GenY leaders to be more intuitive

MUMBAI: If organisations and workforce are changing, can leaders be far behind. In an engaging panel discussion – comprising Visty Banaji, executive director and president (group corporate affairs), Godrej Industries, Pari Sadasivan, VP, HR, IBM India and Santrupt B Misra, director (HR), Aditya Birla Group – here’s what broad contours of tomorrow’s leader emerged.

They will be relatively more consensus-driven and will rely on more collective leadership as the power structures within the organizations become more diffused and decentralized. They will also have to be lot more intuitive with high risk-taking abilities.

So far, the leaders have been looking at the rear view mirror to plan ahead, says Santrupt Misra of AV Birla Group. But now, the road ahead itself looks very fluid and uncertain with disruptive new technologies, high expectations from all quarters (analysts, workers and customers), economic volatility and multi-cultural teams. “Going forward, we will need leaders who can work and fit in anywhere in this highly global world,” says Misra.

Big organizations with tiered structures will have to hold guard as layers of structures and often rigid processes tend to suffocate leaders constraining their ability to take initiatives. Banaji of Godrej laid greater emphasis on building future leaders through sound academic curriculum.

“There needs to be fresh educational initiatives in this respect and setting up of MBA (masters of business analysis) and MEL (masters of enterprise leadership) will help the cause,” said Banaji. Grooming leaders can only happen through empowerment across all levels, all the panelists agreed.

While growing leaders from within is the oft-used strategy for most companies but there are no hard rules here. Companies, at times, bring talent from outside, especially at a time when they are doing new things and they lack expertise within to execute.