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IOCL 'Cicero's Senate: Women Achievers Panel Discussion' Held at Intaglio 2005-06 at IIM Calcutta The highlight of Day 2 at IIMC Intaglio was the Panel Discussion by Women Achievers. The six participants came from a rich variety of industry backgrounds and provided a pot-pourri of views on the aspect of leadership in today's rapidly changing world. Prof. Anup Sinha's expert guidance and moderation enabled the panel to integrate it's views and emerge with a clearer understanding of what it takes to be an effective leader. Kalpana Morparia, Deputy Managing Director, ICICI Bank Ltd., opened the discussion. She emphasized the importance of empathy in a leader and added that ICICI encouraged their leaders to show empathy towards their team members. Ruthless market forces demand a "Quarter-se-quarter-tak" (from quarter to quarter) mentality wherein organizations and their leaders are under tremendous pressure to show profits in each quarter. Consequently, there is a tendency to compromise the work-life balance and discount non-work related activities. In such a scenario, it is very important for big leaders to show empathy. Jessie Paul, Chief Marketing Officer, Wipro Technologies, asserted that one could be a leader in any field provided one is passionate and enthusiastic about working in that field. "Leaders must be experts," she said. They must have sufficient mastery over the specific subject area / activity so as to be credible. She also spoke about the importance of trust and delegation. Good leaders must place their trust in others; otherwise no one will be willing to work for them. Shabnam Mallick, International Programme Officer, United Nations, brought in her unique experiences from working in the non-profit sector. Comparing leaders in the non-profit sector with their counterparts in the for-profit sector, she said that the former usually start with less authority and usually need to earn their authority. Deference to CEOs is minimal at the beginning. Moreover, she said non-profit sector leaders need to be adaptive to change and also comfortable working in contexts lacking a universal measure of success. Specifically, she emphasized the following: (1) Leaders should think of wider repercussions during decision-making (2) Corporate responsibility should become a way of life, and (3) Growth should be well-distributed. Contributed by - |
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