R Gopalakrishnan

These are exceptionally turbulent times with developments in America, Europe, and Asia

What mental health is for young people, arrogance and ego are to boardrooms. Is the opposite, the quiet, low-profile performer, even possible?

Leaders who extract extraordinary efficiency from resources are lionised during their times and criticised later

The capitalist-enterprise model is broken. It focuses on shareholders, but those who aspire, dream, sweat and yearn are usually not the shareholders, but its employees and vendors

Politeness is to human nature what warmth is to wax.

Ratan was not the first group head to receive adulation. Archives show when Jamsetji died in 1904, the public was full of praise and love for him

Brand Tata has remained on the top of its list of peers for a gravity-defying period of 85 years - ever since 1939, when the size of India's top corporations was first reported upon

It is futile to resist change because tech progress is autonomous; nobody oversees developments. Only natural intelligence - humanism, conscience, and compassion of leaders -can provide oversight

To achieve all that he did in his lifetime, besides IQ and EQ, the Tata group founder must have been rich in adaptability and spirituality quotients too

Long-remembered leaders desist from trashing their predecessors

Charismatic leaders by themselves cannot be considered dangerous. But when they acquire cult status and become megalomaniacal, then beware

We box our leaders into a moral binary - all greatness or all sin. The reality is that it is a mix, and what you see is what you get

Profits and growth are the oxygen of business. It is possible to get 'too much' and damage the enterprise irreparably

Successful friction-fixers are assured of a long-lasting functional job that is for sure

India is right to celebrate big firms, but must also celebrate its valuable small giants

Boards must rely on and act upon early warning signals of behavioural aberrations beyond the boundaries of business sanity and neeyat

Neeyat is not a new management jargon to replace vision and mission, nor is it an attempt to nativise an Anglo-American concept in Bhartiya hues, but it is relevant for all businesses, big or small

Exploring leadership through historical lenses, Moshik Temkin's book offers valuable lessons for larger-than-life leaders of today

Legal courts follow procedures (niyam) because they seek near-perfect proof; that may be why cases go on interminably

Steven Bartlett's book offers practical advice for successful managers, especially those navigating the challenges in the middle of the corporate hierarchy