Nurturing Corporate Leadership in Turbulent Times

Pic: (L-R) Vijayan, dean HR, WeSchool welcoming the speakers; Kane Minkus – co-founder of Industry Rockstar System, USA; Dr. John Demartini, chairman, Demartini Institute, USA; Shabbir Wahid - CEO & MD of Future Competency, Australia; Prof Natarajan Sundar, business school professor from UK The workshop on ‘Nurturing Corporate Leadership- in Turbulent Times' dwelled upon some of the leadership challenges faced by organisations today along with meaningful engagements with visionary leaders in the corporate space. Here's a report. As Peter Drucker rightly said – "Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things." The term ‘leadership' is often misused these days in the corporate world and the funny part is that leaders are not to be blamed for it. Turbulent or rather tough times call for effective leadership skills as well as leaders who can effectively manage their teams. To discuss this rather pressing issue, Welingkar Institute of Management Development & Research in association with Future Competency Seminars & Events, Melbourne – Australia organised a workshop on ‘Nurturing corporate leadership in turbulent times: A global capability enhancement perspective'. The theme of this workshop was ‘Creation of innovative thought leadership skills: Achieve sustained success across economies and cultures'. 60 delegates representing a wide cross-section of business, industry and management institutes in Mumbai attended the workshop and with their expertise and acumen shared some interesting insights on various topics pertaining to the corporate domain. While a plethora of sessions were designed to grab the audience's attention, the workshop succeeded in providing insights into how leaders could be developed and who can systematically create a business which is better at satisfying the customer, is more effective at using its human resources and is more rewarding to its shareholders. The workshop highlighted that the most differentiating and influencing factor is people strategy, work culture of an organisation and the role of innovative leadership capability. ‘Changing paradigms of global corporate leadership'; ‘Nurturing corporate leadership: Indian experience'; were a few sessions that shared valuable insights. As Dr. John Demartini, chairman, Demartini Institute, USA in his keynote said, "Being a master of persistence means embracing both support and challenge in the pursuit of your dreams." Kane Minkus and Jeff Slayter, co-founders of Industry Rockstar System USA shared the six Rockstar domains which help focus the attention on where your greatest challenges/opportunities exist in reaching your success. "Everything stems from your expertise – which overlaps with your passions," they said. Proposing an interesting model of global mindset for emerging global managers, Prof. Natarajan Sundar, business school professor in London and formerly VP - global reward, Unilever Plc, and head of reward and performance management, British Gas Group, UK noted, "What global leaders often face are not problems but paradoxes, which require finding the right balance between global approaches and policies and the local context and needs. This calls for a global mindset." Leadership today has assimilated the traditional Indian values and integrated modern technology and management skills. This has helped in the expansion of business and has resulted in high growth. It's high time we keep track of changes taking place across the globe in terms of managerial practices and accustom ourselves to an adaptive leadership style to in the years to come.   By Sheetal Srivastava,Times Ascent,July 11,2012