Leadership Should Inspire Confidence

(Published in Banking Services Chronicle December 2007)

The Hindustan Times recently hosted a Leadership Summit. Articles were published in the run-up to the event and there were lectures at the Summit. When the ideas of leadership was so much in the air, I tried to figure out its most important attribute. I found out that, essentially, leadership should inspire confidence.

Says Dr Elattuvalapil Sreedharan, Managing Director, Delhi Metro Railway Corporation (DMRC): “I have noticed a welcome change in the last two decades. Call it the result of economic reforms or a new awakening, these last few years have given Indians the confidence to believe in themselves.”

Inspiring confidence is what the Renaissance men and the usherers of the Industrial Revolution did to the British. What followed as a result constitutes the largest chapter of modern history. The confident Europeans made the world their oyster and ruled virtually the entire planet for about two centuries. Closer home, it is this confidence that Gandhi inspired among the Indians, leading ultimately to the overthrow of the British Empire.

If India could do it then, we can also do it now. Change in circumstances can be tackled with the indomitability of the spirit. In fact, this is all the more likely today when India races on youth power. Says PRS Oberoi, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, East India Hotels Ltd: “What gives me hope is that a majority of India’s current population is under 25 years of age. The energy and ambition of the young could be the drive to propel us in the right direction.”

India’s recent triumph in Twenty20, the latest version of cricket, is a case in point. MS Dhoni — Microsoft’s latest program in leadership? — inspired his boys to play confidently. And they managed to scale the peak and emerged as heroes (who cares if some experts think Twenty20 is anything but cricket?).

However, confidence should not be naively interpreted as brashness or blind hitting. It needs to be tempered with caution.