The Sunday Tribune - Spectrum

DOWN the ages, man has spanned the range of leadership from brawn to brain. Gone are the days when the strongest man led the team or the fiercest warrior became the king. Today’s kings are men and women who can look into the future with as much ease as we can see the past. We are witnessing a scale of change that has transformed most known structures and institutions beyond recognition. The world, as we knew it 10 years ago, no longer exists. And the world of tomorrow will bear little resemblance to that of today. Perhaps nowhere is this change as pronounced or as swift as in the way organisations are managed. This atmosphere of turmoil and uncertainty has thrown up the need for people who, as Tom Peters put it, ‘’thrive on chaos’’. These men and women , who can successfully face the challenges of today will be the leaders of tomorrow.

Leadership and change are closely linked. An awareness of the changing atmosphere at the workplace calls for leaders who can understand and deal with the changing paradigms of corporate culture. No longer is it enough for a manager to limit his job to doing things on time, within budget and the way they were done yesterday, only five per cent better. Leaders are today treading on completely unfamiliar territory where yesterday’s rules no longer apply. Uncertainty is now an inescapable fact and things no longer happen in a predictable manner. Innovation is the new mantra for the leaders of today. They make new rules almost as fast as the old one’s become redundant. Under these circumstances, it is imperative for a leader to have a clear vision of where his organisation is headed. In the absence of such vision it is all too easy for organisation, both old and new, to flounder and fail.

At the organisational level, this change can be seen at both the macro as well as the micro levels. Not only is the very definition of what an organisation is and what it stands for, changing but within an organisation long held and time -tested management practices are also being discarded in favour of new models.

In the past, the relationship between the manager and his team was an unambiguous superior-subordinate one. It was assumed that the leader was more experienced and technically superior than the rest. This is no longer the case. The speed at which new technologies emerge makes it impossible to find people who know the territory better than the others. Where can you find someone with, say, 20 years of experience in Internet technologies? As a result of the transformation of the rigidly structured superior-subordinate relationship to a more loosely structured informal one, the role of the manager, too, has changed. The manager is no longer someone who gives orders, supervises procedures and evaluates results. His role is now that of a facilitator and catalyst who provides an environment where others can excel at their work.

Generating consensus among the led is crucial to a leader’s success. Decision-making is no longer the sole prerogative of the man at the top. Workers at all levels have to be involved in the decision-making process. A leader can no longer push his way around.

The controlling function of leadership, too, has changed. Employees today have a degree of control and freedom in their professional lives that they rarely enjoyed earlier. Traditional methods of man management that were based on constant supervision and reporting are giving way to ones favouring lesser controls. Managers are recognising the futility of using the carrot and stick approach to produce results. The emphasis is now on providing an atmosphere where people can perform at an optimum level. External motivation is no longer necessary and work is more or less a voluntary function.

The trend towards employee empowerment is changing the power equation within an organisation. This generally manifests itself in two ways — knowledge-sharing and wealth-sharing. Employees now have greater access to information than they ever did before. No longer are strategic decisions and organisational mission, purpose and philosophy, issues limited to senior management levels. These have to be communicated to people at all levels and it is up to the leader to do so. By emphasising organisational values and beliefs he can ensure a high level of commitment, loyalty and involvement in his team.

Information technology is the key to information-sharing and is imperative to the success of today’s knowledge-based organisation. Information is now available to any worker who knows how to boot a computer. A related issue here is that of ethics. An easy access to information has made the actions and decisions of the leader open to scrutiny. As such the personal and professional integrity of the leader has to be indisputable.

Unthinkable a few years earlier, the concept of making employees equal partners in wealth, is fast becoming the norm in organisations across the board. Wealth sharing often takes the form of ESOPs (employee stock option plans). The process of empowering employees calls for greater transparency in the functioning of organisations. All processes, decisions and results have to be open to discussion and debate. A leader is now more accountable to the people he leads.

No longer does technology present the crucial differentiating factor between the market leaders and the also-rans. The success of today’s organisation depends not so much on technology (which has to be state of art for the organisation to even stand a fighting chance) but on the people who use it. An organisation is only as good as the people it hires. Men, the ignored third ‘M’ of management coming after money and materials, has finally become the focus of organisations and man management the real test of leadership.

Another issue before today’s leaders is that of visibility. This is where the management philosophy of MBWA (management by wandering around) becomes especially relevant. A leader has to be accessible to the people he leads. He cannot afford to run his organisation from behind the closed doors of his office. he has to be on the shopfloor, working with the rest of his team and leading from the front.

Above all, leaders of today are men of vision. These are men who dare to dream and then put their dreams to practice. Bill Gates had the vision of a PC on every table and hence we have Microsoft. Closer home, Azim Premji and Narayanamurthy saw the potential for a Silicon Valley in India and this gave us Wipro and Infosys.

Leadership has always been a complex issue. The role of a leader today is more difficult than ever before. Those who can successfully face these challenges today will shape the world of tomorrow.