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YOU CAN’T SEPARATE THE PERCEPTION OF A CEO FROM THE PERCEPTION OF THE COMPANY HE OR SHE HEADS
Leadership has al-ways been hard and these days it’s getting harder. There was a time
when you could be a great leader as a value creator, stay-ing ahead by bridging perfor-mance gaps. Today, a leader has to be a game changer, one who has the ability to see and bridge opportunity gaps. If you focus only on performance, someone else will come along and change the game.
You can’t separate the percep-tion of a CEO from the percep-tion of the company he or she heads. The CEO is his company. To be a contender for a ranking of the most influen-tial leaders, a CEO would have built a successful and sustainable busi-ness for all to see. The CEOs on the list would generally be people of integrity, people we look up to as role models. To be at the very top of the list, how-ever, they would have somehow changed our lives in some way.
I have had the opportunity to interact with many people in India on my visits here and I find they have a high regard for those CEOs who are world beaters. Both in India and in China, people admire compa-nies that are innovative, bold, world class. This is not just about being global in terms of markets, but also in terms of ideas and talent. In that sense, the most influential
leaders across the world are not necessarily the CEOs of the largest companies, but of pace-setting, game-changing companies. The new genera-tion sees things differently from the older generation. They expect CEOs to have a so-cial conscience. They expect business leaders to do things that impact their community, almost in a corporate social responsibility kind of way.
Harvard Business Reviewhas recently published its list of the best performing CEOs in the world and the top rank
there has gone to Lars Rebien Sørensen, the CEO of
Novo Nordisk. Along with financial perfor-mance, the ranking takes into account the company’s (and thereby the CEO’s) environmental, so-cial, and governance performance and
Novo Nordisk is known for its deep engagement with so-cial and environmental issues.
We sometimes need to go deep to find the men and women who have had the biggest im-pact on our lives. They’re not always obvious. Charismatic CEOs tend to grab media atten-tion, but there are many who have elected not to be very pub-lic and they are not known. I was very glad to see Wiredmagazine recently put John Lasseter, the chief creative of-ficer of Pixar on its cover. He’s someone the general public would not recognize, but he’s responsible for much of the company’s success.
Everybody’s heard of Mukesh Dhirubhai Ambani, India’s richest man. Some may even have had oc-casion to meet him, in the course of their work or at a social do. But very
few outside his immediate circle can actually lay claim to ‘knowing’ the man. Ask other business-men what they think of Ambani most will tell you he’s a bit of an enigma. Then why has he been voted India’s most influential CEO by a cross section of senior and middle managers across India? It’s probably because of what he stands for.
For over a decade, Ambani has been the highest ranking Indian in global listings of the world’s richest individuals. He’s never played this down, having built himself a very visible avant-garde 27 storey home called Antilla, in the heart of Mumbai. Meanwhile, his company, Reliance Industries, a pioneer in creating shareholder wealth, hasn’t lost its hold on the Indian stock mar-kets. In ranking Ambani No. 1 in The Economic Times-IMRB survey of India’s Most Influential CEOs, the participants of were most likely voting for the idea of the man.
So it is for the others in the top positions in the rankings. Not only do these individuals stand
for something we value, their companies and the industries they represent – banking, telecom, information technology, automobiles – have im-pacted us in significant ways. Professor Linda of Harvard Business School says the most influ-ential CEOs are those whose companies have changed our lives. She also provides an interest-ing insight from her interaction with Indian man-agers: we like world beaters.
By definition, influential people impact the way
we think and behave. As IE Business School pro-fessor Margarita Mayo points out in her article, they are role models for a new generation of aspir-ing leaders. This is even more so for women, where role models seem to be fewer. In an article accom-panying our listing of India’s Most Influential Women CEOs, Citibank’s Anuranjita Kumar advises women leaders to be inclusive and asser-tive, a balance that comes naturally to women. There’s also a new set of CEOs whose influence
is spreading fast across the country, and they are the start-up entrepreneurs. Some of them are not in top 100 yet, but we expect their rankings will go North in the years to come. Indians don’t nec-essarily model themselves on the same kinds of leaders that Americans or Europeans do, says Gurnek Bains, a London based consultant of Indian origin who has made a career of studying cultural differences. Do we prefer our leaders to be ‘strongmen’? Everybody does, says Stanford University’s Jeffrey Pfeffer. Despite all the talk of flat, manager-less organisations, we still want a strong leader who will look after our interests and will prevail in times of conflict and crisis.
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ADVERTORIAL & PROMOTIONAL FEATURE
“The key to successful
leadership today is
influence, not authority”
Kenneth BlanchardLeadership Guru
THE ECONOMIC TIMES
India Inc’s Most Influential CEOs
ILLUSTRATION: VARANI SAHU
[6]
VISHAL SIKKAINFOSYS
[7]
ANIL AMBANI RELIANCE ADAG
[8]
CHANDA KOCHHAR ICICI BANK
[9]
DEEPAK PAREKHH D F C
[10]
SUNIL MITTALBHARTI GROUP
[1]
MUKESH AMBANIRELIANCE GROUP
[2]
AZIM PREMJI WIPRO
[3]
N CHANDRASEKARANTCS
[4]
ARUNDHATI BHATTACHARYA STATE BANK OF INDIA
[5]
ANAND MAHINDRA MAHINDRA GROUP
GAME CHANGERS. ROLE MODELS. WORLD BEATERS. THE DEFINITIVE LIST OF CORPORATE INDIA’S MOST IMPACTFUL PEOPLE
WORLD BEATERS
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The most influential CEOs are
game changers
says Harvard Business School’s
Linda Hill
THESE INDIVIDUALS STAND FOR SOMETHING WE VALUE AND THEIR COMPANIES HAVE IMPACTED US IN SIGNIFICANT WAYS
ANIRBAN
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The Economic Times-IMRB “India’s Most Inf luential CEOs” study is based on perceptions of senior and middle management executives across India. The study began with a
long list of 120 CEOs based largely on the ET 500 listing. For the purposes of the survey, IMRB di-vided the long list into five sets of 24 CEOs. Each set comprised a mix of CEOs from varied sectors. The respondents were asked for their inputs us-ing a questionnaire, self-administered or admin-istered face-to-face by IMRB’s interviewers.
The respondents were divided into five panels and each panel was approached with a unique
set of CEOs. Care was taken to ensure that a respondent did not provide inputs to a survey instrument which had his own company’s CEO. The respondents were asked to evaluate the CEOs on six parameters - leadership, strat-egy & innovation, performance, stature, social contribution/sustainability and governance.
The respondents were first asked to allocate points to the six parameters, which would add up to a total of 100. The points were allocated based on how important each attribute was in their opinion. This formed the basis of the parameters-weights used in the final analysis. After determining the parameter-scores, the
interviewers determined the respondent’s famil-iarity with the CEOs given in their specific sur-vey-instrument. For CEOs the respondents were familiar with, opinion on each parameter was captured using the ‘free association method’ fol-lowed by a rating on a 3-point association-scale.
Respondents were described a parameter and asked to mention which of the CEOs in the list they associate that parameter with. Respondents
had the freedom to associate as many CEOs that they felt could be associated. Once they had as-sociated the CEO for that particular parameter, they were then asked to rate that CEO on a scale of 1 to 3, wherein 1 signified a weak association, 2 signified a moderate association and 3 signified a strong association.
For each CEO a composite score was then calcu-lated at a respondent level. Across respondents, the sum of these composite scores gave the “influ-ence score” for the respective CEO. The ranking of the CEOs was obtained by indexing their influ-ence scores. The higher the influence score, the higher the rank assigned to the CEO.
METHODOLOGY
IndiaInc’sMostInfl uentialCEOs
Pratap ReddyApollo Hospitals
Sachin and Binny BansalFlipkart
Bhaskar Pramanik Microsoft
G V Prasad Dr Reddy’s Labs
Yogesh Chander Deveshwar ITC
Nusli WadiaWadia Group
Kalanidhi Maran Sun group
T V NarendranTata Steel
Rana Kapoor Yes Bank
Rajan AnandanGoogle
Kunal BahlSnapdeal
Sanjiv Mehta Hindustan Unilever
Kiran Mazumdar-ShawBiocon
Sajjan Jindal JSW Steel
Bhaskar BhatTitan Industries
P R S Oberoi Oberoi Group
Vijay MallyaUB group
Dilip S Shanghvi Sun Pharma Industries
Naveen Jindal Jindal Steel and Power
Sanjiv Goenka RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group
Kushal Pal Singh DLF Group
Anand Burman Dabur India
N Srinivasan India Cements
Pawan MunjalHero Motocorp
Rahul Mammen MRF
D Shivakumar Pepsi Co
Onkar S Kanwar Apollo Tyres
B N Kalyani Bharat Forge
Pramit Jhaveri Citibank
Kishore Biyani Future Group
Naresh Goyal Jet Airways
Harsh Goenka RPG
S K Roy LIC
Venugopal N Dhoot Videocon Industries
Naina Lal Kidwai HSBC
Shobhana Bhartia HT Media
Subhash ChandraZee Group
Vanitha Narayanan IBM
Ashwin Choksi Asian Paints
Gautam Singhania Raymond Group
Prashant Ruia Essar Group
A M Naik Larsen & Toubro
Etienne Andre Marie Benet Nestle India
Sunil Sood Vodafone Essar
Anil Agarwal Vedanta Resources
Arup Roy Choudhury N T P C
B Prasada Rao B H E L
Anil Rai Gupta Havells
Harish Badami ACC
Dinesh K Sarraf O N G C
Ajay G Piramal Piramal Enterprises
G M Rao GMR Infrastructure
B Ashok Indian Oil Corp
R Thyagarajan Shriram Group
Y K Hamied Cipla
Rahul Bhatia Integlobe
Harsh Mariwala Marico
Kalpana Morparia JP Morgan
D Bhattacharya Hindalco Industries
Bhavish Aggarwal Ola
Analjit Singh Max Group
Kenichi Ayukawa Maruti Suzuki
T M Bhasin Indian Bank
Shashi Ruia & Ravi Ruia Essar Group
Rajan Raheja Rajan Raheja Group
Deshbandhu Gupta Lupin
Hyun Chil Hong Samsung
S Bhattacharya Coal India
Malvinder Singh Fortis
C S Verma S A I L
Gautam Thapar Avantha Group
G V K Reddy GVK Group
B C Tripathi GAIL (India)
Sanjay Lalbhai Arvind Mills
S Varadarajan B P C L
Sunil Kaushal Standard Chartered
Ajit Gulabchand HCC
Shyam Bhartia Jubilant
A Vellayan Murugappa Group
Ajay Shriram DCM Shriram
POWERLISTING
Most Influential CEOs, 21 to 100
Mukesh Ambani, 58
Chairman & Managing Director,
Reliance Industries
BRAGGING RIGHTS
World’s richest IndianLEADERSHIP STYLE
Relationship-led, entrepreneurialLATEST PROJECT
Reliance Jio 4G servicesFAMILY
Wife Nita, children Isha, Akash, Anant
Anand Mahindra, 60Chairman & Managing Director, Mahindra Group
MANAGEMENT STYLE
Empowers his team SOCIAL CONNECT
India Inc’s most active voice on TwitterFAMILY
Wife Anuradha, children Divya, AalikaSOCIAL IMPACT
Started Nanhi Kali, an NGO working for the girl child
Vishal Sikka,48 CEO & Managing Director, Infosys
CLAIM TO FAME
Infosys’first non-founder CEO STARTED HIS CAREER AT
Xerox’s Palo Alto research lab BRAGGING RIGHTS
Responsible for turning around SAPs American unit
LITTLE KNOWN FACT
Started two companies, both of which were eventually acquired
Deepak Parekh, 71Chairman, HDFC
STARTED HIS CAREER WITH
Ernst & Young, New YorkMANAGEMENT STYLE
ConservativeWHEN NOT WORKING
Playing bridgeFAMILY
Wife Smita and sons Siddharth and Aditya
N Chandrasekaran, 52
CEO & Managing Director, Tata Consultancy Services
STARTED HIS CAREER WITH
TCS LEADERSHIP STYLE
Focus on the big pictureFITNESS TRACK
A regular at marathons around the world FAMILY
Wife Lalitha and son Pranav
Anil Ambani, 56Chairman, ADAG
MANAGEMENT STYLE
Thinks bigRECENT PROJECT
Partnership with Hollywood’s Steven Spielberg WHEN NOT WORKING
Jogging down Marine DriveFAMILY
Wife Tina, children Jai Anmol, Jai Anshul
Arundhati Bhattacharya, 59Chairman, State Bank of India
LEADERSHIP STYLE
Collaborative FAMILY
Husband Pritimoy, daughter Sukrita ALTERNATIVE CAREER CHOICE
Museologist or a journalist WHEN NOT WORKING
Reading or trying out new restaurants BRAGGING RIGHTS
The only woman banker on the Fortune 500 list
Chanda Kochhar, 54CEO & Managing Director, ICICI Bank
MANAGEMENT STYLE
Eye for executionFAMILY
Husband Deepak, children Aarti, ArjunALTERNATIVE CAREER
Once wanted to be an IAS officer WHEN NOT WORKING
Watching Hindi movies
Azim Premji, 70
Chairman, Wipro
SOCIAL IMPACT
First Indian to sign up for The Giving Pledge, the campaign led by Warren
Buffett and Bill Gates
LEADERSHIP STYLE
Tough love
FAMILY
Wife Yasmeen, children Rishad, Tariq
Sunil Mittal, 58Chairman, Bharti Enterprises
HIS FIRST BUSINESS
Making crankshafts for cycle manufacturers
SOCIAL IMPACT
Bharti Foundation works with over 50,000 under-privileged kids
WHEN NOT WORKING
Playing the tanpuraFAMILY TIES
Wife Nyna, children Eisha, Kavin and Shravin
THE TOP TENKumar M Birla AV Birla Group
Rajiv BajajBajaj Auto
Uday Kotak Kotak Mahindra Bank
Adi GodrejGodrej Group
Venu Srinivasan TVS Group
Cyrus MistryTata Sons
Aditya Puri HDFC Bank
Shikha SharmaAxis Bank
Gautam S AdaniAdani Group
Shiv NadarHCL Group
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THIS STUDY IS BASED ON PERCEPTIONS OF SENIOR AND MIDDLE MANAGEMENT EXECUTIVES ACROSS INDIA
The rise of prominent Indians to CEO roles in global firms like Google, Diageo and PepsiCo and the increasing global foot-
print of some of India’s best known companies might suggest that our lead-ers know how to lead effectively across cultures. But the truth is, there is still a long way to go before many Indian lead-ers are able to step onto the world stage and lead in an effective manner. The same applies to leaders from every ma-jor global culture – just the issues each culture has to navigate is different.
There is no such thing as a global mul-ti-national and the cultures of even the most dispersed global firms are firmly embedded in the country of their ori-gin. The top leadership of such firms is often surprisingly uniform and mono-chromatic. Firmly embedded in such firms is a clear view of how influence needs to be exercised. Missteps and
failures when leading people from cul-tures outside of one’s zone of familiar-ity are therefore all too common.
For example, in Scandinavian socie-ties, leadership is a term that has nega-tive connotations. Anyone from out-side who expects orders to be unques-tioningly obeyed typically experiences a rude shock. In many East Asian countries, there exists what an authori-tarian compact. Leaders are obeyed assiduously up to a point, but if they fall off the high standards expected, rebellions on a big or small scale can occur. In parts of Africa, people take comfort from a leader acting as “the big man”. In others, humility and gentle authority is prized.
Each culture has deeply rooted cul-tural tendencies, which arise from the challenges that that society has faced
from time immemorial. These predi-lections — such as emotional positivity, attitudes towards authority or comfort
in unfamiliar social set-tings — have a genetic base. Leaders from each global culture have strengths but also weaknesses they need to be aware of.
In our research, we found senior Indian leaders had an edge in terms of drive, strategic thinking and intellectual f lexibility. Indian cultural DNA also equips Indian leaders to
manage diversity and difference effec-tively. These strengths work power-fully in today’s world and help explain why Indians sometimes have more suc-
cess than leaders from other cultures.However, we also found Indian lead-
ers were poor with respect to team-work. Their confidence was brittle and their ability to project themselves confidently as leaders, variable. Furthermore, Indian leaders were rel-atively poor with respect to self-insight and had a surprisingly frequent ten-dency to react defensively to challeng-ing feedback. It is always dangerous to stereotype and it is always important in global business to look at the person “beyond the race”. Awareness of one’s default cultural tendencies and empa-thy and appreciation for different ways of leading and being led is essential in today’s multi-polar world.
Gurnek Bains is Chairman and Co-Founder of consulting firm YSC
LEADERSHIP ACROSS CULTURES
Traits of influential
leaders vary according to region says
Gurnek Bains
INDIAN LEADERS HAVE AN EDGE IN TERMS OF DRIVE AND INTELLECTUAL FLEXIBILITY
ANIRBAN
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Every position grants you with a certain aut horit y. I n my ex p er ienc e , men and women lever-
age their inf luence and power dif ferently. While most men take to power at work easily and are quick to leverage it, women tend to hold back, till author-ity is clearly shared with them. Leadership attributes that are seen positively in a man can be perceived negatively if exhib-ited by a woman. An ambitious, outspoken, driven and focused man is considered powerful. Men, more vocal in boardrooms, are seen as result oriented and stronger. A woman who demon-strates similar behaviors, may be viewed as aggressive or self-centered, as this behavior chal-lenges preconceived expectations and the nurturing character one expects from women.
Given this reaction, women choose to play a relatively more facilitative role, to avoid any negative perceptions. In my ex-perience, it is advantageous for women to recognise this early and adopt an integrated style of leadership. Being inclusive and yet being rightfully assertive can garner a positive response and propel them forward. Women therefore need to leverage their strengths of collaboration, pa-tience and resilience, which also comes naturally to them, to find a balance in their overall leader-ship style, depending on their en-vironment.
Leaders are expected to be decisive and action oriented. Men tend to take risks with less hesitation. Decision making for men is often driven analytically with some experiential learn-ing thrown in. Women, on the other hand, rely a lot more on intuition and on the opinion of others. Being more inclusive
may sometime fuel perceptions of indeci-siveness, when they are rightfully focused on consensus build-ing. A woman’s style is more subtle relative to a man but it is in no way different in terms of quality of decision making - she connects more coherently and sensitively, taking a balanced view of the situation.
How power is used is influenced by how peo-ple negotiate or influ-ence - men in positions of power place a higher premium on their pro-fessional competence, ne got i at i n g b et t er for opportunities and rewards. Women leaders under-stand their power but more often than not, understate it. They rely more on the personal equity and not always on the power of the role. Negotiations and command-ing a role is both about leading the team towards goals and win-ning minds. Women tend to cali-brate themselves with far more dexterity while being firm, deci-sive and tough in negotiations as they tend to keep the impact of the message in mind at all times.
Internal and external connec-tivity are invaluable in enhanc-ing one’s influence that may lead to more powerful engagements. Networking is an area where one finds men far more proac-tive, as it is another way to yield more influence. It is a domain I find where women consciously step back, either viewing it nega-tively or simply choosing not to engage, focusing instead on just getting the work done, or invest-ing free time in personal priori-ties. Women should leverage their innate strengths in building re-lationships and collaborating to build strong networks, and in-turn their own personal brand. This will make them more con-scious of what is transpiring in the environment around them and better equipped to position themselves & their organisations strongly. Ultimately, a successful professional imbibes construc-tive qualities applied to context without trampling on their own styles. It is possible to have a bal-ance on one’s way to achieving success.
Anuranjita Kumar is managing director and chief human resource of-
ficer, Citibank South Asia.
WOMAN POWER
ARUNDHATI BHATTACHARYA STATE BANK OF INDIA
[2] CHANDA KOCHHAR ICICI BANK
[3] SHIKHA SHARMA AXIS BANK
[4] KIRAN MAZUMDAR-SHAWBIOCON
[5] NAINA LAL KIDWAIHSBC
[6] SHOBHANA BHARTIAHT MEDIA
[7] VANITHA NARAYANAN IBM
[8] KALPANA MORPARIA JP MORGAN
[9] NISHI VASUDEVA H P C L
[10] ASHU SUYASHCRISIL
It’s about collaboration, patience and resiliencesays Anuranjita Kumar
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MEN AND WOMEN LEVERAGE THEIR INFLUENCE AND POWER DIFFERENTLY
ANIRBAN BORA
India Inc’s Most Influential Women CEOs
IndiaInc’sMostInfl uentialCEOs MUMBAI, WEDNESDAY, 30 DECEMBER 2015 03
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Ihear examples illustrating the chang-ing nature of CEO influence all the time. There are social movements that promise to disrupt traditional, social and political hierarchies. There
are the new ways of working, as free-lancers and independent contractors, with no boss except oneself. Many of the changes afoot in workplaces and society more generally are encapsulated in the phrase, “new power,” both to distinguish it from “old power” and to capture the excitement and promise con-tained in that magical single word, “new.” As summarised by Jeremy Heimans and Henry Timms in their Harvard Business Review arti-cle, “new power…is made by many. It is open, participatory, and peer-driven,” while “old power…is held by few. Once gained, it is jeal-ously guarded…and leader-driven.”
Like much of the writing about leadership, where traits such as modesty and truthful-ness are widely advocated but missing in ac-tual leaders, arguments about the changing nature of power tend to be light on confront-ing the assertions with the facts. Businesses, with very, very few exceptions, still have sin-gle CEOs, not shared power arrangements. Senior executives still value loyalty as one of the more important and useful qualities a
subordinate can possess.And as for the devolved, democratic busi-
ness structures—they exist, but for the most part remain economically trivial. There are examples of self-published books that became commercial successes and Youtube-originated content that made their creators into household names. But for the most part, entertainment remains under the control of large corporations, albeit with some new players such as Amazon and Netflix joining the traditional movie studios and television networks, even as consolidation in the pub-lishing industry continues apace. Peer-to-peer lending and investment vehicles may be-come important, but at the moment they are tiny compared to traditional banks, venture
capital firms, and private equity companies.Traditional hierarchical arrangements are
amazingly durable—even if no one seems to like them — and hold across countries and cultures and over time as well.
That’s because research shows that people, confronted with the necessity of accomplish-ing a task, voluntarily choose hierarchical structures even if such arrangements are not imposed on them. People seek to bask in reflected glory and, even more fundamen-tally, want to ensure their own success and survival by associating with others who look like they are tough and strong enough to pre-vail in conflicts and crises. So people flock to “strongmen” (or women) even if such in-dividuals do not exhibit the characteristics people claim to want in leaders.
Unfortunately, I see the consequences of people believing the “new power” narrative all the time as otherwise hard-working, intel-ligent individuals lose their jobs or promotion opportunities because they don’t believe and then act on the realities of an old power world.
So, meet the new boss. Same as the old boss. And most importantly, don’t get fooled again by stories about some relatively rare exam-ples of a new power world. Mastering the im-portant skill of managing organisational dy-namics requires understanding the realities of human psychology and behavior. Which requires paying attention to the evidence, not the uplifting rhetoric.
DON’T GET FOOLED BY STORIES ABOUT SOME RARE EXAMPLES OF A NEW POWER WORLD
CEO AS THE STRONGMAN BOSS
SACHIN AND BINNY BANSAL FLIPKART
[2] KUNAL BAHL SNAPDEAL
[3] BHAVISH AGGARWALOLA
[4] DEEPINDER GOYAL ZOMATO
[5] DHIRAJ RAJARAM MUSIGMA
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Agenerational shift has reinforced the authentic personal nature of CEO power. New generation employees wish to participate in the decision-making of the
company and want to see the social impact of their work. Millennials (born 1980-2000) demand participation and meaningful work from their leaders. If you’re a CEO looking for success with the new workforce, you’d better provide more than a paycheck.
Laura Guillen and Konstantin Korotov, professors at ESMT, and I recently con-ducted several studies published in the Leadership Quarterly showing how man-agers use their leaders as role models. Participants indicated the leader who had been the most significant to them in the past or in the present as their role model. They described this individual with ten
statements and evaluated how well each of the statements matched their own charac-teristics. Some of these descriptions were: “encourages people to grown” or “charis-matic.” We found that the more managers shared the leadership characteristics of their role models, the more confident they felt in applying for leadership positions and the greater their desire to lead in an authen-tic manner.
Some CEOs might wonder whether focus-ing on their authenticity and personal power will make them vulnerable, and ask whether they will end up losing their formal power. The surprising truth is that authenticity makes a CEO more powerful. Authenticity comes from the Greek word “autoridad” – control and being agent of your own destiny. People trust a CEO who they see as authen-tic and in touch with his or her inner values.
More than that, authenticity means acting in a way that is consistent with those values to gain the trust and respect of people.
To build authentic personal power, CEOs need to change the way they relate to em-ployees. The usual focus is on transactional relationships. To achieve authentic per-sonal power however, CEOs need to develop meaningful and charismatic relationships. They need to go further and build social capi-tal around charisma. Research shows that when the CEO is imbued with charismatic qualities, followers display greater motiva-tion to go the extra mile and perform beyond expectations.
To achieve authentic power it’s not enough to be imbued with CEO charisma. If CEOs don’t make it clear that they behave in the best interests of the organisation, they end up overlooking their power. A CEO should be able to find authenticity beyond the limits of his or her own existence to pursue solidarity. Being greater than themselves makes lead-ers more authentic.
Young leaders are inspired to mimic the behavior of present-day
CEOs says IE Business
School’s Margarita Mayo
ROLE MODELS
ANIRBAN BORA
Jeffrey Pfeffer of Stanford
University on why people
still prefer hierarchical
structures
PEOPLE TRUST A CEO WHO THEY SEE AS AUTHENTIC AND IN TOUCH WITH HIS OR HER INNER VALUES
Editorial: Dibeyendu Ganguly, Priyanka SanganiDesign: Shubhra Dey
Photographs: Gettyimages, The Economic Times Archives
India Inc’s Most Influential Startup CEOs
IndiaInc’sMostInfl uentialCEOs MUMBAI, WEDNESDAY, 30 DECEMBER 2015 04
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