My connection with Gandhian principles didn’t come from the pages of my school textbook. It was preached and followed by my family of freedom fighters. By the time I was born, freedom had been achieved and Gandhi was already an icon mustering masses under his vision. His humility was held with high regard in my family. While I feel grateful to have started my early days practicing humility, it is not surprising that it is bedrock of great leaders. My parents are surely my first role models for preaching humility. And then came the others: Jack Welch for showing what leaders can do in the business world and Michael Dell for believing in oneself. Humility for a leader is not a choice but must.

Leadership, according to me, is the ability to inspire teams towards achieving a goal, and motivating them to do their best even in adverse circumstances. It is about building leaders at various levels of an organization who eventually determine the success of that organization. But success isn’t so simple. I believe the core lies in identifying the pulse of the employees. Luckily for me, when I relocated to India after 20-years in the U.S and Canada, the pulse of my employees lay in their most admired game of cricket. Although it meant rummaging for the wooden bat I used during my Fatehpur college days, I was sure I had found the wand that could open mouths and minds in India to interact. Once we began communicating the real work started. I have personally divided that into the 9-competencies of leadership.

1.Defining clear vision:
Leaders have to build clear vision for their organization; one that galvanizes teams. At the start of my assignment in Dell, I had a vision to build Dell India R & D center into the center of excellence for enterprise products which could handle complex tasks in software development, testing, solutions and hardware design.

2.Inspiring and aligning the troops to the vision:
I repeatedly tell my employees and myself about how vision is not achievable single-handedly. Aligning employees to a single vision is the mantra for success. I need to create the right competencies and support structure for them to achieve it. That is how successful organizations are built. The pain taken to bring the alignment of the vision leads to inspiration, focus and commitment.