If you are an entrepreneur who has just built a successful business, how do you identify a leader who can nurture your company? If you’re looking for some useful tips, Leadership@Infosys has some answers.
No one will deny that the Bangalore-headquartered IT services major is uniquely placed to answer the question — it hasn’t been short of leaders since being founded in 1981. Now it’s building its next line of leaders and has tried to codify its unique history, values and leadership practices that account for the firm’s rise from $200 seed capital to a multi-billion dollar global enterprise.
What has driven the IT bellwether to such heights and helped it stand out? In his book The Talent Masters, Ram Charan, the well-known business consultant, speaker and writer, says, “Talent will be the big differentiator between companies that succeed and those that don’t. Those that win will be led by people who can adapt their organisations to change, make the right strategic bets, take calculated risks, conceive and execute new value-creating opportunities, and build and rebuild competitive advantage.”
Infosys seems to have taken a leaf out of many a management guru’s book, while building a leadership pipeline. It has famously shown leadership in corporate governance, brand building and has set up a whole new way of working. There is plenty of potential material here, but the book fails to touch on these subjects, even though they made Infosys a company that everybody recognises and ensured it so much media coverage.
The company, a $4 billion-plus enterprise, enjoys a market capitalisation about eight times that multiple. It manages mass recruitments on a scale unheard of in other categories. It also faces attrition with every other firm around wanting to poach its readymade leaders even as it manages leadership and training facilities.
Infosys seems to recognise through this book that leadership is required at every level but leadership at the point of delivery is more precious than leadership at the top. The book speaks of future leaders and how they learnt everything from the founders of Infosys.
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As an extension of the IT major’s tradition of growing leaders through an in-house programme — Leaders Teach — the book provides an insight into the origins of Infosys’ leadership approach. The book says that Infosys is a laboratory where leadership is treated as a science and hence can be studied and distilled. So, those who believe that leaders are born and not made should not read this book.
The Infosys approach relies heavily on advanced psychometrics to identify current leaders who are exceptionally effective within the company’s leadership model. These leaders then share methodologies that they believe account for their successes. They are candid about their stumbles in the past, providing useful tips to future leaders of the pitfalls to avoid.
The Infosys’ Leadership Journey Series that has given birth to several chapters in the book sees quite a few subjects being discussed. You get an insight into strategic leadership, change leadership, operational leadership, talent leadership, relationship and networking leadership, content leadership and entrepreneurial leadership from thought leaders in each area. They feature a “state-of-the-science” review of leadership research along with practical examples that leaders can use to improve their performance and aptitude to take on increasing levels of responsibilities.
Although all of this is undoubtedly useful, there is far too much theory in the book, which makes it read like a boring textbook. This is not surprising given that consultants from Infosys’ leadership institute have authored most chapters. You would be forgiven for nodding off while reading it. The theoretical insights are good, but the authors fail to substantiate their theories through leaders and their various traits. Some story-telling would have made the book a more interesting read. It is hard to believe that only advanced psychometrics helps Infosys decide if an executive can be placed in a leadership position.
There is also a lack of consistency in the language and style through the chapters, which is to be expected since each chapter is written by different people. Also, the writers seem to be making a conscious attempt to keep to a template. As a result, some chapters start out as interesting reads and then grind down to a slow and boring end.
Those looking for biographies of the leadership team will find them lumped together at the end along with the author biographies. This doesn’t help because the indexing is non-existent — the biographies are listed at random, neither following alphabetic order nor sequence of appearance.
Despite these flaws, the book is destined to be a bestseller. After all, Infosys is a huge brand and, for better or for worse, this is perhaps the first book that talks about its internal ethos. Each of its employees, one would surmise, probably wants to read about their bosses and what they stand for and their methodologies.
The chairman and chief mentor of Infosys Technologies Ltd. N R Narayana Murthy and its CEO Kris Gopalakrishnan say in the foreword that the founders subscribe to “leadership by example”. A critical part of their approach, they say, is to inspire people to go beyond what they might think is possible. This may be a little intimidating to many on the outside, but is of special interest to those who want to make long-term careers at Infosys.
LEADERSHIP @INFOSYS
Penguin Books India Imprint
248 pages; Rs 699