Deciphering the Leadership Enigma

 

The common denominator  in   Enron’s Kenneth Lay and Microland’s Pradeep Kar was that they were dynamic motivators to their team-mates.  They were leaders and some how  both lost their enigma somewhere in the race. They  were deposed from their ruined  empires. 

But some leaders  are self motivated to the extent that they do not compromise with  values, aspirations and performances.  They continuously lead and motivate  their people.  They are  experts in motivaging. Indeed,  for them,   the magic wand  still continues to swirl.  For example, though   Steve   Perlman’s earlier effort, Web TV, never took off the way he hoped,  his new venture,  Moxi Digital, is supposed to be  Microsoft’s competitor in the battle to ‘digitize, simplify and supercharge’ home entertainment. He believed that his employees are  competent to make his efforts fruitful.  Similarly  Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing’s Tom.com, the biggest publisher of print media in Taiwan,   is the favourite to become the sole Chinese advertising agent for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.   For Perlman and  Ka-shing  these are possible  only because they are leaders with  tremendous  potential;  they are supportive and approachable to their colleagues; they   are motivated to pursue their  efforts to be nmero uno  in the corporate game.

 Everybody agrees that Lay, Kar, Perlman and Ka-shing are business leaders with different motivations and aspirations of the corpocracy. The first two were regarded  as successful until they had been otherwise revalued; the others are still viewed as successful motivators. We know,  successful leaders are often romanticized these days. Ostensibly they are   celebrities; rather businestars. In the corporate galaxy there are Super Businestars like Iacocca, Gates, Wagner, Jack Welch, Ratan Tata,  Narayana Murthy etc.    They  encouraged their people to perform to the best and  ultimately they  reaped results.

Unfortunately there are also   super leaders  who are struggling with the mundane  ‘successor syndrome’.  If they are not  intuitive,  imaginative, capable of motivaging  and  are skeptical  the trauma is severe.  They may experience their successor’s  entry and efforts as implicit criticism or a threat to their legacy. They  may also find it unexpectedly difficult to let go off the reins of power. One of the recent example was    in  Viacom, whose properties include CBS, MTV and Paramount studios.   Sumner Redstone, founder Chairman and CEO of Viacom,  declared that he would not renew the contract of   Mel Karmazin, who had been widely regarded as Redstone’s successor.  He disliked Karmazin’s  ‘aggressive style’.    Contrarily in GE,  the intuitive  Welch  named Jeffrey Immelt, who was with  GE’s Medical Systems unit,   as heir to the  throne. 

What is the secret of the  success of the Superleaders?   Undoubtedly we would say that  the secret is  STATUS.  Yes,  STATUS- if they are Supportive, Tolerant, Approachble, Trusting, Understanding and  Suplementing.

• Supportive – Encourages his team-mates to reach in new directions, without challenging their individual objectives.
• Tolerant  - Allows a reasonable margin of error and  advises to make it  right  without affecting  the group performance.
• Approachable – Considers other’s   ideas for implementation even if it is contradictory and encourages for offering new ideas.
• Trusting - Allows people to make their own commitments and accepts  them as  the group responsibility.

• Understanding- Tries to help others by empathizing with their emotional motivations.

• Supplementing – Helps others  to perform well to reach goals by providing adequate space in the performance plateau.

Future corpocracy requires leaders  with STATUS.  If they are    competent to motivate their people  to remodulate   the organization in complacent with the aspirations of the generations ahead, they  can gleam forever.  Learn from the super stars  of  the corporate galaxy.