Ethos Issue 5, Nov 2008

Making The Globalisation Leap: A Survey of Asian Leadership Traits
Israel Berman & Madeline Dessing

Adaptive thinking & drive
Overall, when compared with Hay Group's competency database of the best international CEOs, outstanding Indian leaders show higher levels of adaptive thinking (i.e., adapting innovative methods and technology to one's needs) and entrepreneurial drive, but a lower level of excellence in execution.

Areas for Improvement Two factors inhibit the ability of CEOs to execute: stakeholder management and interpersonal understanding. At a time when three of the world's most successful companies are led by Indians—Arcelor Mittal by L.N. Mittal, Vodafone by Arun Sarin and PepsiCo by Indra Nooyi—this might appear to be a paradox. However, academics, CEOs, public officials and media professionals that Hay group interviewed were almost unanimous that Indian leaders were characterised by "great thinking but little execution". Their views reflect the experience of organisations who find their investments in India take longer than expected to pay back investments.

Stakeholder management
Our research showed that Indian leaders spend a disproportionate amount of their time coping with regulation and governance issues as well as dealing with government, quasi-government organisations and non-governmental organisations. While public sector organisations suffer this more than those in the private sector, even private-sector companies experience significantly more "stakeholder management" issues compared with their overseas peers.

In contrast, not one of international and Chinese CEOs had anything to say about their difficulties with government and regulators; whereas 50% of participants in our India study cited this as major problem.

IQ versus EQ
The social and business context in India sets a great deal of store by IQ. The Indian system is set up to deliver this: witness, for example, the rigorous entry standards for IITs and IIMs (the India Institutes of Technology and of Management).

As a result, outstanding Indian CEOs excel in analytic and strategic thinking. However, Indian leaders' excellence in intelligence and innovation is often matched by shortcomings in "tuning in" to others, i.e., emotional intelligence.

Seen as a foundational competency for the contemporary business leader, interpersonal understanding is consistently displayed in 75% of behavioural interviews with outstanding CEOs worldwide. Yet only 12% of outstanding Indian business leaders demonstrated this ability.

While a core group of Indian leaders has been exceptionally successful, our study suggests that as organisations become more complex and the competitive landscape more threatening, Indian leaders will need to balance their formidable intellectual and entrepreneurial skills with more interpersonal skills.

ASIAN LEADERS: WHAT'S NEXT?
There is no doubt that the achievement drive of Indian, Chinese and indeed Asian CEOs have fuelled to the meteoritic growth of their companies. Uniquely, they also have a strong sense of social responsibility. Can Asian leaders step up and combine these two aspects to help nurture the next generation of socially-conscious leaders for their companies and society? Would this be the way forward for Asian leaders?

Israel Berman is the Asia Managing Director of Hay Group and is also concurrently the Global Managing Director for Hay Group’s Building Effective Organizations Practice. A business veteran with over 23 years of experience, he brings in-depth global experience, including hands-on leadership of international teams to work on mergers and acquisitions, strategy implementation, and organisational re-structuring. Madeline Dessing is the Asia Regional Director of Leadership and Talent Practice, Hay Group. She has particular expertise in leadership development, talent management, executive assessment, performance management and job design and evaluation across multiple industry sectors.

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