Workshop
on Leadership and Change Management
I
am pleased to participate in the workshop on Leadership and Change Management.
Some
friends and colleagues of mine had been suggesting to me for quite some time
that there should be a workshop of this kind involving senior officers of the
Government of India. They also were saying that it should be held with the
participation of reputed academics in the field of management studies who have
the experience of conducting such workshops for senior executives in the
private sector.
I
am pleased that, after extensive consultations, it has been possible to
organize this workshop. I especially commend the Cabinet Secretary for his interest
and initiative in making it happen. I also appreciate the Indian Institute of
Management, Ahmedabad for leading this effort.
I have
always wondered where the two activities – administration and management –
converge and diverge. I have also thought a good deal about the
inter-relationship between the political leadership and the administrative
leadership and how the two interact to determine the quality and impact of
governance.
The
basic impulse for my self-reflection has been my fundamental concern over the
issue of Good Governance. For it is my firm belief that the problem that
underlies most of the other problems that India has been facing since
Independence is the lack of Good Governance. It is our collective failure to
transform swaraj into su-raj. When I say it is our collective failure, I include both the political
class and the administration system.
Change
management is a very apt theme. On the
surface, both these words – “change” and “management” – appear too familiar for
us to realize that they might contain some deeper meaning than what we think we
already know. But put these commonplace words together, and we are confronted
with a theme that dares us to take a plunge into the oceanic depths of its significance.
It
is rightly said that change is the only constant thing in life. Therefore, organizations and their leaders
should be able to grasp the nature and direction of change taking place in
their chosen domain. They should be aware of the kind of change they want. And
most, importantly, they should have the will and the capability to manage the
change in such a direction and towards such goals as are deemed desirable.
About
thirty years back I had occasion to read a book on this issue of change which
impressed me immensely. This book was titled “Future Shock” and was written by
Alvin Toffler.
The
contents of the book were summed up by the author in the opening paragraphs, in
which he wrote.
“This is a book about what happens to
people when they are overwhelmed by change. It is about the ways in which we
adapt – or fail to adapt – to the future.
The
acceleration of change in our time is, itself, an elemental force. This accelerative thrust has personal and
psychological, as well as sociological consequences. In the pages ahead, these
effects of acceleration are, for the first time, systematically explored. The book argues forcefully, I hope, that,
unless man quickly learns to control the rate of change in his personal affairs
as well as in society at large, we are doomed to a massive adaptational
breakdown.
In
the three short decades between now and the twenty first century, millions of
ordinary, psychologically normal people will face an abrupt collision with the
future. Citizens of the world’s richest and most technically advanced nations,
many of them, will find it increasingly painful to keep up with the incessant
demand for change that characterizes our time.
For them, the future will have arrived too soon.”
It
is obvious that change management requires leadership. As a matter of
fact, every management task, howsoever mundane, needs some kind of
leadership. Change management, in
particular, demands leadership of a very different order, because it involves
directing the often chaotic flow of change in a desired channel in a
well-regulated manner.
At
the political level, the party to which I belong has had to deal with a very
wide variety of changing situations, and formulate appropriate responses. This
has really been a daunting task. But I
hold that the biggest single factor which has enabled our party to reach its
present position has been its ability to cope successfully with the challenges
of change-management.
For
change management to be effective and durable, the leadership needs to be
goal-centric and principle-centric, and not personality-centric. Yet, it is the bane of many organizations,
and of many individuals who come to occupy positions at the helm, to mistake
the person for the leadership, and to ignore the goals and objectives that the
organization is expected to pursue under that leader and the principles which
both the organization and the leader ought to uphold in pursuing them. When this happens, the inevitable outcome is
change mis-management, rather than change management along pre-envisaged lines.
Leaders
qualify to be called leaders, and they are effective as leaders only to the
extent that,
·
they embody the
original inspiration and idealism of their organization;
·
they can continue to
transmit that inspiration and idealism down the line in their organization;
·
they can unleash the
energy of the organization to achieve the goals and objectives that it has set
for itself;
·
both the organization
and the leader do self-evaluation on the basis of a result-oriented approach;
·
and in so doing they
uphold the essential foundational principles that the organization has wedded
itself to.
When
this happens, change management becomes effective and reliable, and not a
happenstance of favorable circumstances; it becomes sustained and not erratic;
it can face setbacks and adverse situations because the entire organization
knows where it wants to go.
When
this happens, organizations and their change management processes are set on a
steady course and do not suffer convulsions when the leadership changes. For
even when the leader changes – as must happen from time to time in any
organization – the ethos, tradition, and goals of the organization do not
change. The new leader only imparts new vigor and dynamism to change
management, while of course conducting such course corrections as have been
made necessary by the changing circumstances. Recognizing these changes, and
getting the organization to respond appropriately to such changes, is also an
important qualification of leadership.
Whereas
leadership should not be personality-centric, it can never be divorced from the
personal qualities and attributes of the leader. The greater the positive qualities he or she possesses, the more
effective will the leadership be in inspiring and directing their colleagues as
well as the organization at all levels.
Thus, personal integrity, domain knowledge, understanding of the
external environment, courage of conviction, efficiency at work, communication
abilities, man-management skills, time-management skills, crisis-resolution
skills, capacity to nurture team spirit – all these matter in determining the
overall impact of the leadership.
In this context, I would like to recall the thoughts of Stephen Covey, whose books on principle-centered and effective leadership I have found to be most stimulating. He has identified trustworthiness as one of the most important qualities of a good leader. Let me elaborate this point in more or less Covey’s own words.
1. Trustworthiness at the Personal Level.
2.
Trust at the
Interpesonal Level.
Trust
is the emotional bank account between two people, which enables two parties to
have a win-win performance agreement.
If two people trust each other, based on the trustworthiness of each
other, they can then enjoy clear communication, empathy, synergy, and
productive interdependency. Trust – or the lack of it – is at the root of the
success or failure in relationships and is found in the bottom-line results of
business, industry, education, and government.
3. Empowerment at the Management Level.
If
you have no or low trust, how are you going to manage people? If you think your people lack character or
competence, how would you manage them?
When you don’t have trust, you have to control people. But if you have
high trust, you don’t supervise them – they supervise themselves. You become only a source of help.
4. Alignment at the Organizational Level.
If you
have a low-trust culture with a control style of management, you will have a
hierarchical organization with small spans of control. You will resort to
“go-for” delegation and prescribe and manage methods. If you have a high-trust culture, your organization can be very
flat and flexible with large spans of control. Why? People are supervising
themselves. They are doing their jobs cheerfully without being reminded because
you have built an emotional bank account with them. You’ve got commitment and
empowerment because you have built a culture around a common vision on the
basis of certain bedrock principles.
It is
obvious that Covey’s ideas on trust are relevant to any organization, be it a
business group, a political party, or a government department. They are
especially worth studying in today’s all-pervasive culture of individualism and
unhealthy competition for self-gain. I see this in the political sphere and
agonize over its negative effects on democratic functioning of
organizations. I am sure that you too
are aware of its adverse impact on the bureaucracy.
Role
of the Civil Service
Friends,
since this workshop on change management and leadership is specifically
directed at the bureaucracy let me dwell a little on what the nation expects
out of you and how you might be able to meet those expectations. Here I would
like to express my views on the subject again by referring to another
thought-provoking writer, who is not only one of the most experienced civil
servants in independent India, but also one of the most admired Governors in
the country. I am referring to Dr. P.C. Alexander and to his latest, widely
acclaimed book, India in the New
Millennium.
The
book presents an incisive analysis of the challenges and problems before
India’s civil service. Bureaucracy is
called, often as a tribute and sometimes as a complaint, as the permanent ruler
of the country. Political leaders come
and go, but the civil servants remain in the saddle. This continuity, in fact,
imparts the institutional strength to governance. But how is this institution
faring in providing leadership to the kind of changes that people expect in the
economy and in the social sphere? This
question assumes added relevance in a situation of political instability.
I see a
contradictory trend when I examine this question. As individuals, our officers
have great talents. Indeed, a typical civil servant, thanks to his period
postings, acquires a wealth of knowledge and experience of different fields by
the time he attains seniority. However, as a collective, our administrative
system has not been able to synergize the talents, experience, and expertise of
the officers at different levels. I sometimes feel that what really gets
combined is their weaknesses and rigidities.
This is
not the fault of individuals. Rather, it is the result of the outdated and
inflexible procedures, practices, and conventions that lead to delays and to
unnecessary paperwork. When this happens, the system begins to mistake the
process itself for performance and lengthy file movement for action. When this
happens, civil servants become not change managers, but change delayers; not
result-achieving leaders, but prisoners of a change resisting system.
How to
overcome this problem? Dr. Alexander
has given many thought-provoking ideas in his book. He says that:
“There
are three groups of people in our society today. One, the few who make things
happen. Two, the many who watch things happen.
And three, the overwhelming majority who have no idea of what happens.
Civil servants are the privileged few who can make things happen and it is
their responsibility always to endeavour to make things happen for the good of
the overwhelming majority who do not even know what is happening around them”.
Needed: A nationwide Leadership
Creation Movement
Friends,
before I conclude, I wish to articulate one more thought about leadership. Today, there is a mistaken notion in our
society on who a leader is. A leader is generally understood as any important
political personality or at any rate, a personality who has his or her name
projected prominently in the media.
Having been a political worker for many decades, I am convinced that
politicians get a prominence in our society that is totally disproportionate to
their inherent qualities and capabilities.
True
leadership, as this workshop seeks to emphasize, lies in the ability to manage
change. And India needs change, radical
change in many spheres – in administration, education, business, judiciary,
mass media, and in the management of institutions of various types. No
political or a set of political leaders can bring about the desired change in
all these, although good political leadership can certainly inspire that
change.
What
India needs therefore are good, result-oriented, and exemplary leaders in every
walk of life and at all levels. We need
leaders who can manage our schools and colleges and universities better. We
need leaders who manage the activities of our sports bodies better so that our
performance in this crucial area of international competition improves. We need
leaders who can ensure winning performance in our R&D labs. We need leaders who can manage our utilities
better so that we achieve drastic cuts in the theft of power for example. We
need leaders who are great project implementers, who can save the country
thousands of crores of rupees through timely completion of projects. Our courts
too need leaders who can devise ways of doing away with the mountains of
long-pending cases and making dispensation of justice faster, cheaper, and
people-friendly.
Why
have I listed these different examples?
It is because the bureaucracy deals with all these issues, directly or
indirectly. And all these issues are collectively the touchstone of Good
Governance. Hence, it is the bureaucracy that has to perform the role of
effective leadership. This in turn
means that India needs thousands of model civil servants who act as leaders in
their own departments or corporations or offices.
The
Country is facing numerous challenges but I am convinced that we have huge
opportunities as well. I realize that
you face many constraints as you go about your work everyday. Yet I am sure
that we have the mental capacity to look at creative ways to face the
challenges and maximize the opportunities. For this to happen in the shortest
time frame and maximum effectiveness we need specific inputs from you. Be
proactive. Tell us what can be changed that is within our individual jurisdictions
and what may need Cabinet or Parliament approvals. I am not saying that we can provide the backing you might be
looking for in each and every area. But
I do know that if the ideas are clearly laid out in front of us then those of
us at the political level will have the best opportunity to respond.
In
short, India’s nation-building mission enjoins upon us to start a sustained
leadership creation movement. We should identify, train, motivate, and reward
potential leaders everywhere. So, it is this message that I would like to leave
behind as I inaugurate this workshop.
Thank
you.