[MUSIC] In this video, we have an opportunity to learn from an expert from the world of practice. Dr. Chandrasekhar is presently the president and global head of human resources, head of release, a highly respected global pharmaceutical company headquartered in Indian. Dr. Chandra has held leadership positions at senior levels in leading organizations for over three decades. He is not only being an outstanding leader, but also someone who has worked closely with and coached a very large number of other leaders at different levels. Dr. Chandra, at middle levels, you don't have an abundance of authority or resources to unilaterally hire people, fire people, enforce punishments, reassign teams. And yet you are expected to bring about changes. You are expected to exercise leadership. How do you do that? >> Thank you, Professor, you ask a very important question. I can quite relate with, I grew with those struggles, through the mid levels. But in introspect I can tell you, leadership is not about hiring and firing. It's not about resource utilization. It's about who you are. It's about the individual that you are. Leadership is not a position, a title, a designation, or a authority. It's about how you exude the confidence, the clarity of purpose and energy, and how you carry your people together. So a lot about leadership is about you, the individual. And we should talk more about that. >> Well, if leadership is not role, status, or position, what would be top five competencies that an individual must acquire to be an effective leader? >> So let me clarify first, why we say leadership is not a role or a position and how just a role and a position is not enough to display and demonstrate leadership. Because there a lot of people who have the formal authority. They are called Vice President, or they are called Senior Manager, or the Project Manager. But when it comes to influencing people, taking them along, setting directions. They seem to not be able to do it. But there are people who are just ordinary. They don't have titles. They are within your team, but they do something with themselves as individuals. Their individuality so shines that people actually follow them. And it is from this experience that me share with you what I have seen often. Are the five, if you want to make a list of five, five top things that I see in leaders commonly irrespective what role they have, what designation they have. The first one is expertise. In any organizational setting, you cannot be a leader unless you are a deep expert, at least in one area which you represent, whether it is IT systems, software, or it is medicine or research or aeronautics, whatever. Wherever you are working, there is a subject you represent. The people around you, your manager, your colleagues, the teams that you lead, the people who report to you, must see in you an additional capability, an ability to add value in the area of expertise. So like they say, the T shaped professional. Someone who has both depth and width, depth, the other side of the T, is the most important. Expertise would be my first recommendation. Many people think just by networking, through charisma, just by carrying yourself, just talking well you can be a leader. No. People will see that through. You can be a leader only if you are good at one particular expertise. The second big thing that leaders have to rely on, it's a journey, but the first step to leadership is your ability to see the big picture. And it comes by connecting the dots, so let me give you an example. If you are a project manager, you have many stakeholders. Your manager tells you to optimize the resources. Your team members tell you to give them work-life balance. Your client tells you to produce quality work on time. Your management tells you that through delivery, you should get new projects. So you're actually doing business development. Now, many project managers do not connect these dots, either they are focused on one side of the work. And they're either optimizing cost to the point that the client finds resources have been optimized. So if you connect the dots then you see the big picture. And then, the third ability I would recommend is the ability to diagnose the situation. In every situation you are presented, there is something happening that needs to be there. We need improved change transformed. Which is why you are a leader. You need to accurately diagnosis it and then create a set of directions, with clarity, so that others can follow you. After that, it's your ability to communicate with courage, clarity and conviction, frequently and warmly that clarifies to people what needs to be done. You cannot be netizen as a leader. And finally, you need to learn yourself. You cannot be complacent. You have to be adaptive, move at times, move with people, learn from our colleagues and in fact have the humility to admit your mistakes and be vulnerable. As you do these things, through your expertise, through your ability to see the big picture, through your ability to set directions by a right diagnosis to communication, and the ability to show agility and learning and adaptation, that you become a good leader. >> That's an interesting list. Do you see this list becoming different in the emerging digital world? >> Somewhat, yes. Many of these will continue. But the last point that I said about adapting, that'll have to be played more because literally, you are standing on moving sands. Everything that you assume about how work will be structured. So you're taught there is physical place called work. There are regular employees, permanent employees. And there is a certain structure to work. All that is changing. In the more connected world, we may not have work places. People will avoid traffic and won't travel and will work from home. They'll be much more connection, not just between people the Internet of Things predicts that there'll be connection between equipment. The need for a manager will intermediating itself will come down, people to be more self-reliant, freelancers, self-agents. In that way, your ability to influence needs to be honed again a little differently. The first thing to be done is you have to be digitally savvy yourself. You have to be, as they call it, a digital native. Particularly if you are from a different generation and you are not shown digitally to learn. Then, you will be foxed by the speed of Twitter, as they say. So you need to adapt. But once you've adapted, and you are able to handle the distributed work place, then you can perhaps bring the same five qualities that I talked about even into the world. But adaptation will be critical. >> Dr. Chandrasekhar, you have seen a large number of leaders at different levels. Can you talk about an exceptional leader whom you've come across? >> Yeah. So let me, obviously, there are long number of people, but let me said something I saw recently. So there is, obviously, I won't take names, but there is this research center which was the heart of company, and this did advance research in producing the next generation medicines. Now, there was distinguish scientist who was leading it, but as it happens sometimes the best scientist may not be the best leader or the best manager. So we introduced a person, who was relatively far junior. Who did not come from the world of medicine. Who did not have a pure science background. And much younger image, very qualified, not a big title so if the head scientist was, lets say, an executive vice president, this man was just a director, several levels removed. And then, we got him into the picture. And in six months time, people almost thought that this young man is the leader of that place. What did he do differently? He didn't have the title. His role was not the formal role of a leader. He didn't have the authority of the formal leader, it continued with the Executive VP. But what he did differently is, first of all he brought in expertise in the area of analytics. So he could quickly analyze and bring insights into things that took a long time for people who just acted out of gut feel. Because he analyzed Using the new tools of big data, and data science. Then, he moved around, across layers, without any hierarchical sense. And he connected the dots between various stakeholders, he formed a big picture of what is wrong with that place. He could identify far more precisely that two, three things were going wrong there. The teams were excellent in themselves, but they were silos, and the current system was plumbed not well enough for people to know what's happening in different pockets. So with this diagnosis he actually communicated the problem far effectively in both personal settings and group settings. People saw the problem. He didn't stop there. He used his expertise to create an IT based platform that brought a lot more transparency to data. So people started seeing more accurate data around which project was lying there, which test is failing, which scientist is not working or where the leave patterns are different. Things which they could not see in the more heuristic way. Now, data presented, this person became someone on whom everybody started relying. And then, he showed a lot of learning, lot of adaptation, he picked up the science of pharma. In six to eight months time he started talking about the stages of drug development much like a scientist would do and today he's virtually the number two. A lot of senior people normally listen to him. So honestly the formulation that I had about the five qualities of a leader is not from a textbook, it's about what I saw a youngster practicing. That's an opportunity everyone has. You don't have to have the title. >> Well, from this example, one will almost conclude that leaders are born. Is leadership really learnable? >> Of course. Even from this example I don't know why would you conclude that he was born. But yes, I agree with you that that is the popular misconception that leaders are born. But both through my personal experience and what I have learned and read and seen, leadership is very much a learnable task. The thing that you need to do to start with, is that you must have the ambition to be a leader. That is difficult. If that's not there, the rest will not follow. So if you don't want to step up, no one can push you but if you want to step up as a leader then all the qualities the ability to connect dots, the ability to deepen your domain knowledge, the ability to communicate effectively, each one of them is a learnable skill. Yes, of course, you need to observe, you need to practice, you need to correct and you need to be at it. It's not going to happen tomorrow morning, but they're all learnable. You're not born with it. >> For a young professional, how do you accelerate this learning about leadership? >> I must admit this is a challenging problem. I may not have all the answers. But I do see some people doing it faster than others, and from that, whatever I have learned I'll share with you. Usually, people take a very organic, almost like the old seasoning approach to leadership thinking. Okay, I have a lifetime, maybe I can't be a leader until 50. So let me take my time. The world is not going to wait anymore. So the challenge of facilitating leadership learning is true and real. Some of the ways to address this is to throw yourself out of your comfort zone more frequently. Challenges of tasks be in settings that you are not used to. So suppose you want to learn leading in global seconds, in a cross cultural way. Find a way, lobby your to go overseas and work with a team of people. There is no way you can learn cross culture leadership through a textbook. So first thing I would recommend, that helps accelerate leadership, is to throw yourself out of your comfort zone and take stretch assignments. Second thing is, much more clean keen observation. Constantly look out for role models who are bringing in those qualities. The traditional model of following one model of leadership, or just looking at one thing and saying, can I be like this is to narrow and too. Today, we have the benefit of hindsight. So take the role models, learn different things from different people, and quickly assimilate them. In this process, you actually speed and hasten your learning. And the final thing I want to say is that deep self-awareness Your ability to be a leader is not dependent on what is happening outside you. It's inside you. You, the individual, need to constantly be aware, mindful of both your opportunities, and your. What's wrong with you is as important to know then what's right with you. Seek feedback. Be aware. Be a constant board of auto-correct. If you do this you can accelerate leadership learning. >> Well Chandra, thank you for sharing your insights with us. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> My pleasure. [MUSIC]
