focus on important issue is by defining outcome as against output. Output is a metric for operating managers not leaders. Now how do we differentiate between output and outcome? Output is primarily about qualitative and quantitative end point in the business value chain. Outcome on the other hand is about impact the organisation makes through its processes and output. Another important task for leadership is to create clarity about organisational goals. This shared understanding achieves two critical things - collaboration and also shared responsibility.

Leadership and governance have a symbiotic relationship. Good leadership energises governance and role holders within the organisational unit. On the other hand good governance makes leadership sustainable. Although symbiotic, it is a fragile relationship. Cases in example are Tata Sons, Infosys with their current avoidable negative press. Similarly, Volkswagen is another case in point with their incorrect representation of emission reports. All these were reputed firms with long history of good governance. Leadership is therefore a key element in sustainability of any organisation - family or commercial.

Shall welcome your thoughts, comments and perspectives.