I read a book 'Leadership at Infosys' which has recently arrived in the market. I expected usual mix of homilies, grandiose intentions and pat on the back claims. I was surprised.
The book talks about the different dimensions of leadership that is followed at Infosys to develop internal leaders. Process followed to identify and develop leaders is naturally not elaborated in any specific details, but the book scores high on the quality of take-away that emerges from the different dimensions such as content leadership ( which is thought leadership), entrepreneurial leadership, Talent leadership and others.
In every conceivable domain of leadership, there is a lot of material written in books, papers and research directions. Everything looks right from a particular angle; it requires rigorous thought and courage to arrive at meaningful actionable conclusions. Thought is needed to separate good intentions from useful one's, nice looking ideas from practical ideas to arrive at a specific 'stand'. Courage is to take that 'stand' and use it to commit to Action. This is where most falter. Infosys has managed to cross both these hurdles.
For instance, its view on Empowerment is both practical and insightful. It's stand on Employee engagement is bold. Its practice of content leadership is different and thoughtful. Irrespective of whether the view is agreeable or not ( for instance, content leadership is not well defined), authors have not flinched from taking a firm view. That is very refreshing and surprising.
Being a student of leadership process development, i have just one objection, so to say. It has not defined leadership clearly. One is therefore not clear what it means by leadership behaviour versus managership behaviour, just to take an example. Either this is a purposeful omission , or this could be a oversight that has emerged because of nature of ownership. For a company ( not a researcher), it is safer to avoid controversy that will invite too much of attention.
The book talks about the different dimensions of leadership that is followed at Infosys to develop internal leaders. Process followed to identify and develop leaders is naturally not elaborated in any specific details, but the book scores high on the quality of take-away that emerges from the different dimensions such as content leadership ( which is thought leadership), entrepreneurial leadership, Talent leadership and others.
In every conceivable domain of leadership, there is a lot of material written in books, papers and research directions. Everything looks right from a particular angle; it requires rigorous thought and courage to arrive at meaningful actionable conclusions. Thought is needed to separate good intentions from useful one's, nice looking ideas from practical ideas to arrive at a specific 'stand'. Courage is to take that 'stand' and use it to commit to Action. This is where most falter. Infosys has managed to cross both these hurdles.
For instance, its view on Empowerment is both practical and insightful. It's stand on Employee engagement is bold. Its practice of content leadership is different and thoughtful. Irrespective of whether the view is agreeable or not ( for instance, content leadership is not well defined), authors have not flinched from taking a firm view. That is very refreshing and surprising.
Being a student of leadership process development, i have just one objection, so to say. It has not defined leadership clearly. One is therefore not clear what it means by leadership behaviour versus managership behaviour, just to take an example. Either this is a purposeful omission , or this could be a oversight that has emerged because of nature of ownership. For a company ( not a researcher), it is safer to avoid controversy that will invite too much of attention.
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