Souma Das is the Area Vice President, Citrix India Sub Continent, responsible for the entire Operations including sales, services, marketing, and pre & post sales functions. Souma joined Citrix India in the year 2001. Prior to joining Citrix, he was the country General Manager Lotus (IBM Software Group) and has held various Senior Management & leadership positions in Wipro, Lotus and IBM. An MS in Computer Science, with over 19 years of experience in the Information Technology industry, he is a firm believer in the values of reliability and consistency in business relationships.

In this age when the market is flooded with books on strategies for good leadership and the likes of Jack Welsh and Jim Collins sway millions of hearts, people talk about different perceptions, dimensions, and strategies of effective leadership. But Souma Das, Managing Director & Area VP of Citrix Systems India believes that leadership is all about learning. He says, “In the 20 years of my career I, as an individual, have grown up and evolved into a leader. From the days when I was being led to the present when I am leading an organization, the journey has been constantly on learning and unlearning. If I was influenced by my managers in the past, today I learn a great deal from my colleagues, sometimes even from the junior most among them. In my opinion a leader must have an open mind to view things.” This openness to learning has been his key strength and his concepts on effective leadership are the culmination of the observations he has made in his career spanning twenty years.

They say there are no short cuts to success. Das says there are no short cuts to become a leader. “All the books in the market can influence you for sometime. But to practice the theories mentioned in those bestsellers needs a lot of determination and effort,” observes Das. He believes that an individual can rise as a leader only by learning from his experiences and observation.

There are three characteristics of effective leaders, which Das considers fundamental. He believes that these essential characteristics of a leader are developed in the process of his career marked with learning and observation. The essential characteristics are discipline, passion, and the ability to lead the team. A leader has to be well disciplined in his thoughts and actions. Leadership requires one to always be a step ahead in his thought processes. This is possible only if he has a disciplined mind which helps him to keep focused on the vision in his thoughts and action. Passion is the second element. Without passion, a person will have very little influence as a leader. “I believe that passion provides an individual with the light of leadership and creates an undeniable drive to make a difference,” he explains. His passion for work permeates his team and thus helps him translate his vision to reality.

The third element is the ability to lead the team. This, according to Das, is the quintessential part of leadership. Good leaders must have the ability to motivate, understand, and inspire their followers. It is by the action of leaders that the rules are established. Leaders are responsible for empowering the team and thereby create a culture, determine values, and pass on the principles that will give them more clarity on what is expected out of them. A leader is the force that will stand firm to take anything to its limits with an understanding to facilitate groups of people to adopt a common vision to create effective results.